Funding Hillary

We know that Senator Hillary Clinton is running for president. We know to a degree the platform on which she's running (though she's dodging a lot of questions lately). But one thing we don't know about her campaign--as Ed Morrissey asks today, why are there so many "shell-game con-men funding it"?

The story isn't going away.

A bit of a scandal that still can't be Hsu'd away

More coverage of the trouble the Clinton campaign got into with tainted fund-raiser Norman Hsu. This time from the NY Times. Quote: “People have often said about the Clintons, they don’t care who they hang out with as long as the people can be helpful to them,” said one of Mrs. Clinton’s major fund-raisers. “The larger point in all of this is that the Clintons are the ultimate pragmatists in who they hang out with; if you can be useful to them, they will find a way to make it work.”

Fundamental: sometimes "who you hang out with" says a lot about you.
UPDATE: still not going away. Now word comes out that Hillary's campaign was warned about Hsu--but ignored it.

Senator Clinton's campaign

Still trying to shoo Norman Hsu away. Only NOW are they going to seriously vet (that is, do criminal background checks etc) on their donors?

The Clinton campaign and damage control

Senator Clinton's campaign rushes to return the campaign donations Of Norman Chu.
From a tactical point of view, it's smart. The story had run for several days; it reflected negatively on the campaign; so Clinton moved to cut any losses immediately and move on.
We're still left to wonder, though: did the Clinton campaign know the dirt about Hsu long ago, and take his money anyway? We don't know. We may never know. But if we some day find out they did, it won't be a good day for the Clinton campaign. Note also that she isn't returning all of the money; just $23,000 of it. Hmmm....

More questions for Senator Clinton's fundraising people

An update to yesterday's story: remember Norman Hsu? He's the big-bucks donor to the Clinton campaign who may just be funneling money to the Senator through, er, questionable means. Mr. Hsu is hard to track down. Turns out there's a reason for that. Quote: " A Democratic fundraiser who has raised $1 million for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says he has done nothing wrong and has asked no favors in return, but Norman Hsu didn't mention that he's a wanted man. A California prosecutor says Hsu pleaded no contest to grand theft, was sentenced to three years in prison and then disappeared, The Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday."

The Clinton campaign may not have done anything wrong here--but they need to keep closer tabs on their donors at the very least. And if it is shown that Clinton knew what was going on here from the get-go, it could and should be a big deal.

Some funny business in campaign contributions to Senator Clinton

Details here. Basically we have some middle-class people (at best!), the Paw family, who live in a tiny house and don't make big money, giving the Clinton campaign a whole lot in campaign contributions. But their contributions very closely track those of a rich fellow named Hsu...who used to live in the home in which the Paws now live. Could Hsu (and possibly the Clinton campaign?) be skirting (read: violating) the campaign finance laws by having several members of the Paw family give money to Senator Clinton's campaign, money that Hsu gave them? If so, that's a violation of the law. As an expert in the article said, there are "red lights" all over this one.

Stay tuned. Note the source of these allegations is the Wall Street Journal news page, regarded by most everyone as a reliable source.