Democrats Facing Fundraising Scandal

How is it that in the last 48 hours that one of Sen. Hillary Clinton's biggest donors turned out to be someone wanted by the FBI and the other was sought by California authorities for more than a decade after skipping out on a deal with prosecutors to serve three years on grand theft charges?

Both men operated in plain sight - often at the side of Sen. Clinton and other prominent Democrats across the country.

Excellent questions, and giving the money to charity does not absolve those campaigns that took the money of possible legal woes.

Abdul Rehman Jinnah is sought by the FBI on charges that he funneled illegal contributions to Clinton's political action committee and Sen. Barbara Boxer's 2004 reelection campaign.

Abdul Rehman Jinnah lived in Southern California and fled the country after federal prosecutors charged him with conspiracy and illegal campaign contributions to various Democratic senators. Not surprisingly, Clinton and her fellow Democrats—including California Senator Barbara Boxer--said they had no idea that their lucrative donor was violating the law.

Norman Hsu's case raises a number of questions, including how the Paw family, which has numerous ties to Hsu, and which lived in a very modest home near the SF Airport, was able to churn out tens of thousands of dollars in donations to candidates in New York. Something stinks rotten about that. Was Hsu using the Paw family as a conduit to fund various campaigns to avoid detection?

More importantly, where did all this money come from, if it did not come from Hsu as he claims? The Paws financial means appear to be quite limited, so where did all the money come from?

The NYT reports the following:

Some Clinton donors said yesterday that they did not expect the Hsu matter to hurt Mrs. Clinton unless a pattern of problematic fund-raising or compromised donors emerged, which would raise questions about the campaign’s vetting of donors. Mr. Hsu’s legal problems were first reported yesterday by The Los Angeles Times; The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday about his bundling of questionable contributions.

“Everyone is trying to make the implications that it’s Chinese money, that it’s the Al Gore thing all over again, but I haven’t seen any proof of that,” said John A. Catsimatidis, a leading donor and fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton in New York.

Some donations connected to Mr. Hsu raise questions about his bundling activities, although there is no evidence he did anything improper. The Wall Street Journal reported that contributors he solicited included members of an extended family in Daly City, Calif., who had given $213,000 to candidates since 2004, even though some of them did not appear to have much money.

A lawyer for Mr. Hsu, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., has said that Mr. Hsu was not the source of any of the money he raised from other people, which would be a violation of federal election laws.

On his own, Mr. Hsu wrote checks totaling $255,970 to a variety of Democratic candidates and committees since 2004. Even though he was a bundler for Mrs. Clinton, his largess was spread across the Democratic Party and included $5,000 to the political action committee of Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.

Last month, Mr. Hsu was among the honored guests at a fund-raiser for Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island, given by Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group at the New York Yacht Club.

There's no evidence considering that we're still in the opening stages of trying to figure out what happened, where the money came from, and whether there were illegal actions involved. If the Paw family indeed didn't have the money to donate, then Hsu's actions look all the more suspicious, despite his lawyer's claims that the money didn't come from Hsu.

And the Paw family wasn't alone. Hsu appears to have found another family in New York through which significant contributions were made to Democrats.

WLS at Patterico has a history refresher on Bill Clinton's problems with fundraisers.

UPDATE:
Let's not forget that there are other contributors that track Hsu's contributions across the country, as per Suitably Flip's:

The Paw family is just one set of donors whose political donations are similar to Mr. Hsu's. Several business associates of Mr. Hsu in New York have made donations to the same candidates, on the same dates for similar amounts as Mr. Hsu.

Those New York business associates, as identified by the Journal, include Daniel Lee and Yu Fen Huang (who may well be married, as they're listed at the same street address) and Soe Lee (who actually now appears to live in Pennsylvania).