For Hillary, There's No Such Thing as Dirty Money

With an endorsement of sorts from George Bush, Hillary has now rounded up about all the big names and moneybags in Washington politics. The President predicts she will get the Democratic nomination, and everything seems to be going her way. Never has the adjective "golden" found a more apposite noun to modify than "Ms. Clinton."

The woman has always had an affinity for gold. You can trace her appetite for bling back to her Arkansas days, when she was a partner in the Rose Law Firm. Questions arose about her billing clients, which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. Nor have the suspicions about her picking up that quick 100 grand in the commodities market been allayed. The commodities market is where they bet on the price of things like oil and pork belly futures; amateur investors get swindled but not Hillary. No amateur she when it comes to the dough-ray-me.

Hillary escaped political damage from accepting campaign contributions from Norman Hsu, the shadowy businessman who has been accused of bilking investors of $60 million in addition to running afoul of the election laws.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton held an intimate fund-raising event at her Washington home in late March, Layton donated $4,600, the maximum allowed by law, to Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign.

But the 37-year-old Ms. Layton says she and her husband were reimbursed by her husband's boss for the donations. "It wasn't personal money. It was all corporate money," Mrs. Layton said outside her home here. "I don't even like Hillary. I'm a Republican."

The boss is William Danielczyk, founder of a Washington-area private-equity firm and a major fund-raising "bundler" for Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Layton's gift was one of more than a dozen donations that night from people with Republican ties or no history of political giving. Mr. Danielczyk and his family, employees and friends donated a total of $120,000 to Mrs. Clinton in the days around the fund-raiser.

If Danielczyk did what the article alleges, he could go to jail. Reimbursing your employees for political contributions made in their names with your money is against the law. Whether Hillary's connection to Danielczyk will eventually bite her is anybody's guess. It is believed in the big-money circles where Hillary lives that the practice is common although done with more subterfuge than in Layton's case.

Both of the Clintons seem to have gone money-crazy. Bill is out loose on the world taking enormous amounts of money from anyone who pays him to appear anywhere and bragging about it. With a pension of $186,000 a year plus innumerable other perks, another ex-President might rein in the itchy palm urge, but Bill is not known as a self-control artist. Whether he is also acting as a bag man for his wife is something for future grand juries to investigate.

Joe Trippi, who devised Howard Dean's financing his campaign via the Internet three years ago, has weighed in on the ethics of Hillary's money-raising. Trippi, presently working for John Edwards, ripped into Hillary for hosting a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., for a select group of lobbyists with an interest in homeland security. Tickets for the Clinton fundraiser are $1,000 a ticket and $25,000 per bundler. And for that money you get more than a meal--you get to attend one-hour breakout sessions in four different areas of homeland security that will include House Committee Chairs and members of Congress who sit on the very committees that will be voting on homeland security legislation.

That no one in the Clinton campaign--including the candidate--found anything wrong with holding this fundraiser is an indication of just how bad things have gotten in Washington--because there isn't an American outside of Washington who would not be sickened by it. Trippi may have underestimated American indifference to graft and corruption, but he is right on the essentials. Much good it will do, for Hillary's fondness for the long green has not hurt her, at least so far. Besides, in politics, the adage goes, there is no such thing as dirty money.

Hillary's Chinatown Express

The NationFri Oct 19, 4:15 PM ET

The Nation -- The Los Angeles Times ran an eyebrow-raising story this morning about how Hillary Clinton is raising money from a highly unlikely source: New York's Chinatown. "Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton's campaign treasury," the paper reports. "In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000."

According to the article, powerful Chinese neighborhood associations pushed residents to donate to the Clinton camp. The source of many of these donations remains a mystery. The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records.

Several dozen were described in financial reports as holding jobs -- including dishwasher, server or chef--that would normally make it difficult to donate amounts ranging from $500 to the legal maximum of $2,300 per election.

The Clinton campaign's response hardly puts the matter to rest. "In this instance, our own compliance process flagged a number of questionable donations and took the appropriate steps to be sure they were legally given," said Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson. "In cases where we couldn't confirm that, the money was returned."

The Edwards campaign was swift to react. "Clinton campaign contributions are raising eyebrows again," said Edward campaign manager David Bonior. "Many of their donors are not even registered to vote, and at least one denied even making any contribution at all."

The article--and the Clinton reaction--raises more questions than answers. Did officials in Chinatown invent the names and identities of campaign donors? If so, why? How involved was Chung Seto, Clinton's liaison to the Asian community and a former executive director of the New York State Democratic Party? How did the Clinton campaign verify the source of these donations? How many potentially illegal donations were eventually returned?

That’s the idea. Here’s an article that I picked up from American Thinker. (She credits Lucianne Goldberg)

Clinton Returned $7,000, Campaign Says

By PATRICK HEALY
October 20, 2007

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign returned $7,000 in donations last spring that were linked to a fund-raising event in Chinatown in New York City, campaign officials said yesterday, acknowledging another instance where questionable donors came into Mrs. Clinton’s political orbit.

But unlike Mrs. Clinton’s trouble with the former fund-raiser Norman Hsu — whose extensive legal problems and dubious fund-raising practices came as a surprise — her campaign identified the concerns about the Chinatown fund-raising on its own, campaign officials said…

The Clinton campaign said that after the Chinatown fund-raiser in April, which raised about $380,000, aides conducted a standard review of the donor list: If donors’ stated professions seemed out of line with their donations — for instance, if a dishwasher gave $1,000 — the campaign sent letters asking them to affirm in writing that the money was their own.

In seven cases, with donations totaling $7,000, questions were raised, and those donors did not respond to requests to confirm their contributions. That money was then returned.

Clinton campaign officials said yesterday that they would look at any new information that suggested problematic fund-raising. But they defended their efforts to recruit Asian donors aggressively, and stood by the Chinatown fund-raiser.

“Asian-Americans in Chinatown and Flushing have the same right to contribute as every other American,” said Howard Wolfson, a campaign spokesman…

Campaign officials said yesterday that they could not ascertain whether the seven donations last spring were funneled from people other than the stated donors. That would be a violation of campaign finance law.

The organizer of the Chinatown event, Chung Seto, a former executive director of the New York State Democratic Committee, said yesterday that she knew of nothing improper about any donors at her event. Ms. Seto is a significant fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton, campaign officials said.

No one has been disciplined as a result of the flawed donations, the officials said, and vetting procedures have not been altered.

What utter and shameless mendacity from the New York Times:

These Chinatown donations only became public because of yesterday’s article in the Los Angeles Times.

Behold what the LAT article quotes Hillary’s aides as saying:

Clinton aides said they were concerned about some of the Chinatown contributions.

“We have hundreds of thousands of donors. We are proud to have support from across New York and the country from many different communities,” campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said. “In this instance, our own compliance process flagged a number of questionable donations and took the appropriate steps to be sure they were legally given. In cases where we couldn’t confirm that, the money was returned.”

Upon this very thin reed the New York Times decided it could re-write events to make Hillary Clinton out to be the real hero.

The same Hillary Clinton who shakes down money from Chinese gangsters, drug-runners and slave traders.

If donors’ stated professions seemed out of line with their donations — for instance, if a dishwasher gave $1,000 — the campaign sent letters asking them to affirm in writing that the money was their own.

Would it be too cynical to ask to see these letters? And to meet the Clinton staffers who have the time and the lingual abilities to write to these Chinese dishwashers?

Or did Hillary write the notes herself?

As was once her wont.

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