Hillary's Massive Hsu War Chest: Abramoff Parity Nears
In a word: yowza.
Hillary Clinton announced today that instead of the $23,000 in direct Norman Hsu contributions she'd agreed to give up, she'll be refunding an astounding $850,000, representing not only Hsu's donations, but the "bundled" fundraising he ostensibly raised from a group of friends and associates, who have come under scrutiny as possible conduits through which Hsu may have funneled additional contributions in order to circumvent campaign finance laws.
In my most recently posted compilation, I'd found roughly $174,000 in Hsu-connected funds. I've been continuing to trudge through the disclosures in the days since, but to date, I've only come up with a total of $217,200, meaning there's still more than $600,000 in the Clinton coffers yet to be independently connected to Hsu's network.
With nearly 75% of Hillary's total acknowledged haul from Hsu's network coming from sources not known to be Hsu associates (an estimated 260 donors in all), it seems incumbent on Clinton to reveal this list of tainted contributors such that we can more accurately determine the full extent of other candidates' Hsu-related contributions.
The new Hsu fundraising I've compiled over the last few days have lifted my grand total from $1.59 million (as most recently posted) to $1.85 million. Including the hidden bonanza Hillary's just revealed (and excluding the maximum possible overlap), the total shoots up to $2.44 million.
$2.44 million therefore being the new low estimate, that's the figure I've used to update the Hsu-Abramoff horse race. To give you an idea of how important it is that Hillary divulge her list of 260 tainted donors, however, if the rest of Hsu's beneficiaries have as much well-hidden Hsu money relative to what's already been found, the grand total would rise to $6.98 million, nearly doubling all of Abramoff's and his clients' problematic lobbying expenditures, to both Republicans and Democrats.
Kudos to Team Hillary for disavowing the entirety of the campaign's Hsu-connected funds. The next best step toward cleaning up this mess would be for the campaign to release the list of all 260 Hsu-associated contributors so we can help Senator Clinton's less forthcoming colleagues tabulate their own refunds owed. |
