The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

Obama's Fishy $200 Million

By The Prowler on 10.2.08 @ 12:08AM

FUNNY MONEY
An auditor for the Federal Election Commission is attempting to have his bosses seek a formal investigation into the collection by the Obama for President campaign of more than $200 million in potentially illegal political donations, including millions of dollars of illegal, foreign donations, and has sought a request for assistance from the Department of Justice or Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the analyst's requests have largely been ignored. "I can't get anyone to move. I believe we are looking at a hijacking of our political system that makes the Clinton and Gore fundraising scandals pale in comparison. And no one here wants to touch it."

One reasons cited by his superiors, says the analyst, is that involvement by the Justice Department or FBI would be indicative of a criminal investigation, something the FEC would prefer not take place a month before the presidential election. Such actions, though, have been used to scuttle Republican campaigns in the past, the most famous being the Weinberger case in the days leading up to the 1992 re-election bid of President George H.W. Bush.

The analyst, who declines to be identified for fear of retribution, says that on four different occasions in the past three months, he sought to open formal investigations into the Obama campaign's fundraising techniques, but those investigations have been discouraged. "Without formal approval, I can't get the resources I need, manpower, that kind of thing. This is a huge undertaking." And the analyst says that he believes that campaign finance violations have occurred.

The Obama campaign has already had to deal with several FEC complaints about fraudulent donors and illegal foreign contributions, and the FEC says it has no record that those complaints have been resolved or closed. As well, the Obama campaign has been cagey at times about the means by which it has made its historic fundraising hauls, which now total almost $500 million for the election cycle. The Hillary Clinton campaign raised questions about the huge amount of e-retail sales the Obama campaign was making for such things as t-shirts and other campaign paraphernalia, and how such sales were being tracked and used for fundraising purposes. While the profits of those items counted against the $2,300 personal donation limit, there have always been lingering questions about the e-retail system.

"The question has always been, if you buy a $25 t-shirt and you go back to that purchaser eight or nine times with email appeals for $200 or $500 donations, and you have people donating like that all the time, at what point does the campaign bother to check if the FEC limit has been exceeded?" says a former Clinton campaign fundraiser. "There are enough of us from the 1992 and 1996 and 2000 races around to know that many of these kinds of violations never get caught until after the election has been won or lost. In this case, there is no way the Obama campaign will be held accountable before Election Day, unless someone raises holy hell."

The FEC analyst says that Obama's filings indicate he has received large, bundled sums of donations from overseas, sometimes exceeding a quarter millions dollars. "It's suspicious, but it's the small donations made by credit card that need to be examined. We've raised red flags on many of these and the Obama campaign just ignores us. After this election, after we've sifted through everything -- if we're allowed to sift through everything -- I am confident that we are looking at perhaps the largest fine every leveled against a national campaign entity."

Just as frustrating as the lack of desire on the part of his bosses to act, says the analyst, is that major media outlets have ignored the story he has been attempting to tell. Thus far, Newsmax is one of the few publications to cover the Obama campaign finance scam story.

FAN, FRED, AND FRANK
House Democrats are concerned that it wasn't just Rep. Barney Frank who was having extracurricular relations with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, and that those relationships will come to light before the election a month from now.

According to a former Democrat staffer working for the House Committee on Financial Services, there were a number of stories involving Democrat members of the committee, as well as staffers for those Democrats, participating in retreats and getaway weekends paid for by Fan and Fred executives and lobbyists.

"Republicans were in the majority, and they weren't getting invited on these trips," says the former aide, who now works for an investment house in New York. "It's not that Republicans weren't enjoying themselves, but not the way my guys were. If I were a Democratic member in the mid to late 90s and dealt with financial services or housing issues, I'd be real nervous right now."

Frank has not hidden the fact that he was in a romantic relationship with a former executive for Fannie Mae. Frank now chairs the Financial Services Committee and was one of several longtime Democrat members who sought assurances from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi that no action would be taken on Fan or Fred investigations until after the election in November.

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton