President Obama refunds cash to Kenyan aunt, convicted murderer, lobbyists
President Obama refunds cash to Kenyan aunt, convicted murderer, lobbyists
By: Kenneth P. Vogel July 28, 2009 04:44 AM EST
More than eight months after President Barack Obama won the White House, the remnants of his campaign organization is struggling to deal with some unfinished business: returning about $669,000 in tainted or illegal campaign contributions to a motley assortment of donors, among them a convicted murderer, Washington lobbyists and a number of foreign nationals, including his own aunt.
But the 11 Chicago-based staff members still on the campaign’s payroll are finding it was a lot easier to rake in a record-shattering $750 million than to identify and return donations that ran afoul of federal election laws or Obama’s own strict fundraising standards.
Their intensive effort to refund problem contributions has involved detailed research into lobbying records and passport information, an elaborate accounting system that cancels and reissues stale-dated refund checks and phone calls and letters urging donors to cash their refunds. The effort is unprecedented in modern politics, according to election law compliance experts, and underscores both the logistical challenges of processing so much contribution data and the Obama team’s hypersensitivity to anything that could sully the president’s carefully honed image as a crusader against special interests and a champion of ethics and transparency.
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I hope Obama includes REV Jesse "Blood Diamonds" Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH in those refunds!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/social-issues/racism/jesse-jackson-PEPLT007437.topic#
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, a civil rights activist was the founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the product of a merger of civil rights organizations in which Jackson was involved. Based on Chicago's South Side, Rainbow/PUSH helps to finance Jackson's progressive social movement, including marches and residents' discrimination and housing complaints. In 1971, Jackson founded Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) in Chicago to expand opportunities for the black population. In 1984, he founded the National Rainbow Coalition, a social justice organization based in Washington. The groups merged in 1996, with headquarters at 930 E. 50th St.
RELATED:
Jesse 'Blood Diamonds' Jackson Just As Guilty as Charles 'Cannibal' Taylor
"But the 11 Chicago-based staff members still on the campaign’s payroll are finding it was a lot easier to rake in a record-shattering $750 million than to identify and return donations that ran afoul of federal election laws or Obama’s own strict fundraising standards." (Politico)
As opposed to finding those needles in the haystack?!?
$750,000,000.00
$669,000.00
Is that even one tenth of one percent?
I guess we should make the assumption that Senator McCain's campaign staff was able to perform background checks on every single person who contributed to his campaign. "Verify first. Count the money second."
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McCain? McCain??? (slowly I turn...)
He brought in foreign funds too. McCain's campaign manager, helped set up an encounter between McCain and Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska in Switzerland during an international economic conference.
Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, and Paul Manafort, McCain's campaign adviser, began profiting by advising Victor Yanukovych and the enemies of democracy in Ukraine. The Orange Revolution when Victor Yushenko was poisoned. It was funded by George Soros activist groups.
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