Hsu's indictment has Clinton battling perceptions

Newsday ^ | December 5, 2007 | MARTIN C. EVANS

[ripley]

“hsu’s indictment has clinton battling perceptions.”

might it be possible that the truth is sticking its nose underneath the tent flap?

[jdm]

You mean the AP didn’t follow up?

/sarc

[Brad from Tennessee]

[Republicans were accusing the campaign of Bill Clinton and Al Gore of unethical fundraising tactics, including Gore’s attendance at a fundraiser at a tax-exempt Buddhist temple in California.]

Wikepedia:

The Justice Department alleged Hsia facilitated $100,000 in illegal contributions to the 1996 Clinton-Gore reelection campaign through her efforts at Hsi Lai Temple, a Chinese Buddhist temple in California. Hsia was eventually convicted by a jury in March 2000.[40] The Democratic National Committee eventually returned the money donated by the Temple’s monks and nuns. Twelve nuns and employees of the temple, including the temple’s abbess, refused to answer questions by pleading the Fifth Amendment when they were subpoenaed to testify before Congress.[41] Two other Buddhist nuns admitted destroying lists of donors and other documents related to the controversy because they felt the information would embarrass the Temple. A Temple-commissioned videotape of the fund raiser also went missing and the nuns’ attorney claimed it may have been shipped off to Taiwan.[42] Vice President Gore said he had no idea the Temple meeting was financial in nature:
“ I did not know that it was a fund-raiser. But I knew it was a political event, and I knew there were finance people that were going to be present, and so that alone should have told me, ‘This is inappropriate and this is a mistake; don’t do this.’ And I take responsibility for that. It was a mistake — Vice President Al Gore on NBC TV’s Today show, Jan. 24, 1997.[43] ”

In response, the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that investigated the controversy said:
“ The Vice President’s staff... knew that the Temple event was a fundraiser. In March 1996, Deputy Chief of Staff David Strauss had helped arrange a meeting in the White House with the founder of the temple, Hsing Yun – a meeting which Strauss believed would ‘lead to a lot of $.’ The White House staff repeatedly referred to the event as a ‘fundraiser’ in internal correspondence, and assigned to it a ‘ticket price’ of ‘1000–5000 [dollars per] head’.[44]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy

[Miss Didi]

RUSH: If only Barack Obama had the onions to take advantage of the practical joke that is the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign.

RUSH (to Barry): Wake up! You've just been accused of having no ethics and of running a slush fund by the people who are the architects of slush funds and no ethics! You've gotta learn to fire back. You've gotta learn to say, "They are saying what about me? The people who had all those money orders for the Clinton legal defense fund run through a Chinese restaurant in Little Rock are saying what about me? The people who had all this money raised by a representative of the Peoples Liberation Army in China and who half the people who are involved in the fundraising fled the country before the trial and nobody knows where they are, are saying what about me? That I ran a slush fund? The people who had to give back something like $800,000 in illegal contributions in one year are saying what about me?" But what did we get? Number 13. Play this again. You just heard my passion. Listen to this answer.

OBAMA: Folks from some of the other campaigns are reading the polls and starting to get stressed and issuing a whole range of outlandish accusations. Everything that we have done is in exact accordance with the law, and unless they can show that it hasn't been, I suggest they focus on trying to get their supporters to caucus in Iowa.

Clinton, Inc. In All-Out Panic; Barry Can't Seem to Fire Back

[Arrowhead1952]

Clinton spokesman Blake Zeff refused to comment.
I know NOTHING!

[weezel]

How long does he have to live?

[keat]

Crockola.

Hitlery returned Hsu’s “direct” contributions but kept all the “bundled” money.

She deserves jail time.

[stylin19a]

In September, Clinton returned $850,000 to Hsu

I want to see the canceled check. also, wasn't this 850k a bundling scheme ?

"On 9/11 the Clinton campaign indicated that they would return the ill gotten funds to about 260 people associated with Hsu “bundling”."

[Ann Archy]

Some of Hillary's donors thru HSU denied giving the money also!!

WHO DID SHE RETURN THE ILLEGAL MONEY TO??? Did WINKLE PAW and Ma and Pa PAW get checks???

[Ann Archy]

So she returned ILLEGAL money to the ILLEGAL DONOR??OMG! where’s the FBI???

[SpinyNorman]

Prosecutors said there is no indication the Clinton campaign knew Hsu may have been operating illegally.

If there one thing I have learned from a long career in science and a nearly as long career in interpreting Clintonspeak, it is this:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

It is inexcusable (and requires the willing suspension of disbelief) for the "smartest woman in the world" with her finely tuned political machine to be unaware of the nature of the Hsu donations.

I guess I am just "picking on the girl" LOL!

[vietvet67]

"Pa, did you blow the refund check from Hillary?"

[PBRSTREETGANG]