Posted on 09/21/2002 9:01:40 AM PDT by tomball
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federal Election Commission has imposed record fines totaling at least $719,000 against Democrats involved in the party's 1996 fund-raising scandals, according to published reports.
FEC documents described how Democratic fund-raisers demanded illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals in China and other countries in exchange for meetings with then-President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.
Among those who were penalized by the FEC were the Democratic National Committee, $115,000; the Clinton-Gore campaign, $2,000; and the Buddhist Progressive Society, $120,000, The Washington Post and The New York Times reported Saturday.
They said the DNC also agreed to surrender an additional $128,000 representing illegal campaign donations that were not returned.
More than 20 people and corporations acting as conduits for the illegal contributions also were fined, the newspapers said, citing FEC documents.
They've all agreed to pay, according to the records.
The total amount of fines would have been much higher except some of the companies have shut down and others were dummy operations used as conduits for money from Canada, China, Venezuela and other countries, the Post said.
The FEC dropped the cases involving another $3 million in illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee because the respondents either "are out of the country and beyond our reach, or (are) corporations that are defunct," according to FEC papers cited by the Post.
Kent Cooper, a former elections commission official, told the Times the commission limited the fines to some people who said they could not afford to pay more. He said the total assessed appeared to have been surprisingly low.
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On the Net: Federal Election Commission: http://www.fec.gov
AP-ES-09-21-02 0955EDT
PRISON should be the penalty, not this slap on the wrist. Just like the corporate scandals, nothing will change until they are led away in cuffs while the network newsies surround them.
Just another example of Congress "protecting their own" and ensuring that they shall forever be above the laws they impose on us.
One can certainly complain that it took too long, that the Democratic Party should have been fined a lot more than $120,000, or that the total fines should be higher, but don't let the miniscule $2000 to Clinton-Gore campaign drive your thinking. The fact is, virtually nothing was Clinton-Gore - virtually all or maybe even all of these foreign money fundraising shenanigans were for the Democratic National Committee, not the actual campaign, so that's where the fines are (to some extent anyway) and should be. From a legal standpoint, the fact that contributions to the Dem National Committee may have been used to promote Clinton-Gore is irrelevent.
As for the fines on the Democrats, it's amazing the FEC agreed to any fines at all, given that it takes 4 votes to levy a fine and three of the six members are Democrats appointed by Clinton.
So much for the RAT spin that the DNC had returned all illegal contributions!!!
Yea, right!
It will follow the report about the Buffalo 5 being registered democRATS!
'Member all the times Hillary and Bill said they were going to pay back this or that illegal contribution? They got good press on their statements, but I never heard whether they actually ever ponied up a dime.
Anyone got the info?
If the Republicans played hardball like the Democrats do, this would be mentioned on every talking head show tomorrow, and for the NEXT SIX WEEKS. We would wrap this around McAuliffe's neck like a boulder and use it to hang everyone from Erskine Bowles to Robert Reich to Bob Torricelli.
Why do you think the newsies are doing their best to bury it?? We could tar sooo many Democrats as being corrupt just before election time. And this may be our only chance since CFR may take away our right to criticize in 2004.
Let's start PINGING. This thing can reach critical mass if we try hard enough. Let's get Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage et al to stop beating the war drums long enough to kick these guys in the shorts over this.
And it if we yell loudly, it may just stop a Gore or Hillary campaign in 2004 in their tracks.
"THE DEMOCRATS: TOO CORRUPT TO RUN AMERICA"
Oh, I can see the 30-second ads....
NYSlimes reported the fines were around $400,000 while the Washington comPost reported around $700,000. Fact is that there were millions of dollars in fines suspended because the slimy ones couldn't be found or left the country.
The future of the country and the world is at stake, let's hope the American people finally understand that the democrats SOLD their country to the highest bidder and over 3,000 people paid the price.
John was a hero to just about every boy in my age group, Damm the Clintons for taking that away from us.
Sure, I wish the Republicans would be more forceful in their arguments. This is an election year and don't believe for a moment that the Democrats are going to hold back any salvoes.
The beauty of this news is that it is not local - it's national. There can be national ads tarring the entire party as sleazy and corrupt. By golly, SOMEBODY ought to be making hay with this rather than trying to slide it under the rug.
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