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The Biden campaign over Halloween weekend released a list of bundlers who have raised at least $100,000 for the campaign, and the list includes the head of pro-Iranian organizations that Republican senators say should be investigated as foreign lobbyist groups. The list of campaign bundlers included Jamal Abdi, who is the president of the D.C.-based National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and executive director of its sister organization, NIAC Action. NIAC describes itself on its website as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 2002 to give voice to the Iranian-American community.” The group worked to get the Joint Comprehensive Plan of...

Presumptive Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris met with Hillary Clinton donors as far back as 2017 in an effort to “expand her influence and ambitions” on the national stage. A New York Post report just seven months after becoming a United States senator from California shows Harris met with some of Clinton’s “biggest backers.” According to the Post, she met several top donors at the home of Michael Kempner, who served as Clinton’s national-finance co-chair and was a top bundler for her 2008 bid for the presidency. “Senator Harris has made a strong impression in her first months as...

Four years ago, prominent Democratic fundraiser and Portland real estate developer Terry Bean walked away from a Lane County sex abuse case, along with his former boyfriend Kiah Lawson of Junction City. Both men were accused of meeting a 15-year-old boy at a Eugene motel for an illegal sexual encounter in 2013. But the case was dropped in 2015 after the victim refused to testify, allegedly because Bean had “settled” with the victim. The case has now been reopened. A secret indictment was filed Jan. 4 in Lane County Circuit Court, and both men face a new indictment. Prosecutor Scott...

[snip] Zuberi first received a $3.5 million payment from the Sri Lankan government on May 9, 2014. The contract stipulated that Zuberi would be given $1 million per month for his representation between June and October of 2014. The relationship between Zuberi and Sri Lanka ended in September 2014, according to the documents. Zuberi did not submit a short-form registration statement to the Justice Department until August 14, 2014—more than three months after he had first received a payment from the Sri Lankan government. By the end of the contract, Zuberi had been paid $4.5 million for his work by...

Perhaps the last trio you'd expect to see mentioned in the State Sen. Leland Yee corruption trial is comedian Katt Williams, rapper Too $hort, and hip-hop mogul Suge Knight. Strangely enough, recent court documents reveal some interesting details and even more curious connections between some of the defendants in the Yee case and the three famous guys mentioned above. For starters, Keith Jackson — the former school board member who who got tangled up in the corruption case when he allegedly helped Yee obtain campaign donations in excess of the legal limits — was heard on wire taps bragging to...

President Barack Obama is nominating a major fundraiser for his presidential campaign to be the next U.S. ambassador to Sweden. The White House says Azita Raji is Obama’s pick for the job. She’s a former investment banker who served as national vice-chair of finance for Obama’s 2012 campaign. She helped raise more than $500,000 for Obama’s campaign as a “bundler” in 2012. …

Hillary Clinton bundler pleads guilty to illegal contributions By JOSH GERSTEIN | 4/17/14 5:03 PM EDT A prominent New York hotel magnate who was a top bundler for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign pled guilty in federal court Thursday to making more than $180,000 in illegal campaign contributions and to witness tampering. Sant Chatwal, 70, admitted using employees and vendors for his hotels as straw donors to avoid limits dictated by campaign finance law. Investigators also recorded Chatwal telling an associate not to admit that donations were reimbursed, court papers say. "Without [donations] nobody will even talk to you,"...

Norwegians are not happy about the next U.S. ambassador to their country—and for good reason; he’s a top Obama bundler that knows absolutely nothing about Norway, a country he admitted he's never even visited. Asked by Senator John McCain what he thought it was about the "anti-immigration" Progress Party that appealed to Norwegian voters, Greek American businessman George Tsunis seemed unaware of the party's role in the ruling coalition. "You get some fringe elements that have a microphone and spew their hatred," he said in the pre-appointment hearing. "And I will tell you Norway has been very quick to denounce...

George Tsunis speaking to the US senate in January - Source: Screen Grab Senior members of a professional body representing US diplomats have called on the country's Senate to reject George Tsunis, the nominee ambassador for Norway. Tsunis committed a serious of embarrassing blunders in his January pre-appointment hearing, which led one Norwegian politician to call for a public apology from Barack Obama, the US President. On March 7, fifteen former presidents of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) wrote a letter to key US Senators including former Presidential candidate John McCain, urging them to reject President Obama's nominee...

Presidents often award diplomatic posts to campaign donors and fundraisers, but Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., suspects that Obama´s choice of ambassador to Argentina -- a man who bundled more than $500,000 for President Obama´s 2012 re-election campaign, but who has never been to the country -- is in over his head. "Have you been to Argentina?" Rubio asked Noah Mamet during a Senate.gov/hearings/nomination-02-06-2014">Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday. "I haven´t had the opportunity yet to be there," Mamet replied. "I´ve traveled pretty extensively around the world, but I haven´t yet had chance [to visit Argentina]." Rubio implied that Argentina is

**SNIP** Eight months later, the probe has shown few public signs of progress, and many of the tea party victims say they still haven’t heard from the FBI or Justice Department lawyers. House Republicans said they were concerned about the direction of the probe, and Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican and a subcommittee chairman on the House oversight committee, asked Ms. Bosserman to testify at a hearing next week. The GOP has identified her as the lead lawyer on the investigation, and they have questioned her role, given her history as a significant political donor to President Obama’s 2008 and...

Obama Donor Picked for Ambassador to Norway Fumbles Basic Questions About Norway Obama bundler raised $500,000 for the 2012 cycle. Obama's presidency has been built on lies, apparently his followers are good at it also.The next US ambassador to Norway, George Tsunis bundled $500,000 for President Obama in 2012, apparently knows nothing about Norway. Questioned by Senator John McCain about the anti-immigration Progress Party, which has now joined the ruling coalition, Tsunis had no idea what McCain was talking about. McCain asked for his thoughts; Tsunis replied, “You get some fringe elements that have a a microphone and spew their...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/beyond_the_echo_chamber/ Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 12:55 pm Advice from "beyond the echo chamber" We just learned the economy lost another 600,000 jobs last month. It's a staggering number, and it underscores just how deep this crisis is – and, as the President pointed out this morning, it’s accelerating. That's why he created the Economic Recovery Advisory Board -- to solicit ideas from "beyond the echo chamber of Washington, DC." "I’m not interested in groupthink, which is why the Board reflects a broad cross-section of experience, expertise, and ideology," he said. "We’ve recruited...

OCTOBER 17, 2009 Rajaratnam Surfaced in U.S. Terrorism Probe By EVAN PEREZ and MATTHEW ROSENBERG WASHINGTON—The hedge-fund billionaire charged as part of a vast insider-trading case surfaced in an earlier, separate probe into U.S. fundraising by a Sri Lankan terrorist group, people familiar with the probe said. As part of that investigation, federal agents said they uncovered documents showing that Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, was among several wealthy Sri Lankans in the U.S. whose donations to a Maryland-based charity made their way to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, according to people familiar with the probe. Raj...

George Clooney has signed on for another special guest appearance as the Barack Obama re-election campaign takes its summer fundraising tour across the Atlantic in pursuit of Euro-cash. The Obama campaign posted an invitation on its website Friday revealing that the presidential pal-in-chief will appear at a pair of Americans Abroad for Obama events Aug. 27 in Geneva, Switzerland. Clooney, who usually spends summers at his villa on Italy’s Lake Como, made a similar appearance across the Swiss border on behalf of then-candidate Obama during the run-up to the 2008 general election. Charles Adams, co-president of the campaign’s European outreach...

George Clooney headlined a fund-raiser Monday that took in more than a half-million dollars for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. Organizers said they took in at least $625,000 from U.S. donors for Obama’s campaign, including many who flew in to Geneva, Switzerland, from around the world for the one-night event.

An international investment guru who has ties to left-wing billionaire George Soros and a number of controversial West African politicians is raising money for President Obama’s re-election campaign. Stephen Cashin, the chief executive officer at Pan African Capital Group (PACG), an international private equity firm, recently pledged to raise between $200,000 and $500,000 for the Obama campaign, records show. Cashin and his wife Molly, who have personally donated at least $7,000 to Obama since 2007, hosted a $2,500-per-head campaign fundraiser at their Washington, D.C., home earlier this year. The multimillionaire son of a U.S. Foreign Service officer, Cashin was born...

The disgusting ad making the rounds today has already blown up in the faces of Team Obama. The pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action lobbed a heavy-duty attack at Mitt Romney this morning, airing an ad that links the closure of a GST Steel plant in Kansas City to the loss of a family’s health insurance — and the death of a woman some time later. The man speaking in the ad, Joe Soptic, says, “Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my health care and my family lost their health care. And a short time after that...

File this one under culture of corruption. Obama supporters just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can they? This latest scandal involves a former Tarheels basketball player and a $21 million bank fraud scheme. New York Daily News reports: Courtney Dupree was convicted of vastly overstating the billings of his Long Island City-based lighting company GDC Acquisitions in order to fraudulently obtain a loan from Amalgamated Bank.Dupree, 42, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read in Brooklyn Federal Court. He faces up to 30 years in prison and has to pay back at least $18 million. …Dupree, who attended...

Oops! Here’s a little something that must have slipped out while David Axelrod and the rest of the President Barack Hussein “kill list” Obama reelection campaign committee weren’t looking. The Obama reelection campaign blamed Mitt Romney for the failure of GST Steel company in 2001. A May, 2012, TV ad focuses on the Bain acquisition of GST Steel, and it shows workers at a shuttered plant blaming Romney and Bain Capital for the closure and job losses. But there are two facts about this situation that the Obama campaign would rather that you not know. First, GST Steel failed in...