As much as Hillary might like it to, the Norman Hsu story just won’t go away. This Wall Street Journal article and this New York Times story make it pretty clear that Hsu is high stakes con man. It also seems highly unlikely that his bundled contributions were legitimate as repeatedly claimed by his lawyers. From the NYT:
The records show that Components Ltd., a company controlled by Mr. Hsu that has no obvious business purpose and appears to exist only on paper, has paid a total of more than $100,000 to at least nine people who made campaign contributions to Mrs. Clinton and others through Mr. Hsu. The payments occurred in the spring of 2003, several months before Mr. Hsu emerged as a contributor to Democrats and more than a year before he started bundling checks from those same people for various campaigns. In all, he has raised more than $1 million for Democrats.
The records make clear that the group was more than just a loose collection of friends, family and co-workers that bundlers typically rely on when raising money for a candidate. Rather, each person had a direct financial relationship with Mr. Hsu, either receiving money from his company or paying into it, even though many of them appear to have other jobs or businesses independent of him. The purpose of the payments, and whether they related to business costs, fees or expenses, is unclear.
It is time Hillary recognized the fraud involved and donate the bundled contributions to charity and release the information about the donors. It is time she put her money where her mouth is when it comes to openness and transparency.
