Still More Fraudulent Obama Donors

I've already blogged about this once before, but there's more to report.  From Newsmax:

A Newsmax investigation of Barack Obama's presidential campaign finance reports has turned up more than 2,000 cases in which individuals have made donations far above the legal limit of $2,300 per election.

Such donations, if not returned within 60 days, violate federal campaign finance laws. Some can be chalked up to common names, such as Michael Brown, William Taylor, or James Smith.

But many others cannot.

On Aug. 31, for example, the Obama campaign filed a report listing a single donation from a Debra Myers in "Rancho Palos Verde, Calif.," for $28,500 – more than 10 times the amount the law allows per election. Although Debra Myers is identified as a physician, only two individuals with that last name have a listed phone number in Rancho Palos Verdes (the city's name actually does have an "s" at the end). Neither is a Debra or a "D" Myers, or a physician.

The Obama campaign also identified Woodrow Myers Jr. of Indianapolis, Ind., on Aug. 31 as having given $28,500 to the campaign. Woodrow "Woody" Myers is a former Indiana state health commissioner who spent $2.1 million of his own money in a failed special election to challenge Andre Carson, the grandson of U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, who died in December. The younger Carson won the race this year, with heavy backing from lobbyists, the Democratic Party and related PACs. (Interestingly, Woodrow Myers' wife is identified as Debra, although Newsmax could not confirm whether this is the same Debra Myers the campaign report lists as being from Palos Verdes.)

In an initial reply to Newsmax questions, the Obama campaign said it had refunded both contributions on Sept. 30, a day after a Newsmax investigation was published that revealed extensive federal election campaign violations by the campaign.

The Republican National Committee cited that earlier Newsmax investigation in a formal complaint against the Obama campaign with the Federal Election Commission on Monday.

Here's the thing to take away from this.  The Obama campaign found a loophole in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms (yeah, ironic, isn't it?) that said donors of less than $200 do not have to identify themselves.  Amazingly, Obama has raised literally hundreds of millions of dollars from donors who always give less than $200.  Furthermore, any investigation anyone has done into those donors has turned up rampant fraud, casting considerable suspicion (for anyone with a quarter of a working brain and a lack of Obot-ism) on all of those donations.  Hmmm...

Some more details:

In addition to Debra Myers and Woodrow Meyers, hundreds of other individual donors have given to the Obama campaign far in excess of the legal limit, a Newsmax analysis of campaign finance records shows.

Among them:

·  James Sievers of Big Sky, Mont., gave a total of $20,700 to the campaign, in five donations between March and June of this year. The campaign has returned close to $7,000 of the money but has kept the rest.

·  Martin Dies of Austin, Texas, also gave $20,700 to the campaign, in four separate checks, each dated June 30, 2007. The campaign returned $2,300 of it immediately, and another $4,600 in September, but kept $13,800 – three times the legal limit.

·  Robert Watt of Brooklyn, N.Y., gave close to $17,000 to the campaign starting in February of this year, including a whopping $10,000 check logged by the campaign on Aug. 31. Despite the obvious violation of the campaign limits, FEC records show that the campaign returned just $2,300.

·  Ryan Finley of Portland, Ore., has given $15,400 to Obama for America, starting with two checks on March 6, 2007, totaling $6,900. The campaign immediately returned $2,300, bringing him within the legal limit. He gave another $8,500 in a lump sum on Aug. 26, 2008.

·  Ms. Merry T. O'Donnell of Juno Beach, Fla., has given $13,150 to the Obama campaign, starting with three donations in March 2007 that totaled $2,000. In January 2008, she gave two more donations of $1,000 each, as well as donations for $600 and for $2,000. In February, she gave another $4,600. As of the latest filing, the campaign has refunded just $2,300 of the total, leaving her net donations at over two times the legal limit for the two elections.

·  Jerry Rubin of Whitefish Bay, Wis., has given $12,700 to the Obama campaign in varying amounts since February 2007. Despite the obvious violation, the campaign has refunded just $3,400 of that total, still putting him at double the legal limit.

These are just a sampling of the 2,087 individuals who have given Obama more than the $4,600 combined total for the primaries and the general election.

...

The FEC regularly sends letters to the Obama campaign, questioning contributions that appear to go over the legal limits. In many cases, the Obama campaign has amended its reports as a result.

But the examples cited here have not been amended.

"It is illegal to make contributions in excess of the limits, and it is illegal to receive contributions in excess of the limits," FEC spokesman Bob Biersack told Newsmax.

So both the donors and the campaign may have broken the law. "But there are lots of circumstances, and until the four commissioners have agreed to rule, it's hard to judge," he said.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt told Newsmax that the McCain campaign also has caught excess donations and has "refunded $1.2 million in contributions."

Sean Cairncross, the general counsel for the Republican National Committee who filed the complaint with the FEC on Monday, told Newsmax that the McCain campaign has been "completely transparent with respect to its contributions" by making the names of all donors available to the public in a searchable database. The McCain campaign has even disclosed donors of $200 or less, though it is not required to do so. The Obama camp has not disclosed those donors.

"The Obama campaign has steadfastly refused to make that information public," he said.

Referring specifically to the huge amount of money that the Obama campaign claims it has raised from small donors, Cairncross said the identity and nationality of those donors could very well remain secret until well after the election unless the Obama campaign makes their names public.

"The American people deserve to know where $250 million in contributions — money that could potentially elect a president — is coming from," he said. "And at this point, we have no way of knowing."

And that's precisely the problem!  Americans deserve to understand who is sending money to Barack Obama because for someone (or some group of people) to dump $250 million into a campaign, they are going to want something in return.  Don't you think we should understand who's going to be holding Obama's leash if he takes office in January?

I do.

Oh, and there's also that little detail called the law that's being violated.  Yeah, yeah, they've returned a few bucks, but it is clear that they have no interest in seriously policing themselves, so who's going to do it for them?  McCain has also had to return some contributions, but they've made a serious effort at total transparency, even in the sub-$200 donor range.  Why has Obama not done the same?  Even if his campaign is totally innocent, well...where there's smoke, there's usually fire, too.  Regardless, it still looks like he's hiding something, and that's just not very presidential of the Obamessiah, is it?

There's my two cents.