In light of the long-overdue ruling by the Supreme Court to throw out the free-speech-killing and unconstitutional McCain-Feingold finance law (was there ever a more destructive, corrupting influence on elections ever?), it is a good time to revisit the active complaint to the Federal Elections Commission over Barack Obama’s campaign finances.
Back when Obama was running for President, I broke a number of campaign donation stories that should have blown the race wide open. The Obama campaign committed the most egregious violations of election contribution laws, and they were dismissed with a wave of the hand. Millions came in from foreign countries — which is illegal: the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) “prohibits any foreign national from contributing, donating or spending funds in connection with any federal, state, or local election in the United States, either directly or indirectly.”
I broke the jaw-dropping story about how tens of thousands of dollars came in to the Obama campaign from a Hamas-controlled camp in Gaza. Al-Jazeera actually ran video of Obama phone banks in Gaza. One large contributor to the Obama campaign was Monir Edwan, who was listed on FEC documents as contributing to Obama from the city of Rafah in the state “GA.” If you were reading quickly, you might have thought it was just a contribution from Georgia. But there is no city of Rafah in the Peach State. Monir Edwan sent money to Obama from Rafah, Gaza.
Monir Edwan, one of Obama’s Gazan donors, said he sold Obama t-shirts that the campaign had sent him in Gaza for around $9, and that a profit was made. “Some young men,” Edwan explained, “even bought the T-shirts for 60 shekel ($17.29), which is a lot to spend in Gaza on a t-shirt, but that is how much Gazans like Obama.” I love it: jihadis in Obama Tees. How fitting.
On Watchdog.net, a site that monitors campaign contributions, Monir Edwan is listed as Barack Obama’s Top Contributor, giving $24,313 between October 27, 2007 and November 11, 2007. However, although it gives zip codes and other details for the other four of Obama’s top five individual contributors, it provides no additional information at all for Monir Edwan — and Edwan’s link is the only dead one on the Watchdog page.
Why did Palestinians in a Gaza refugee camp have such love for Obama in the summer of 2008? Did they know he was going to run a virulently anti-Israel, pro-jihad presidency?
Gaza was not alone. The contributions came from over 50 nations. And many seemed intent on skirting campaign finance laws: Obama’s foreign contributors were making multiple small donations, ostensibly in their own names, over a period of a few days, some under maximum donation allowances — but others were aggregating in excess of the maximums when their contributions were all added up. Other donations came in from donors with names such as “Hbkjb,” “jkbkj,” and “Doodad.” Also, thousands of Obama’s foreign donations ended in cents. This was evidence of foreign contributors sending in donations in foreign currencies that exchanged into odd amounts. Americans living overseas would almost uniformly be able to contribute dollars, in set amounts.
The Obama campaign received a substantial amount of money from countries that have an interest in seeing a weak American President: $366,708.22 from China; $25,259.00 from the United Arab Emirates; $7,062.60 from Russia; and $6,716.28 from Saudi Arabia. Obama also took in $6,350.00 from Indonesia; $5,000.00 from Kenya; and $1,750.00 from Egypt.
The FEC alleges that Obama also illegally took donations from Tamil Tiger leaders. The Tamil Tigers are, according to the FBI, the most successful terrorist group in the world. While the Hillary Clinton returned contributions from the Tamil Tigers, Obama kept them.
There are many other questions and mysteries regarding Obama’s campaign finances. The Puma P.A.C. blog notes: “Obama spent a record $744 million on his campaign but has disclosed donors for only $485 million of his windfall.”
It is important to point out that I had also reviewed John McCain’s donations — and they were so clean you could eat off ’em.
And now the influence peddling has manifested itself in Obama’s catastrophic first year.
The FEC generally takes several years to process a complaint, and their statutory limit is five years. The commission still needs to vote on any action, but if they decline, the complainant can sue the FEC. So the complaint is ongoing.
If justice is to be done, Barack Obama will have to own up to his violations of campaign finance law, and pay the political price. An audit of Obama’s campaign finances is long overdue.