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Obama Campaign May Have Taken As Much As $63,000,000 In Foreign Currency Contributions
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Rob - 12:11pm on 11/19/2008

A new report on Obama’s shady fund raising from Newsmax.  The entire lengthy piece is worth a read, but this part in particular jumped out at me:

When Newsmax pored over the campaign finance records, more than 65,000 Obama donations appeared to be conversions of foreign currency. According to our analysis of the Obama campaign data, foreign currency donations could range anywhere from $12.8 million to a stunning $63 million.

$63 million!

And if this analysis seems a little broad - after all the gap between $12.8 million and $63 million is a big one - remember that could be cured if Obama would only release data on his small-dollar contributions.  But he won’t, so we’re stuck working with what we have.

And then there’s this:

Newsmax asked whether Chase Paymentech [Obama’s credit card processor] had any security feature that would allow it to identify individuals making contributions using gift cards, but Wester declined to comment.

But other industry analysts, who asked not to be identified, told Newsmax that processors could track gift cards and debit cards “only by the numbers on the cards.”

“There are no names associated with these cards, so as a processor, you have no way of knowing who made the transaction,” one industry analyst said.

Anyone can go into a supermarket or a drugstore and buy a batch of these cards with cash, so there is no trace of the transaction, he added.

“It’s like walk-around money. They could be handing these things out as perks” to newly registered voters or others, “and there’s no way of tracing who is using them.”

Boehm tells Newsmax that contributions such as these clearly are illegal. “Making a contribution in the name of another person is the only part of federal election law that actually carries a criminal penalty,” says Boehm.

So, basically, the Obama campaign knowingly avoided security measures that would have ensured that online credit card donations were being made in compliance with election laws.

Gee.  I wonder why they’d do that.

And remember folks: Obama’s campaign fund raising won’t be getting an audit from the FEC.  Why?  Because Democrats who control the FEC won’t let it happen.


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