Hillary Not Hsu Happy - Returning $23K should be more like $92K
Hillary Clinton has decided to return some of the money donated to her campaign through Norman Hsu after learning of his outstanding warrant for fraud and failure to appear. She will direct $23,000 to charity, less than half of the amount identified by the Los Angeles Times that came from the Paw family, whose connections to Hsu led to his exposure as a convicted con man:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign said yesterday that it would give to charity $23,000 it had received from a prominent Democratic donor, and review thousands of dollars more that he had raised, after learning that the authorities in California had a warrant for his arrest stemming from a 1991 fraud case. …
On his own, Mr. Hsu wrote checks totaling $255,970 to a variety of Democratic candidates and committees since 2004. Even though he was a bundler for Mrs. Clinton, his largess was spread across the Democratic Party and included $5,000 to the political action committee of Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.
Last month, Mr. Hsu was among the honored guests at a fund-raiser for Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island, given by Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group at the New York Yacht Club.
Al Franken, a Democratic Senate candidate in Minnesota, said he would divest his campaign of Mr. Hsu’s donations, as did Representatives Michael M. Honda and Doris O. Matsui of California and Representative Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, all Democrats.
The New York Times neglects to mention the actual amounts that Hsu redirected to Hillary’s coffers. The Paw family alone gave $55,000 over the last three years to Hillary’s campaigns, bundled through Hsu. The Lee family in New York donated over $37,000 to Hillary through Hsu as well, for a total just shy of six figues. The charitable donations to which Hillary has committed amounts to 25% of Hsu’s bundled donations from just the two families reported by the LAT.
Why not part with all of it? She’s been raising at least 1000 times the amount of her divestment in each of the last two quarters. While she will certainly need the money, clearing her name should take a higher priority. Quarter-measures like this make her look as though she’s only interested in token actions meant to take the heat off for just long enough to keep as much Hsu money as she can.
Beyond Hillary’s peculiar pecunary posturing, the path of Norman Hsu seems rather amusing. The man convicted of fraud and wanted for fleeing his prison sentence did not seem unduly handicapped by either in his career. The famous liberal New School made him a trustee and became a trustee at its Eugene Lang College. That came after he started donating heavily to the Democratic Party in his new incarnation, and the failed businessman and convicted fraudster somehow generated large amounts of cash for these efforts, with "connections" (as the New York Times puts it) to clothing related businesses. None of these organizations ever did as much as a cursory check on the Hong Kong native.
Now that heat is being turned up on Hillary Clinton and the cash she wasn’t going to give back is now going to 
From 
Chinese bagman John Huang — a longtime friend of the Clintons dating back to Little Rock — laundered the dough through monks and nuns who had taken an oath of poverty.
Sen Hillary Clinton said today that she was "surprised" to learn that one of her bundlers, Norman Hsu, had a warrant out for his arrest related to a California fraud case. "Obviously we were all surprised by this news and we have a procedure that we follow and upon verifying it we returned his money and continue to analyze all contributions and take action if that’s warranted," she said. Clinton, answering questions after a press conference about children’s health insurance with Eliot Spitzer at the governor’s office in midtown, went on to say, "I wish Mr. Hsu well in all the problems that he is confronting." She refused to respond as to why she had given to charity the money Hsu contributed directly to her campaign but not the money he had raised by bringing in other donors. Clinton was then pressed to respond to critics who said the Hsu matter was similar to past Clinton fund-raising controversies, such as letting top donors sleep in the White House’s Lincoln bedroom. "I don’t think it’s analagous at all," she said. "When you have as many contributors as I am fortunate enough to have, we do the very best job we can on the information available." Spitzer then jumped in, effectively blocking any more questions on the issue, saying, "I think it’s a fair question to ask - is Sen Clinton’s campaign or any campaign supposed to doing a better job than the authorities of California who theoretically had an open warrant for this guy and didn’t do anything? Come on, guys. Let’s get real." That response prompted a question about whether Clinton’s presence at the press conference was a show of support for the embattled governor - which he was returning in kind. "Well," said Clinton, "I support the governor."
Hillary Clinton’s largest contributor to her 2000 Senate race delivers demand that Hillary finally admit to the voters that she did accept more than $1 million as a campaign contribution from Peter Paul in 2000 and that her role in suggesting his contribution made it illegal. 
