Palestinian brothers inside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip are listed in government election filings as having donated $29,521.54 to Sen. Barack Obama's campaign.
Donations of this nature would violate election laws, including prohibitions on receiving contributions from foreigners and guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election, Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, told WND in response to a query.
The contributions also raise numerous questions about the Obama campaign's lax online donation form, which apparently allows for the possibility of foreign contributions.
Last week, the Atlas Shrugs blog outlined a series of donations in 2007 made to Obama's campaign from two individuals, Monir Edwan and Hosam Edwan, totaling $29,521.54.In an online form on Obama's campaign site, the Edwans listed their street as "Tal
Esaltan," which they wrote was located in "Rafah, GA."
Rafah is not a city in Georgia. The Atlas blog immediately raised concerns that the money may have been donated from the Gaza Strip town of Rafah.
The Edwans' donations are listed in both FEC filings and other election filing sites, such as CampaignMoney and donordata.org.
Monir made 20 donations ranging from $717 to $2017.50 from October through November 2007. His donations totaled $24321.41. Hosam made seven donations
ranging from $508.63 to $1725.96, totaling $5,200.13, all in October 2007.
A WND investigation tracked down the Edwans, who are brothers living in the Tal Esaltan neighborhood of Rafah, a large refugee camp in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The Edwans are a large clan that include top Hamas supporters.
Speaking to WND, the two brothers praised Obama and admitted giving the money online to his campaign. They said they are not U.S. citizens or green card holders but are citizens of "Palestine."
The story goes on to say the brothers claimed they simply bought close to $30,000 worth of T-shirts from Obama's website and were not making contributions to his campaign. That dubious explanation doesn't satisfy Klein. Will the mainstream media pick up on this story? Probably not. You may recall there was extensive media coverage back during the Clinton years about substantial amounts of illegal contributions from China being funneled into Bill Clinton's and Democratic Party committees. Then-Attorney General Janet Reno kept studying and studying the evidence, but she just couldn't find anything there to appoint a special prosecutor. Or at least that's what she had to do to keep her job after making her earlier big mistake of allowing for the appointment of a special prosecutor by the name of Ken Starr.
2 comments:
Under FEC rules, purchases for things such as t-shirts or yard signs or even bumper stickers nevertheless count as contributions (and count toward the contribution limit).
Am I correct the FEC is still without a quorum? So even if there ARE campaign finance violations without the FEC bringing an action in Federal District Court, nothing will be done about it.
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