The Discerning Texan

Norman Hsu is a man with apparently no known source of income who also may have knowingly tried to skirt campaign finance laws. At the very least, questions should be asked by the FEC about various business addresses given by Mr. Hsu on his disclosure forms, all of which lead to dead ends. Various companies Mr. Hsu claimed to be operating do not exist now nor is it clear that they ever existed at all.

Investigators believe that after Mr. Hsu skipped his court appearance in 1992, he went to his native Hong Kong and then continued working in the garment trade. At some point, Mr. Hsu, a naturalized American citizen, returned to New York and in 2003 made the first of what became hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic campaigns around the nation.

People who met him said they knew only that he ran an apparel business. Efforts to learn more about his trade hit dead-ends yesterday. Visits to companies at addresses listed by Mr. Hsu on campaign finance records provided little information. There were no offices in buildings in New York’s garment district whose addresses were given for businesses with names like Components Ltd., Cool Planets, Next Components, Coopgors Ltd., NBT and Because Men’s clothing — all listed by Mr. Hsu in federal filings at different times.

At a new loft-style residential condominium in SoHo that was also listed as an address for one of his companies, an employee there said that he had never seen or heard of Mr. Hsu. Another company was listed at a condo that Mr. Hsu had sublet in an elegant residential tower in Midtown Manhattan just off Fifth Avenue, but an employee there said Mr. Hsu moved out two years ago, after having lived there for five years. The employee, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about residents, said he recalled that Mr. Hsu had received a lot of mail from the Democratic Party.

Could the People’s Liberation Army in China be up to their old tricks of trying to buy influence in the Democratic party?

Here’s a fellow who never gave a dime to a political campaign before returning from Hong Kong 4 years ago. With no known source of income and some demonstrably confusing – perhaps even shady – FEC disclosure practices, the entire matter is beginning to stink of some kind of slush fund. Hsu could be a front man for some other fundraiser. Or he could be a foreign agent. But at this point, it is fair to say he is not who he claims to be.

Further down, Moran takes also takes up the matter of the Washington Post's stunning silence thus far about this scandal:

The last question would have to be when is the media going to get serious about this story? The laughable notion that Senator Craig’s stupidities should take precedence over this developing scandal is ridiculous. And yet, the Washington Post has no stories listed on its website involving Mr. Hsu. They do, however, have two stories and a couple of columns on Larry Craig.

The New York Times, to their credit, is apparently looking into the story as is the Wall Street Journal. The San Francisco Chronicle has the local angle detailing Hsu’s contributions to races involving assemblymen and the mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Washington Times carried a story culled mostly from wire service reports.

Perhaps when the press is done flogging Mr. Craig and his errant toe tapping, they will concentrate on something a little more important: Just who is Mr. Hsu?

Here is the Fox story on Hsu's arrest. It is entirely possible that this could blow up to nuclear proportions--there are many many Democrats who have received money via these sources. In fact Suitably Flip has really been doing his homework (h/t Allah):

I'm still working to incorporate the municipal data, but below are the summary results of a nationwide scour of all state and federal campaign finance disclosure documents published since the 2004 cycle. Already, you'll find 65 Democratic candidates (even one Republican(!), though he lost...) running for everything from State Assembly to President. You'll find them running in 32 states. You'll find 9 Democratic campaign committees and 10 Democratic state parties in the mix.

I wonder how it'll take until they've all pledged to give up the ill-gotten geetch.

Immediately below are presented the top 11 recipients of Hsu's direct contributions and fundraising among the associates in question. Below that, please to enjoy a table of the aggregate receipts of every state and federal candidate, ballot measure, state party, campaign committee, and advocacy group that has taken money from Hsu and his suspect network.

I'll be putting up more exhibits as I carve through the underlying data a little more, and there will be loads more to gaze upon once I've integrated the municipal data. Loads. Lodes, even.

With the state-level data added, we've now shot past $1.3 million. The municipal data looks to drive the total significantly higher. So stay tuned.

Once I've knocked it fully into shape and prettied it up for public display, I'll make available the Google spreadsheet with the raw data so you can do your own futzing with it.

That's a nice chunk of change, especially from a guy with no clear source of wealth. And the list is a "who's who" of high powered Democrats. The question from where I sit is not simply who is Hsu and where did the money come from; it is also: how many more Hsu's are out there?

The conventional wisdom that next year's election could become a Republican nightmare may be a bit premature. Fox just reported that Senator Craig is going to resign tomorrow. Good. Let's see the Elite Media dodge this story now...

An email earlier from one of my loyal readers suggested that we start writing our Congressmen and Senators immediately, asking them to put on a full court press on this matter. The acting Attorney General should not be shy about going after this one; I didn't see a lot of hesitation about going after Tom Delay...

This is just a "what if", but what if the primary source of funding for the clearly leftist Democrat party is the People's Republic of China?

Like I said yesterday: white on rice; stay tuned...

Labels: Campaign Contributions, Democratic Criminal Activity, Hillary, Hsu Scandal