Hillary Giving Back $850,000 Given by Hsu - How much is 1 night in the Lincoln Bedroom these days?
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign dramatically severed all ties to disgraced fundraiser Norman Hsu, announcing Monday night it will return more than $850,000 he raised from some 260 donors. (Including those folks that live in a small bungalow in San Francisco; see post below.)
Clinton’s campaign, one of several Democratic committees that Hsu raised money for or donated to, also has decided to increase its screening of major fund-raisers, requiring them to submit to the extraordinary additional step of a criminal background check, campaign aides said.
The dramatic return of all Hsu-raised donations was aimed at ending a controversy that awakened comparisons to Bill Clinton’s 1990s fund-raising scandal and renewed scrutiny of others major fund-raisers and donors inside Sen. Clinton’s presidential campaign. The fact that a foreign national can buy so much access to the former first lady and presidential contender should be alarming, although this does seem to be only the tip of the iceberg.
Sen. Clinton “simply didn’t want to have to keep answering questions about a bundler whose background is now clearly in question,” a senior adviser said, speaking only on condition of anonymity. Note that the response is not that she thought anything was wrong, just that she didn’t want to have to keep answering questions.
