Fugitive Democrat fundraiser the subject of latest missive from John Fund in the Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary… Oh yes, NOTE TO PROSECTORS: HSU IS DOING A FUNDRAISING EVENT FOR HILLARY IN WOODSIDE, CA, ON SEPT. 30. Perhaps a good opportunity to make an arrest?
In Case You Forgot Who John Huang Was…
Hillary Clinton suddenly has her own version of John Huang, the mysterious fund-raiser and former Clinton political appointee who was at the heart of her husband’s 1996 campaign scandals. He’s Norman Hsu, a wealthy New Yorker and Democratic fundraiser whose questionable political giving was the subject of an investigative report in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. Mr. Hsu also happens to be an official high-dollar "HillRaiser" for the Clinton campaign — and, it turns out, a fugitive from justice since 1992, when he reportedly pleaded no contest to a charge of grand theft, agreed to serve three years in prison and then vanished.
How very reminiscent of the strange cast of characters who swirled around the 1996 Clinton campaign. At the center of the controversy over improper contributions and alleged links between the contributors and the Chinese government was James Riady, scion of the shadowy Hong Kong-based Lippo Group, who returned to Asia and never cooperated with investigators. Pauline Kanchanalak, whose $253,000 in contributions had to be returned by the DNC, decamped to her native Thailand. Little Rock restaurateur Charlie Trie, a major-league fund-raiser and recipient of wire transfers from the Bank of China in Hong Kong, took up residence in Beijing to avoid questioning.
Mr. Hsu appears to be following in the footsteps of Mr. Huang, a genius at finding contributors of apparent modest means to donate lavishly to the Clinton campaign. The Journal reported this week that among his prize catches was the family of William Paw, a mail carrier in Daly City, Calif. None of the Paws ever donated to any candidate before 2004, but seven adults in the Paw family have donated $213,000 to Democratic candidates in the last three years, including $55,000 to Mrs. Clinton. In Mr. Huang’s day, an Indonesian gardener and his wife, despite being foreign nationals, donated $450,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 1996 and then suddenly had to leave for Jakarta.
E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., the Washington lawyer who represents Mr. Hsu, says his client had nothing to do with the 1996 fundraising scandal and is simply a big fan of the Clintons and Democrats in general. As for that pesky grand theft charge, Mr. Barcella says his client doesn’t recall pleading guilty to any criminal charge or having an obligation to serve jail time.
Hmm. Similar memory failures were rampant in the 1996 scandal. Witnesses called before the Senate investigative committee chaired by then-Senator Fred Thompson suffered collective amnesia on just about any subject much beyond their names, titles and Social Security numbers.
To its credit, the Clinton campaign does remember Mr. Hsu and is bravely defending him — for now. "Norman Hsu is a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic Party and its candidates, including Sen. Clinton," said Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman, on Tuesday. Of course, that was before the latest revelations about Mr. Hsu’s criminal record. No doubt he will now be placed in the same memory hole as Mr. Huang and all the other fundraisers for the Clinton political machine whose tactics proved embarrassing.