Monday, September 17, 2007
Hsu Bankrolled Vegas Fun for Hillary Staff
Disgraced Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu celebrated Hillary Clinton’s re-election to the Senate last year by treating members of her staff to several days at the posh Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
The staffers – including Patti Solis Doyle, head of Clinton’s presidential campaign – also received free show tickets and enjoyed dinners at expensive Vegas restaurants during their November stay.
Clinton aides thought Hsu had gotten their rooms on a complimentary basis because he was a frequent guest at the hotel, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Hsu also paid for a hotel stay in Las Vegas for two Clinton campaign workers in April 2006, gave $75,000 to the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, and donated $30,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative.
Both of those donations were returned, as was $850,000 Hsu raised for Hillary, after it came to light that he was a fugitive.
Hsu was charged in 1991 with defrauding investors in a scheme to sell latex gloves. He pleaded no contest to felony grand theft and was to serve three years in prison, but he disappeared, apparently returning to his native Hong Kong.
He returned to the U.S. several years later and in 2003 began raising large sums in campaign contributions for Democrats. He was arrested in Colorado last week.
But “many questions remain about Hsu’s often murky career,” the Times observes.
“How could he rise to such heights, given that he had been a fugitive on a felony grand-theft charges since 1992?”
Hsu is reportedly also under investigation by the FBI, which is probing whether he paid so-called straw donors to send campaign contributions to Clinton and other candidates.
Disgraced Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu celebrated Hillary Clinton’s re-election to the Senate last year by treating members of her staff to several days at the posh Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
The staffers – including Patti Solis Doyle, head of Clinton’s presidential campaign – also received free show tickets and enjoyed dinners at expensive Vegas restaurants during their November stay.
Clinton aides thought Hsu had gotten their rooms on a complimentary basis because he was a frequent guest at the hotel, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Hsu also paid for a hotel stay in Las Vegas for two Clinton campaign workers in April 2006, gave $75,000 to the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, and donated $30,000 to the Clinton Global Initiative.
Both of those donations were returned, as was $850,000 Hsu raised for Hillary, after it came to light that he was a fugitive.
Hsu was charged in 1991 with defrauding investors in a scheme to sell latex gloves. He pleaded no contest to felony grand theft and was to serve three years in prison, but he disappeared, apparently returning to his native Hong Kong.
He returned to the U.S. several years later and in 2003 began raising large sums in campaign contributions for Democrats. He was arrested in Colorado last week.
But “many questions remain about Hsu’s often murky career,” the Times observes.
“How could he rise to such heights, given that he had been a fugitive on a felony grand-theft charges since 1992?”
Hsu is reportedly also under investigation by the FBI, which is probing whether he paid so-called straw donors to send campaign contributions to Clinton and other candidates.
