McCain Illegal Campaign Contributions? It Sure Smells Illegal
Submitted by Kevin © on Wed, 08/06/2008 - 6:01am.
WASHINGTON — Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman.
Despite what appears to be a middle-class lifestyle, the couple has written $61,600 in checks to John McCain’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, most of it within days of McCain’s decision to endorse offshore oil drilling.
At a June fundraiser, the Rocchios joined top executives at Hess Corp. — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Hess, his wife, Susan, his mother, Norma Hess, and six other officials in giving a total of $313,500 to a joint McCain-RNC fundraising committee, Federal Election Commission records show.
The donations, first traced by Campaign Money Watch last week, were part of $1.2 million in oil industry contributions to McCain’s Victory ‘08 Committee, 73 percent coming after McCain reversed his long-held opposition to offshore oil drilling.
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McCain backed by surprise donors
WASHINGTON – The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Rite Aid Pharmacy No. 5727, the 30-something owners of the Twilight Hookah Lounge in Fullerton.
But the man who gathered checks from them is no stranger to McCain.
Harry Sargeant III is the archetype of a modern presidential money man. The law no longer allows high-level supporters to write huge checks, but Sargeant has raised more than $100,000 for three presidential candidates.
After helping raise money for former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican, and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sargeant has emerged as a major player in Florida fundraising for McCain.
The 2008 presidential campaign has heightened the importance of “bundlers” such as Sargeant, who not only write checks but also recruit other donors to give the legal limit of $2,300. Questions about such donor networks have repeatedly emerged as points of stress for the campaigns.
In January, Norman Hsu, a top Clinton bundler, was indicted in part on charges of circumventing legal giving limits. This week, McCain drew questions about more than $60,000 in donations that were made to the Republican National Committee and his campaign by an office manager with Hess Oil Company and her husband, an Amtrak track foreman. In that case, the couple said they used their own money.
Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant convinced them to give money.
His firm, International Oil Trading Co., holds several contracts with the Defense Department to carry fuel to the U.S. military in Iraq.
It Sure Smells Illegal
c'mon kevin, you know its only illegal if you aren't a card carrying member of the republican party. you've got to believe that convicting hsu was all about chilling democratic fund raising using the same methods the rethuglicans use every day.
explains why he can blow $6M
on the Olympics.
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7335
Mystery Deepens Around
Mystery Deepens Around McCain Bundler Accused Of Defrauding Pentagon
TPM - Eric Kleefeld
The New York Times has elaborated on the story of Harry Sargeant, the McCain bundler who has collected some interesting donations from people who are either apolitical or actually profess to be against McCain. They uncovered an interesting new angle -- and in the process seem to have missed a bigger point.
It appears, however, that Mr. Sargeant, the finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party and the part-owner of a major oil trading firm, International Oil Trading Company, did not actually solicit the donations from the Abdullahs and their friends.
That task fell to a longtime business partner, Mustafa Abu Naba'a. Mr. Sargeant said in an interview that he has known Mr. Abu Naba'a for more than a decade and has worked with him on commercial ventures, including a contract with the Pentagon to supply fuel to the military in Iraq.
The point they failed to notice: That same contract to provide fuel for US troops in Iraq has been the subject of a lawsuit against Sargeant and Naba'a, coming from a business partner who is himself the brother-in-law of the King of Jordan. Their partner alleges that they shut him out of his rightful share of the profit after he arranged for the Jordanian government to only allow them in, despite having failed to give the lowest bid.
In other words, Sargeant and Naba'a are being sued on the grounds that they've defrauded their business partner out of his take on a deal that is in turn defrauding the U.S. taxpayer.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/mystery_deepens_...
Top McCain Bundler Probed
Top McCain Bundler Probed Over Possible Overcharging Of U.S. Military?
TPM - Greg Sargent
Over at his new gig, TPM alum Paul Kiel has some more on our new friend Harry Sargeant, the top McCain bundler who was alleged to have relied on a Jordanian connection to swing a huge contract delivering fuel to the U.S. military in Iraq.
As Paul reports, Sargeant is also being probed by Dem Rep. Henry Waxman, the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, over allegations that his company, IOTC, overcharged the U.S. military for the fuel his company sold.
In June, Waxman wrote a letter to Sargeant, raising his concerns about a previous press report that noted the potential overcharging.
Waxman demanded a range of documents to enable him to probe the potential overcharging. The letter also says Waxman is looking at the broader allegations over how Sargeant got the contract, even though he was not the lowest bidder, by being the only firm to secure the right to deliver the fuel by way of Jordan.
At the time no one knew that Sargeant was a major McCain bundler. Now that we do, this backstory is suddenly very relevant.
This really bears watching. I know that any results from Waxman's probe will immediately be dismissed as a partisan hit job, but if Waxman's committee finds that one of McCain's top bundlers overcharged the U.S. military for fuel in Iraq, that might be, you know, news or something.
Late Update: I should note that today's big WaPo piece on Sargeant had a bit on this part of the story.
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/top_mccain_bundl...
Family’s Donations to McCain Raise Questions
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The Jordanian business partner of a prominent Florida businessman, who has raised more than $500,000 for Senator John McCain, appears to be at the center of a cluster of questionable donations to his presidential campaign.
Campaign finance records show Mr. McCain collected a little more than $50,000 in March from members of a single extended family, the Abdullahs, in California and several of their friends.
Amid a sea of contributions to the McCain campaign, the Abdullahs stand out. The checks come not from the usual exclusive coastal addresses, but from relatively hardscrabble inland towns like Downey and Colton. The donations are also startling because of their size: several donors initially wrote checks of $9,200, exceeding the $2,300 limit for an individual gift.
Making matters murkier, some couples in the family who contributed more than $9,000 to Mr. McCain also gave the maximum in December to either Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton or Rudolph W. Giuliani, or both, totaling in the case of at least one family more than $18,000………..
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/us/politics/07mccain.html?pagewanted=p...