If this story was about any one of the Republican candidates the media would be howling for an investigation and the resignation of the candidate from the race.

Yet Hillary is getting a pass from the media just as her husband did during his campaign.

from
OpinionJournal Poltical Diary

September 6, 2007

Hillary Clinton’s No. 3 fundraiser failed to show up for a bail hearing ….

Other people who were close to Mr. Hsu took no time in distancing themselves. Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, called on the fugitive to turn himself in. He also said that while the Clinton campaign was giving $23,000 in direct Hsu donations to charity, it would keep the much larger amounts Mr. Hsu brought in from others, a practice known as “bundling.” Mr. Wolfson declined to release the names of bundled donors, a stance that drew fire from some liberal watchdog groups such as Public Citizen, which said the Clinton campaign’s failure to disclose would only invite more speculation.

Yes, indeed. That speculation is rooted in the 1996 re-election effort of Bill Clinton, which was run in large part by Terry McAuliffe and Harold Ickes, the same players now playing big roles in Hillary Clinton’s White House effort. Back then, reporters and investigators were continuously stonewalled when trying to get to the bottom of a campaign finance scandal that eventually saw 14 people enter guilty pleas while another 120 either fled the country or invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions.

Among those who fled the country were Arief and Soraya Wiriadinata, two Indonesian gardeners who gave $450,000 to the Democratic Party. Mr. Wiriadinata eventually revealed that the money had been wired to him by his wife’s father, a close business partner of Mochtar Riady, the head of the Lippo Group, a conglomerate with many connections to the Chinese government.

Given just how strange the structure of the 1996 Clinton fundraising operation turned out to be, it’s not surprising the Clinton campaign now declares it’s time to “move on” from the Hsu scandal. Some of its supporters are even alleging racism behind the intense interest in Mr. Hsu. In reality, the troubling similarity between the 1996 scandal and the one involving Mr. Hsu isn’t the presence of so many Asian names. It’s that once again Team Clinton appears to be recklessly unconcerned about who might be seeking to buy favor with a future President Clinton and uninterested in answering questions that would help reporters and watchdogs get to the bottom of matters.

from HKO

remember that Bill Clinton’s impeachment was originally about illegal campaign contribution from foreign nationals, mostly Chinese. This scandal should bury Hillary, but party loyalists seem willing to rationalize and tolerate the most aggregious acts that would be unthinkable to allow from their opposition.

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