All the President`s Funny Money

Ka-ching,
ka-ching, ka-ching. President Obama`s perpetual campaign
cash-o-matic machine kicks into high gear again this
week as the

celebrity-in-chief heads to

Hollywood for

several high-priced fundraisers. But while the
Democrats` 2012 re-election team stuffs its hands into
every liberal deep pocket in sight, questions about the
Obama 2008 campaign finance operation still fester.

Last week, the
laggard watchdogs at the Federal Election Commission
announced an audit of the Obama 2008 campaign
committee—which raised a record-setting $750 million.
White House flacks are downplaying the probe as a "routine review."

But there`s
nothing routine about the nearly $3 million Obama has
spent on legal expenses to address federal campaign
finance irregularities and inquiries. Roll Call reports
that Obama`s campaign legal fees have exceeded all other
House and presidential campaign committees, including
members of Congress under ethics investigations.

There`s nothing
routine about the whopping $6 million that Team Obama
has refunded to individual donors since Obama took
office.

And there`s
nothing routine about the 26 warning letters to Obama
for America totaling
"more than 1,500 pages of questions and data that outlined compliance
concerns—including the longest one ever sent to a
presidential candidate," according to

Roll Call.

Among the Obama
2008 campaign committee`s shadiest transactions that
have gone unpunished:

• Foreign
  funny money. Federal election law bans foreign
  nationals from contributing to American candidates.
  But during 2008, the Obama campaign was forced to
  return an illegal foreign donation worth
  
  $31,100 made by two brothers in the Gaza Strip, and
  even mainstream news outlets reported that candidate
  Obama`s money-handlers had routinely failed to verify
  citizenship by checking donors` passports. As the
  Associated Press
  
  reported at the time:
  "One donor, Tom
  Sanderson of Canada, made clear his $500 contribution
  came from a foreign source. He included a note that
  said, `I am not an American citizen!` Obama`s campaign
  took the money anyway…"

Another illegal
foreign donor, Australian Richard Watters, contributed
$1,000,

"entering a fake
U.S. passport number—a random jumble of numbers and
letters" onto the Obama donation website.
"He said he also
checked a box stating that he was an American living
overseas, `because I could see it wasn`t going anywhere
if I didn`t do that.`"

Obama raked in
at least $2 million in overseas donations.

• Online
  donor credit-card fraud. Weeks before the 2008
  presidential election,
  
  investigative journalist Ken Timmerman blew the whistle
  on rampant phony straw contributors slipping through the
  Obama donation site. Just one example:
  
  "Mr. Good Will"
  from Austin, Texas. Mr. Good Will listed his employer as
  "Loving" and his profession as
  "You." Timmerman`s analysis of 1.4 million individual donations to
  the Obama campaign discovered
  "1,000 separate
  entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25. In
  total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375. Following this and
  subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that 330
  contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a
  credit card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept.
  20, showed a net cumulative balance of $8,950—still well
  over the $4,600 limit."

Subsequent
digging by conservative bloggers found that the Obama
campaign`s donor website appeared to intentionally
disable security protocols and facilitate illegal
donations with bogus names, shell addresses and
untraceable credit cards. Among Obama`s online
"donors":
Bart Simpson, Family Guy, Daffy Duck, King Kong, O.J.
Simpson, Mr. Doodad Pro, John Galt, Della Ware, Crazy
Eight and Adolfe Hitler.

• Social
  justice funny money. In 2008, the Obama campaign wrote
  checks totaling more than $800,000 to a nonprofit
  offshoot of ACORN called Citizens Services Inc. The
  campaign claimed the money went to nonpartisan
  get-out-the-vote services. But receipts showed the funds
  paid for polling, advance work and event staging
  supplied by a nonprofit that supposedly does simple
  canvassing work on behalf of low-income people. The FEC
  allowed Obama to wave his magic wand and amend the
  records to change political expenses into non-political
  ones. As a Republican National Committee staffer
  
  commented at the time:
  "For a candidate
  who claims to be practicing `new` politics, his FEC
  reports look an awful lot like the `old-style` Chicago
  politics of yesterday."

On a related
front, ACORN whistleblower

Anita MonCrief filed an

FEC complaint last year over illegal coordination
between ACORN and the Obama campaign. MonCrief publicly
released Obama donor lists supplied to ACORN affiliate
Project Vote, which were allegedly used to target
maxed-out presidential donors. The scheme involved
converting the expenditures by Project Vote, ACORN and
ACORN-affiliated entities to illegal, excessive
corporate contributions to the Obama presidential
campaign, in violation of federal law.

Nothing to see
here, move along? The only "routine"
business as usual being conducted here is Chicago-style
self-exemption business as usual: Rules are for fools.
Let the crooked cash flow in.

COPYRIGHT
CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Michelle Malkin

[email
her]
is the author of

Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists,
Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our
Shores.
Click


here
for Peter Brimelow`s review. Click



here
for Michelle Malkin`s website. Michelle Malkin
is also author of


Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild
and the just-released
Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies.