Monday, October 27, 2008

One More Thing To Be Concerned About...

Watchdog Group Presses for Obama Donor List

Monday, October 27, 2008 10:59 AM
By: Dave Eberhart

Judicial Watch contends that the Obama campaign continues to stonewall on listing its many donors, a step that would go a long way toward clearing up whether the Democratic presidential candidate is accepting unlawful contributions from overseas.

Sen. Barack Obama has raised about $3.3 million from contributors who did not list a home state or who designated their state with an abbreviation that did not match one of the 50 states or U.S. territories, The Associated Press reported, citing records from the Federal Election Commission.

The $3.3 million total does not include donors who have given less than $200 and whose contributions do not have to be itemized. Some of that money also could have come from overseas. About half of Obama's $455 million in contributions so far are un-itemized.

The campaign does not identify those donors, the AP report said.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, “While the evidence suggests illegal foreign contributions are flooding into Obama's campaign coffers, we have no idea as to the extent of the problem because Senator Obama refuses to divulge the names of all of his donors.”

Fitton said that, when Obama campaign spokesman David Axelrod was asked about the decision to keep these donor names secret, he replied, “We’re probably more forthcoming about disclosure than anyone.”

But the president of the watchdog group countered: “Not true. While John McCain has had problems of his own for allegedly accepting foreign donations, to his credit, Senator McCain does publish the names of all donors to his presidential campaign on his Internet site, regardless of the size of the contribution.”

Fitton said he believes that the Obama campaign appears to be playing fast and loose with campaign finance laws, and he said it has to stop.

The FEC should investigate these allegations immediately, and the Obama campaign should publicly list the source of every single campaign contribution, Fitton said.

“Frankly, it is suspicious that these names have not already been made public,” he said. “There is something deeply unsettling about the fact that foreign nationals can so easily corrupt our presidential election through illegal contributions, while American service men and women stationed overseas may be deprived of the opportunity to even vote.”


VOTERS BEWARE!

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