Kamala Harris Kept Felon's Donation While Insisting Opponent Return Tainted Funds
Categories: Politics
While attorney general candidate Kamala Harris spent the past three weeks denouncing her opponent Steve Cooley for accepting tainted campaign donations, it turns out her campaign kitty contained $1,250 from ex-Democratic moneyman Norman Hsu -- now serving a 24-month sentence for violating campaign finance laws and defrauding investors in a Ponzi scheme.
According to a report in today's LA Times, this was simply the result of an accounting oversight.
"Now that it has been brought to our attention, we will be contributing the funds to charity as was the original intent," [Harris campaign manager Brian] Brokaw said. The money will be sent to the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium and will come out of Harris' campaign account for attorney general, he added.
In response, Cooley's campaign spokesman suggested to the Times that Harris was engaging in hypocrisy -- the same charge leveled by Harris when our sister paper LA Weekly revealed in August that Los Angeles District Attorney Cooley had accepted contributions from Glendale businessman Gladwin Gill, who in 2008 pleaded guilty to a count of campaign finance fraud.
Brokaw said there's no comparison between the two scandals. Gill was accused of wrongdoing in Cooley's bailiwick of Los Angeles, suggesting the local DA should have known not to have accept his tainted money. There's a "night and day" difference, Brokaw was quoted as saying.
The astonishing inference seems to be that Harris shouldn't have been expected to make a priority of returning the 2006 Hsu contributions after she ran for re-election in 2007 because the scofflaw wasn't on her local radar. Hsu happens to be one of the most notorious campaign finance criminals in U.S. History, whose misdeeds filled news columns for weeks when it was revealed he'd become a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton even while on the lam from U.S. financial fraud charges in connection with a Ponzi scheme he'd run. More headlines accompanied Clinton's announcement she'd return $850,000 of Hsu's money.
So we're supposed to believe in Harris is qualified to hold statewide office based on the idea she's ignorant of what's going on in America, California, and the Democratic Party? You go, girl!
According to a report in today's LA Times, this was simply the result of an accounting oversight.
"Now that it has been brought to our attention, we will be contributing the funds to charity as was the original intent," [Harris campaign manager Brian] Brokaw said. The money will be sent to the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium and will come out of Harris' campaign account for attorney general, he added.
In response, Cooley's campaign spokesman suggested to the Times that Harris was engaging in hypocrisy -- the same charge leveled by Harris when our sister paper LA Weekly revealed in August that Los Angeles District Attorney Cooley had accepted contributions from Glendale businessman Gladwin Gill, who in 2008 pleaded guilty to a count of campaign finance fraud.
Brokaw said there's no comparison between the two scandals. Gill was accused of wrongdoing in Cooley's bailiwick of Los Angeles, suggesting the local DA should have known not to have accept his tainted money. There's a "night and day" difference, Brokaw was quoted as saying.
The astonishing inference seems to be that Harris shouldn't have been expected to make a priority of returning the 2006 Hsu contributions after she ran for re-election in 2007 because the scofflaw wasn't on her local radar. Hsu happens to be one of the most notorious campaign finance criminals in U.S. History, whose misdeeds filled news columns for weeks when it was revealed he'd become a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton even while on the lam from U.S. financial fraud charges in connection with a Ponzi scheme he'd run. More headlines accompanied Clinton's announcement she'd return $850,000 of Hsu's money.
So we're supposed to believe in Harris is qualified to hold statewide office based on the idea she's ignorant of what's going on in America, California, and the Democratic Party? You go, girl!
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