Suitably Flip

Hsu vs. Abramoff

[Update: At $2.4 million and counting, Hsu is drifting dangerously into Abramoff territory...]

With the Norman Hsu fundraising scandal hitting $1.6 $2.4 million, I thought it was about time to size this ignominy up against that gold standard of modern political corruption, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

While it was largely hailed in the media as a Republican issue, it's a seldom reported fact that more than 30% of the Abramoff-linked monies actually went to Democrats.  By comparison, less than 1/10th of one percent of the circumspect Hsu fundraising went to Republicans.

The million-and-a-half plus more than $2 million in cold, hard cash that Hsu and his cohorts have poured into Democrat coffers compares to roughly $2.6 million in entertainment and gifts that Abramoff steered to Republicans.

For those keeping score at home, Abramoff was sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison for his fraud and corruption convictions.  Hsu already faces 3 years behind bars on a previous investor swindling conviction, from which he's been a fugitive since the early 1990s, while the FEC and the DOJ have recently launched probes to investigate Hsu's suspicious fundraising activities.

I'll update this chart in place as additional data are culled, so feel free to hotlink it at this address if you'd like to embed a real-time Corrupt-o-Meter as Hsu looks to challenge Abramoff for ultimate scandal supremacy.

Full Norman Hsu coverage archive

Previously:
New Hsu Review: Following [the Rest Of] the Money
A Really Big Hsu...
Hillary Vows To Give [At Least Some Of] Hsu Contributions To Charity
From Now On, When the Phone Rings You Say, "Vandelay Industries."
Hillary's Magwitch?

Comments

Hsu vs. Abramoff

[Update: At $2.4 million and counting, Hsu is drifting dangerously into Abramoff territory...]

With the Norman Hsu fundraising scandal hitting $1.6 $2.4 million, I thought it was about time to size this ignominy up against that gold standard of modern political corruption, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

While it was largely hailed in the media as a Republican issue, it's a seldom reported fact that more than 30% of the Abramoff-linked monies actually went to Democrats.  By comparison, less than 1/10th of one percent of the circumspect Hsu fundraising went to Republicans.

The million-and-a-half plus more than $2 million in cold, hard cash that Hsu and his cohorts have poured into Democrat coffers compares to roughly $2.6 million in entertainment and gifts that Abramoff steered to Republicans.

For those keeping score at home, Abramoff was sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison for his fraud and corruption convictions.  Hsu already faces 3 years behind bars on a previous investor swindling conviction, from which he's been a fugitive since the early 1990s, while the FEC and the DOJ have recently launched probes to investigate Hsu's suspicious fundraising activities.

I'll update this chart in place as additional data are culled, so feel free to hotlink it at this address if you'd like to embed a real-time Corrupt-o-Meter as Hsu looks to challenge Abramoff for ultimate scandal supremacy.

Full Norman Hsu coverage archive

Previously:
New Hsu Review: Following [the Rest Of] the Money
A Really Big Hsu...
Hillary Vows To Give [At Least Some Of] Hsu Contributions To Charity
From Now On, When the Phone Rings You Say, "Vandelay Industries."
Hillary's Magwitch?