Hillary's 3rd Quarter Refunds: Large, But Lacking

Hoo boy, this is one meaty filing.  Senator Clinton previously vowed to return $850,000 in Norman Hsu-connected contributions to some 260 donors.  Her 3rd quarter filing shows refunds to no fewer than 487 individuals for a total of $1.24 million.

This will take a little time to chew through, but we now have our arms around the 200+ missing Hsu donors and the several hundred thousand missing dollars.  It's just a matter of eliminating the unrelated refunds (accidental overpayments and the like) before we'll have a list of the previously unknown Hsu-connected donors to trace back through prior periods for both Clinton and other Hsu-favored candidates to bring us up to the new grand total.

But even before we do the deep dive, some problems bubble feverishly to the surface.

Consider this a rough cut through the data, subject to revision, but I'm showing more than $125,000 in thus far unrefunded contributions made by previously identified suspected Hsu straw donors (most of whom the Clinton campaign seems to acknowledge as Hsu-connected donors by virtue of the partial refunds they issued during the quarter).

18 of the 26 Hsu-connected donors listed below receieved only partial refunds for their aggregate Clinton contributions.  Just 2 of them received full refunds.  6 others (including 2 members of the Paw family) received no refunds.

It's important to note that this data does not include any refunds that HillPAC may have separately issued.  Once that data is available, I'll update accordingly.  As currently illustrated, the Clinton campaign appears to have refunded just over 40% of the previously identified Hsu-connected donations.

It's also important to remember that any of these Clinton donors who were reimbursed by Norman Hsu for such donations (allegedly with funds Hsu swindled out of unwitting investors) are not the legitimate owners of those funds.  Hundreds of investors in New York and California who allege Hsu bilked them out of more than $60 million are the primary aggrieved parties to any such swindling. Clinton's refunds, however partial, represent only the first step in returning such funds to their rightful owners.

We can only hope that federal authorities are rapidly chasing down each refund recipient to determine the appropriate dispotition of the involved funds, per the outcome of the ongoing civil and criminal complaints pending against Hsu.

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For background research, earlier ruminations, and links to the online data sets, sidle on over to the Norman Hsu category page.

Update:  It's possible some of the missing funds were refunded via Hillary's Senate campaign fund, though most of that money was transferred to her Presidential campaign during the first quarter of this year.  While the third quarter report for Clinton's Senate campaign committee was also due October 15th, those filings are not submitted electronically and are therefore not yet available for review.  Via the Center for Responsive Politics, the most recent data is current as of 12/31/06.

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Update (10/16): Well, I was going to post an update, but it grew into a post of its own.  This way, please.