The more answers we find about furtive fundraiser/con artist Norman Hsu, the more questions arise. It has now been discovered that Hsu’s contributions almost mirror – in many cases in exact amounts and on exact dates – those of the Hochberg family, proprietors of the junk-mail catalog company Lillian Vernon, and longtime supporters of the Clintons. Further crossing points in this intricate web keep cropping up, from the Clinton Cabinet and White House “coffees” to the New School Board of Trustees. The yeoman’s work of digging all this out has been done by Flip at Suitably Flip:
Yes, Fred Hochberg, a dean at the school where Hsu served as a trustee, one of Hsu’s fellow HillRaisers, CEO of the company that officially bundled at least one of Hsu’s direct contributions as recently as this summer, and the apparent architect of Hsu’s favored candidate slate, was installed as one of the country’s senior-most federal policymakers by Bill Clinton.
Hochberg was tapped to become the SBA’s deputy adminstrator in 1998 and some time thereafter became the acting administrator. The SBA administrator is not a current Cabinet-level position. Clinton elevated the position to Cabinet rank, a move Bush has undone. Not long before his executive appointment, Hochberg had enjoyed another kind of Presidential access, as a member of Clinton’s bescandaled “White House Coffee” guest list.
So.
Where does all this leave us? There are still a lot of details yet to emerge that will undoubtedly shed additional light on these linakges, but it seems quite clear that Norman Hsu and Fred Hochberg are and have for some time been closely associated. It’s abundantly clear that the Clintons and Hochberg are quite intimately associated. This seems to draw Hsu and Clinton uncomfortably close to one another.
And while the complexity and duplicity that saturates this whole affair may offer Hillary a bit of confusion cover that she can use to equivocate when pressed, it’s now becoming increasingly far-fetched that Hillary took Norman Hsu for no more than a kindly, deep-pocketed fan.
Let’s just say it requires a willing suspension of disbelief.
Read the rest at the above link – there’s LOTS more. We have apparently seen only the very tip of this Hochberg – I meant “iceberg” – so far. The unstable fraud artist Hsu may not have been the devious mastermind behind this bundling and straw donor scheme, but instead only another cut-out in a far-reaching byzantine network designed to avoid campaign financing laws.
This and other examples of illegal donor reimbursements in the Hillary Clinton campaign have been discovered by amateur sleuths combing public records. What will the real investigators uncover with their official authority and subpoena power? Stay tuned – you can bet the other Democratic candidates are watching closely, too.
