Misery Index

"A Newsmax investigation of Obama/Binden campaign contributors, undertaken in conjunction with a private investigative firm headed by a former CIA operations officer, has identified 118 donors who appear to lack U.S. citizenship.

Some of these "red flag" donors work for foreign governments; others have made public statements declaring that they are citizens of Cameroun, Nigeria, Pakistan, Canada, and other countries.

A Newsmax sampling of about 3,400 donors also found hundreds more who showed "yellow flags" such as not having used a Social Security number or a known U.S. address. Most U.S.-born citizens are issued Social Security numbers at birth or by the time they enter kindergarten.

Under federal law, only U.S. citizens or permanent residents may donate to federal political campaigns. It is illegal for the campaigns to accept money knowingly from foreign donors. [...]

... it remains very difficult to identify with any precision foreign money if a campaign itself does not cooperate with the Federal Election Commission and perform its own due diligence.

Until very recently, the Obama campaign had no safeguards in its online fundraising Web site designed to weed out foreign donors. Instead, its operations appeared to be designed specifically to enhance the flow of illegal money.

The Newsmax investigation focused only on donors whose names the Obama campaign disclosed, which are available to public scrutiny through the Federal Election Commission Web site.

In addition to the donations the campaign has disclosed, however, it has taken an unprecedented $218 million from donors whose names it is keeping secret according to FEC spokesman Robert Biersack.

That money came from individuals who in theory never passed the threshold of $200, the limit the FEC set for public disclosure of a donor's name and place of residence, so there is no way of knowing how much foreign money could be included in that amount.

For example, hidden away amidst the unprecedented $150 million Obama claims to have raised from individual donors in September was more than $42 million raised from secret donors. These donations appear in the records as a single entry under the heading, "Donors, Unitemized."

Newsmax retained the services of former CIA operations officer Frederick W. Rustmann Jr. and a team of international forensic accounting experts to comb through Obama's donor list to identify those who apparently aren't U.S. citizens or residents or residents. Rustmann, a 24 year veteran field officer, operates CTC International Group Ltd., a West Palm Beach, Fla., firm that provides business intelligence services and analysis.

[...] Most of these donors gave obvious overseas addresses when they made their donations, but the Obama campaign had no security to detect them.

"Hillary and McCain demanded proof of citizenship of all their donors," Rustmann said. "Obama did not, so he benefited by receiving an enormous amount of money from foreign donors who wanted to influence the U.S. election process."

[...] Typical is Victor A. of Lagos, Nigeria, who gave $500 to the campaign in May. In the FEC database, his address is listed as Ikoyi, NA. But a closer look at the actual itemized receipts filed by the campaign shows that he declared his address as 9e Awori Street Dolphin Estate, Lagos, Nigeria.

That apparently slipped by the eagle eyes of the Obama campaign's finance team.

A survey of the Obama donor base returns 8,794 donations from individuals who gave their state as "NA." They included donors from Bangalore, India; London; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Lagos, Nigeria; and Riyadh, Saudia Arabia.

Thousands more gave state abbreviations that, combined with the city addresses they listed, clearly referred to foreign countries. Examples include IT (Italy), FR (France), GR (Greece), NZ (New Zealand), JP (Japan), GA (Gaza).

Another 2,372 donors gave their state of residence as "ZZ", with cities including Moscow, Barcelona, Beiruit, London, Lausanne, SIngapore, Hagatna, Gunma-Ken, Buelach, Shanghai, Geneva, Prague, Aichi-Gun, Kiev, Hong Kong and others.

The Obama campaign claims that these are donors with overseas addresses are Americans living abroad, but there is no way of knowing that for certain because the campaign has not systematically required proof of citizenship from overseas donors.

[...] The Federal Election Commission had flagged 16,639 potential foreign donations as of Oct. 21 that brought in $5,249,263.96 to the campaign.

Take the case of Jo Jacquet, who gave $23,065 to Obama in 23 separate contributions last month. CTC found three people with variations of the name "Jo Anna Jacquet" who had U.S. addresses and Social Security numbers. It is not clear whether this specific Obama donor is a U.S. citizen.

"Jo Jacquet" made all of her contributions on two days, alternating between $5 and $2,300 charges to a credit card.

On all of the donations, she gave her employer as "DFDFGDFG," and her profession as "DFGDFGDFGHGFH." None of this attracted the suspicions of the Obama campaign or of Chase paymentech, the company that processes the Obama campaign's credit card donations.

The FEC requested that the Obama campaign re-attribute or re-designate all of the moeny from "Jo Jacquet" that went beyond the $4,600 limit but did not require that it be refunded. Under campaign finance rules, the campaign can shift this money into the "Obama Victory" account, a joint fundraising committee with much higher individual limits that it operates with the Democratic National Committee. [Obama just started accepting donations for his "Victory account" yesterday.......]

One apparent reason for the unusual number of foreign donors who may not hold U.S. citizenship is the fact that the Obama campaign turned off the security features most merchants demand for customers when doing online transactions, such as verifying the card number against the cardholder's name and billing address.

Another major loophole is the apparent widespread use of gift cards, which notoriously have been used for money-laundering purposes, especially in places such as Russia and Ukraine, industry security analysts tell Newsmax.

Newsmax asked James Wester, a spokesman for Chase paymentech, who was responsible for taking the unusual step of deactivating the Address Verification Service recommendation by VISA USA on the Obama Web site. Such security features can be deactivated by the processing company, or at the request of the merchant, in this case, Obama for America.

Wester said that Paymentech was "not going to be issuing a statement at this time."

[...]

Following are a few of the individuals the Newsmax/CTC International investigation found of overseas donors. To demonstrate its compliance with FEC regulations, the Obama campaign should request proof that these individuals are, indeed, U.S. citizens;