September 3, 2007

Tennessee Democratic Party Got Dirty Money from Hsu, Too

Tennessee media: If you're looking to "localize" one of the hottest national stories from the presidential campaign this year, well, here ya go: Big-time Democratic fund-raiser and, it turns out, fugitive fraud felon Norman Hsu, a big money-pal of Hillary Clinton and the national Democratic Party, turns out also to have been a rather generous donor to the Tennessee Democratic Party over the years.

Since 2004, Hsu has donated some $58,000 to the Tennessee Democratic Party. He's also been generous in donations to individual Democratic candidates in Tennessee, including $14,700 to Harold Ford Jr., helping fund Ford's unsuccessful Senate bid. You can find details of Hsu's campaign donations here.

Last year we saw how the Tennessee Democratic Party and the Phil Bredesen for Governor campaign refused to give back tainted money donated by former 1Point Solutions CEO Barry Stokes, who was suspected of running a financial scheme that bilked investors out of their retirement savings.

Now, as Hillary Clinton and other national Democrats scramble to give their Hsu donations to charity, will the Tennessee Democratic Party follow suit, or insist on keeping the money, as it did in the case of the tainted thousands it got from Stokes?

They ought to give it up, of course - but not to charity as Clinton and others are doing. They ought to put it in a fund to be disbursed to Hsu's victims.