
Paul R. Hollrah
Obama is Bought, But Who Owns Him?
October 22, 2008
In a July 25 column titled "Who Owns Barack
Obama?” we discussed Obama’s phenomenal fundraising juggernaut.
In July, Obama boasted that, as of May 31, his contributor base
numbered some 1.5 million people, with one-fourth, or $66.25 million of
his $265 million, coming from those contributing $2,000, or more... some
33,200 people. Thus, the remainder, or $198.75 million, came from some
1.47 million people, each contributing $5, $10, $20... or, as Obama
assured us, "whatever they could afford.”
While it is true that Obama is the kind of guy who could read Bill
Clinton’s golf scorecard and make it sound convincing, simple arithmetic
should have told him that $198.75 million dollars cannot be contributed
by 1.47 million people in "$5, $10, or $20” amounts. Each of those 1.47
million people would have had to contribute, on average, $135 to create
a pool of $198.75 million... and that simply does not happen. It has
never happened before in American politics and it is not
happening now.
But now, just days before the election, the Obama campaign has
compounded their sins. They are now reporting that their contributor
base has increased from 1.5 million to 2.5 million and that the total
amount raised now approaches $600 million. If we can assume that 25% of
their contributions still come from individuals giving $2,000 to $2,300,
that base has now grown from 33,200 individuals to 65,000 in a time span
of just three months, and the number of individuals contributing modest
amounts... "$5, $10, $20, or whatever they could afford”... is now up
from 1.47 million to 2.43 million, each contributing, on average, $185.
Anyone who believes that is actually happening will believe almost
anything. So how are they doing it?
In our July 25 column we pointed out that UBS Americas, headed by Robert
Wolf... along with George Soros, one of Obama’s top two money men... had
been accused of highly unethical and illegal banking practices in six
months of hearings by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations. According to an article in The Nation, UBS
Americas, a subsidiary of UBS, of Zurich, Switzerland, has advised
wealthy Americans, including
many of our worst villains, how to shelter funds from the
IRS, as well as from prosecutors, creditors, disgruntled business
associates, family members, and each other.
In a Statement of Facts in the recent criminal trial of
former UBS executive Bradley Birkenfeld, it was alleged that UBS took
extraordinary steps to help American clients manage their Swiss accounts
without alerting federal authorities. For example, UBS advised American
clients to avoid detection by using Swiss credit cards to withdraw
funds, to destroy all existing off-shore banking records, and to
misrepresent the receipt of funds from their Swiss accounts as loans
from the Swiss bank. According to The Nation, UBS established an
elaborate training program which taught bank employees how to avoid
surveillance by U.S. Customs and law enforcement, falsify visas, encrypt
communications, and secretly move money in and out of the country... ”
It is the perfect instrument for funneling illegal campaign
contributions into the coffers of an unscrupulous American politician.
Putting two and two together, I suggested that a very wealthy
individual, or cartel, wishing to influence the election of the
President of the United States, could transfer unlimited sums of money
through this device. A U.S. recipient, such as the Obama campaign, could
receive hundreds of thousands of individual contributions via Swiss
credit card transfers, with fictitious payees being entered by teams of
paid staffers working in a "boiler room” setting. The owners of the
Swiss accounts would receive periodic statements indicating: a) debits
of varying amounts, up to $2,300 each, and b) offsetting credits
provided by the cartel, or by the wealthy, but unnamed, "international
financier.”
For most of the super wealthy, especially those attempting to
hide income and assets from U.S. authorities, an unexplained debit and
credit of $2,300, or less, would not even raise an eyebrow. So who would
ever know the source of such contributions? No one.
Now, in an October 20 article in Newsmax, writer
Kenneth Timmerman provides details from Federal Election Commission
records that give substantial weight to my theory. In studying Obama’s
FEC filings, Newsmax found more than 2,000 donors who had given
substantially more than their $4,600 limit ($2,300 in the primaries and
$2,300 in the General Election). The law requires that such excess
contributions must be returned to the donor within 60 days of the donor
going over his/her limit. However, many of the donors contacted by
Newsmax said that they had not been contacted by the Obama campaign
and that they had not received refunds.
But these are relatively minor infractions compared to 66,383
highly suspicious contributions, from 37,265 donors, whose contributions
were not rounded to even dollar amounts. For example, Timmerman tells us
that John Atkinson, an insurance agent in Burr Ridge, Illinois, gave a
total of $8,724.26. He gave in odd amounts such as $188.67, $1,542.06,
$876.09, $388.67, $282.20, $195.66, $118.15, and one of $2,300.
Sandra Daneshinia, a self-employed caregiver of Los Angeles,
made 36 separate contributions totaling $7,051.12. Thirteen of her
contributions were later refunded. However, in an odd coincidence those
13 refunds, in amounts such as $233.88 and $201.44, came to an even
$2,300, the maximum amount allowable in any one election.
One contributor interviewed by Newsmax, Ronald J.
Sharpe, Jr., a retired schoolteacher from Rockledge, Florida, is
reported to have given $13,800... $9,200 over his limit. However, Mr.
Sharpe does not remember giving that much money to Obama, nor has anyone
from the campaign ever contacted him about a refund.
Of the 66,383 contributions in odd amounts, 44,410 were in
unrounded amounts of less than $100, 15,269 contributions were in
unrounded amounts of between $101 and $999, and 704 contributions were
in odd amounts greater than $1,000.
Lest anyone suggest that these 37,265 donors either emptied
their piggy banks or emptied their pockets and purses periodically and
just sent it all to Obama, pennies and all, allow me to suggest
something a tiny bit more Macheavellian. Those 66,383 contributions are
the proceeds of conversions of foreign currency, smuggled into the
country in foreign credit card receipts, and converted to U.S. dollars.
According to a Newsmax analysis, the Obama campaign
finance reports contain some 370,500 unique names... a far cry from the
2.5 million contributor base claimed by the campaign. Of course, when
your money is coming in large chunks from offshore accounts, such as
hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time from the Middle East and from
Third World African countries, then laundered though UBS accounts in
Zurich, it takes a bit of creativity to put authentic-sounding names on
all of it for the FEC records.
How massive is this crime? Since the Obama campaign has
refused to disclose their complete contributor list (they continue to
hide the identities of some 2 million donors), as the McCain campaign
has done, Newsmax estimates that "Obama is financing his
presidential campaign with anywhere from $13 million to a whopping $63
million from overseas credit cards or foreign currency purchases.”
Given the massive
voter registration fraud committed by Obama’s supporters, the fraudulent
votes already cast in early voting by itinerant out-of-state voters, and
the massive crime involved in accepting tens of thousands of illegal
foreign contributions, John McCain and Sarah Palin simply must close the
gap in the closing days of the campaign. If not, we will inaugurate a
man on January 20 who will have to be impeached before his wife has a
chance to measure the White House for new draperies.
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