McCain Campaign Returning $50K To Donors

Contributions Were Solicited By Foreign Citizen Connected To Prominent Bundler Under Scrutiny

(AP)  John McCain's campaign said Thursday it is returning $50,000 in contributions solicited by a foreign citizen.

The move follows the disclosure that the money was being raised by a Jordanian man who is a business partner of prominent Florida Republican Harry Sargeant III, who has collected hundreds of thousands of dollars for McCain. (Read more about Harry Sargeant III)

The New York Times reported Thursday that Sargeant allowed a longtime business partner, Mustafa Abu Naba'a, to bring in some $50,000 in donations in March from members of a single extended family in California, the Abdullahs, along with several of their friends.

The Abdullahs and other Arab-Americans in California also contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republicans Rudolph Giuliani and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a longtime friend of Sargeant.

According to the Times, Abu Naba'a is a dual citizen of Jordan and the Dominican Republic.

It is illegal for foreigners to contribute their own money to U.S. political campaigns, and McCain's campaign said Abu Naba'a did not do so.

But McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said some of the people solicited by Abu Naba'a had no intention of supporting McCain for president.

Rogers said "that just didn't sound right to us" so the money is being returned. He estimated the total at less than $50,000, saying "we think we have a pretty good estimate of how much Abu Naba'a solicited."

At the same time, the campaign sent a letter to everyone whose donations went through Sargeant, reminding them that federal law bars campaigns from accepting contributions from foreign nationals and that all donations must come from their own funds, without reimbursement.

Eight months ago, a top fundraiser for Clinton, Norman Hsu, was indicted for making contributions to various political candidates in the names of others.

Arizona Sen. McCain is co-sponsor of the campaign finance reform law that bears his name and the move is an effort to resolve any questions involving Sargeant before it turns into a major political problem for the candidate.

Sargeant, who does extensive business with the federal government, is facing problems on Capitol Hill.

A House committee chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is looking into Sargeant's defense work shipping fuel to U.S. bases in Iraq as part of a probe into whether contractors are overcharging the Pentagon.

Sargeant and Abu Naba'a are being sued in Florida by a former partner, the husband of a half-sister of the King of Jordan. The lawsuit alleges that Sargeant and Abu Naba'a swindled the business partner out of his share of the profits from valuable contracts with the U.S. government.

The plaintiff, Mohammad Anwar Farid Al-Saleh, says he obtained authorization from Jordan to permit Sargeant's company to ship oil across Jordanian territory to U.S. bases in Iraq.

A 2004 advisory opinion by the Federal Election Commission says a foreign national may lawfully solicit political contributions, but the issue is more complicated than that.

Federal election law does not address whether it is legal for foreigners to solicit donations. At the same time, federal regulations say a foreign national may not participate in a person's decision-making regarding contributions.

"The 2004 opinion is very clear, but throwing the regulation into the mix muddies the water. The FEC could revisit the issue," said Paul S. Ryan, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group.

[dnsallday]

Shows the integrity of John McCain.

While Obama still is raking in tons of cash online from China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.


Posted by DemWatcher
____________________________________________________________

hahahahahahahaha

[jld1959]

McCain has been in beholden to lobbyist since the time of his banking scandals as part of the Keating 5. Mccains believes in the one hand washes the other style. Former Sen Gramm " America is a nation of whiners" fame who is one of the biggest lobbyist there is. Gramm, Mccain & the Republicans when they were in the Senate Majority, created and passed laws which deregulated & loosened controls of the Banking and Energy industries. Which resulted in the current crisises now befalling America such as the mortgage crisis, uncontrolled speculation in the Energy resulting in the collapse of Enron and the of astrnomically high cost not to mention the current bank failures. McCain is to beholden to lobbyist, I am not convinced he would put America''s intersts ahead of his lobbyist friends. Take for example McCain''s help in overturning the largest Military Aircraft tanker contract awarded to Boeing and awarded it to EADS (European). According to lobbying records filed with the Senate, Loeffler Group lobbyists on the project included Loeffler and Susan Nelson, who left the firm and is now the campaign''s finance director. The Ogilvy lobbyist John Green, who was assigned the EADS work, recently took a leave of absence to volunteer for McCain as the campaign''s congressional liaison.

Mccain voted against relief for the average home owner caught up in the Chaos they caused, however he voted for relief of banking & mortgage companies!

[liberty_1776]

McCain refuses donations from terrorists, while Obama accepts every penny he can get.

Who are YOU voting for?

[Stratmaster7]

Obama8 is back with the same cut and paste post. basically, both candidates received contributions from foreign sources, and when discovered, both returned them. "Yawn" Anyone notice Russia invaded Georgia today?

[obama8years]

HAMAS DONATES 30K ....that we know about!!

Pamela Geller of the blog Atlas Shrugs discovered a curious set of entries from mid-2007 showing a series of contributions from two Arab men who listed their place of residence as "Rafah, GA."

Skeptical about the existence of a town in Georgia called Rafah, Geller did some digging and discovered that the contributions had in fact come from the Gaza Strip border town of Rafah.

It is illegal for a US presidential candidate to receive contributions from non-US citizens, or to receive in excess of $2,300 from a single individual.
Curious for more information, WorldNetDaily correspondent Aaron Klein tracked down the two Gaza Arabs, brothers Monir and Hosam Edwan.
The Edwan brothers said that they and many other Palestinians love Obama, and are confident he will be the US president to force Israel to surrender land for the birth of a Palestinian Arab state.

When pressed about their illegal contribution, the brothers altered their story and insisted that they had not made an online donation, but had rather purchased $30,000 worth of t-shirts from the Obama campaign website.
WorldNetDaily also learned that while Monir and Hosam are themselves believed to be non-religious, their clan is known for supporting Hamas.
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So Obama has no Idea who is donating to his Campaign. Now we find out Hamas is supporting Obama. Didnt Hamas Say that months ago?? This Plot Thickens!!!

[drillusion4u]

Mccain would except cash from the devil if he had a chance

[hasher471]

Integrity? McCain!!!
LMAO!!!

[hasher471]

Posted by gslinger3 at 01:49 PM : Aug 08, 2008
--------------------
You should change your name to $hitslinger3 :-0

[hasher471]

Posted by gslinger3 at 01:49 PM : Aug 08, 2008
--------------------
You should change your name to $hitslinger3 :-0

[demwatcher]

Shows the integrity of John McCain.

While Obama still is raking in tons of cash online from China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

If you don''t believe that, look it up yourself and be shocked.