Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus stated on Thursday that he was requesting the Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice to initiate a full investigation into President Barack Obama's Internet fundraising for his re-election "war chest."
Priebus sent a letter to Attorney General Holder on Thursday demanding a probe of the Obama campaign's "troubling pattern of behavior" in fundraising which could violate campaign laws by accepting online campaign contributions from foreigners.
"The President's campaign committee does not use the industry standard practices to guard against receiving fraudulent or excessive contributions via the Internet," Priebus wrote in his letter to Holder.
Priebus's request for a probe follows a report published this week by the Government Accountability Institute, a conservative political watchdog group, as described by the Examiner.
The report claims that the current online campaign contribution system lacks accountability and transparency, and that the Obama campaign lacks adequate screening for donors' citizenship and failed to impose basic e-commerce safeguards, such as requiring donors to provide the three-digit Card Verification Value code on back of a credit card.
Under U.S. federal election law, contributions from foreign nationals to presidential campaigns are forbidden.
"This new report suggests that the President's campaign did not take the appropriate measures to correct for the vulnerabilities uncovered during the previous election cycle, in which reports surfaced that the president's campaign accepted a large number of excessive contributions and contributions from donors using fake names, suggesting a pattern of questionable behavior that is troubling," Priebus wrote to Holder.
The Obama campaign released a statement, saying the campaign had not accepted "donations from foreign nationals or any other ineligible individual" and the campaign "voluntarily goes above and beyond Federal Election Commitments to ensure the integrity of fund-raising efforts."
"The allegations made by Government Accountability Institute ( GAI) are more reflective of the group's politics than any grain of truth," said the Obama campaign, adding that even the group's chairman and president had "strong Republican ties."
However, as reported by the Examiner, during the 2008 election cycle, there were allegations that Obama's campaign accepted donations from Palestinians. The Obama administration claimed they returned the money, but the Palestinian denied receiving the $30,000 contribution.
Replies
The DOJ will not even look at this for he already knows the Obama is illegal but does nothing because he works for the same people that bho does and it not for the USA...
One would think that Rebus Pebus or Bevis and Butthead or what ever the head of the RNC's name is would know that Coward Holder and his Justice Despotment (no not misspelled) does not investigate this sort of stuff, the Federal Elections Commission does. And GOPers are paying this idiot a salary? What a waste.
The following is from the Democratic campaign in response to my inquiries into this travesty.
Hi Marc,
I apologize, but we do not keep the wealth of data that would be necessary to fully answer many of the questions in your most recent reply. The FEC ultimately assesses the veracity of every contributor's claim to citizenship, just as it assesses the veracity of any contributor's agreement that he or she is not a federal government contractor, etc. As such, a more thorough explanation of the full vetting process can certainly be provided by them. Feel free to contact them here: http://www.fec.gov/pages/contact.shtml
Also, on a clarifying note, our definition of American citizen is the same as that delineated by federal and state law, i.e. a citizen of the United States of America.
Thanks!
--
Justin Koch
Political Team
ActBlue
From: Marc Goldstone
Justin,
Thank you for your response however I do have a few more questions on the process and policy used in your Credit Card verification:
1) Exactly what is the confirmation and verification process used to vet the veracity of contributor's claim to be an American citizen?
2) What is your definition of "American citizen?" In other words, what country(s) in the Americas must contributors be citizens of?
3) With regard to your "fraud checking system," exactly what is the procedure of assigning a fraud check score?
4) What is the threshold score that would cause your organization to look into the legitimacy of the contribution?
5) Is each contribution from ISP's located outside the country double checked?
6) What exactly is your "double check" procedure used to vet the contributions from foreign addresses?
7) Is your process fool proof in rejecting illegal contributions?
8) How long a time after the contribution is made is it before you complete the verification process and reject each suspected illegal contribution?
9) Of your contributions received during 2012, what percentage have been suspect or determined to be from illegal sources and have all these been rejected or returned to the contributor?
Regards,
Marc Goldstone
From: Info Queue <info@actblue.com>
Date: October 10, 2012 9:56:12 AM EDT
To: Marc Goldstone Subject: Re: Re: [ActBlue] Other: Other
Hi again Marc,
So I should clarify--ActBlue does allow contributions from people with foreign addresses when those individuals are willing to confirm that they are American citizens. Our fraud checking system is related to this insofar as we attach a "fraud check score" to each contribution made, and when this score is high we look into the contribution to verify its legitimacy. The score is higher whenever the IP address from which the contribution is made is located outside the country, and so in this way we are able to double check on any contributions made from foreign addresses.
Please let me know if this answers your question. Thanks!
--
Justin Koch
Political Team
ActBlue
From: Marc Goldstone
Date: October 9, 2012 8:13:51 PM EDT
To: Info Queue <info@actblue.com>
Subject: Re: Re: [ActBlue] Other: Other
Justin,
Would you please be specific as to what "rigorous fraud checking" you have in place to assure there are no foreign contributions being accepted?
Thanks,
Marc
From: Info Queue <info@actblue.com>
Date: October 9, 2012 1:57:31 PM EDT
To: Marc Goldstone
Subject: Re: Re: [ActBlue] Other: Other
Hi Marc,
Thanks for your message! We maintain a rigorous fraud check system to ensure that any contributions given through ActBlue are from American citizens. Please feel free to contact with us any further questions or concerns in the future.
--
Justin Koch
Political Team
ActBlue
From: Marc Goldstone
Date: October 9, 2012 1:24:16 PM EDT
To: Info Queue <info@actblue.com>
Subject: Re: Re: [ActBlue] Other: Other
First name: Marc
Last name: Goldstone
Email: ***
Subject text: Other
Message: I am most concerned that your orginization is not requiring CVV information on Credit Card donations to weed out illegal foreign contributions. For this reason I will not be donating to Democrats in this election cycle and instead making generous contributions to the GOP and their candidates.
Yep, just like asking a Fox to watch the Wolf at the Hen House.
A. Menges
I think this is really stupid. All of the illegal things this guy has done and they have done nothing. Now they the are crying about illegal contributions.This is simply another tactic to get the American people away from what these jerks are really doing and that is stealing everything they can from the tax payers.None of these people (Republican or Democrat) could care less about what obama does.They set on their backside collecting their pay and benefits and do absolutely nothing about the complete disregard for the Constitution of our country or it's people.. How does an Attorney General who is under investigation investigate anyone much less the guy who is covering for him to keep him out of prison.There should be no further talk. It is time that we demand that the people that we have elected to do their jobs. The best thing that could happen is to fire everyone of them in November. They are walking all over us and we are letting them.
Don,
Unfortunately your fire them all solution isn't viable. We are in practicality left to chose the lesser of two evils.teh Democrats have shown their true colors and if the Republicans do this once Romney is elected then a new third party will be the only peaceful means of effecting necessary change. Because of human nature this third party if they gained power would become as corrupt as the Democrats.
The old axiom still applies: Politicians and diapers should be changed often and for the same reason...
Coward Holder will never investigate Zero. If Romney wins, he will not do it either unfortunately. Seems that politicians take care of each other, no matter how corrupt. I would investigate and if found he was violating the law, he would have to refund every penny to the US Treasury. Wouldn't it be nice if Zero had to pay back...say $75 million?
Good luck on getting that done.
Preibus is not serious about going to holder to file a complaint against his hand holding buddy,who by the way just got executive pardon or whatever it,s called,pretty much insuring that nothing will happen to his friend on the fast and furious scandal.We know obuma is as corrupt or maybe even worse then teflon Gotti.This would be the biggest waste of tax payer dollars,again.
It is up to WE The People. No one in the government on either side is going to do a damned thing!
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