Clinton Donors Charged in Massive Campaign-Finance Scheme

The individuals conspired to “make and conceal conduit and excessive campaign contributions” valued around $3.5 million in the 2016 election campaign and beyond, according to the announcement. Although the indictment does not explicitly name the recipient of the donations, it is clear that the contributions went to groups allied with Clinton’s presidential campaign.

One of those charged, George Nader, is a Lebanese American businessman who was a witness in the Mueller report. Nader was also caught in 2018 in possession of child pornography but received partial immunity in exchange for testimony in the Mueller investigation. He faces between 15 to 40 years in prison if convicted on child-pornography charges.

Also indicted on campaign-finance charges was Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, who hosted a fundraiser for Clinton in Los Angeles in 2016 and who conspired to conceal campaign donations from 2016 to 2018. Khawaja owns an online-payments company used by, among others, debt collectors, offshore gamblers, and pornographers. The company has made numerous campaign donations to both Democrats and Republicans.

Nader also gained access to the Trump administration, meeting with the president on several occasions. Nader has experience in international diplomacy, has served as a diplomatic conduit to the Middle East and Russia, and was an informal adviser to the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates.

Unreported History of Clinton Campaign Fraud: 2016

Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 was stealing from her poorest supporters by purposefully and repeatedly overcharging them after they made what was supposed to be a one-time small donation through her official campaign website, according to multiple sources.

The overcharges were occurring so often that the fraud department at one of the nation’s biggest banks received up to 100 phone calls a day from Clinton’s small donors asking for refunds for unauthorized charges to their bankcards made by Clinton’s campaign. One elderly Clinton donor, who was a victim of this fraud scheme, filed a complaint with her state’s attorney general and a representative from the office told her that they had forwarded her case to the Federal Election Commission.

“We got up to a hundred calls a day from Hillary’s low-income supporters complaining about multiple unauthorized charges,” a source, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of job security, from the Wells Fargo fraud department stated. The source claimed that the Clinton campaign had been pulling this stunt since the Spring of 2016. The Hillary for America campaign overcharged small donors by repeatedly charging small amounts such as $20 to the bankcards of donors who made a one-time donation. However, the Clinton campaign strategically didn’t overcharge these donors $100 or more because the bank would then be obligated to investigate the fraud.

“We don’t investigate fraudulent charges unless they are over $100,” the fraud specialist explained. “The Clinton campaign knows this, that’s why we didn’t see any charges over the $100 amount, they stop the charges just below $100. We saw her campaign overcharge donors by $20, $40 or $60 but never more than $100.” The source, who worked for Wells Fargo for over ten years, said that the total amount they refunded customers on a daily basis who have been overcharged by Clinton’s campaign “varied” but the bank usually issues refunds that total between $700 and $1,200 per day.

The fraud specialist said that Clinton donors who called in attempted to resolve the issue with the campaign first but they never got anywhere. “They called the Clinton campaign to get their refund and the issue never got resolved. So they called us, and we just issued a refund. The Clinton campaign knew these charges were small potatoes and that we’d just refund the money back.”

The source said that pornography companies often deploy a similar arrangement pull. “We see this same scheme with a lot of seedy porn companies,” the source said. The source also notes that the dozens of phone calls his department receives daily are from people who notice the fraudulent charges on their statements. “The people who call us are just the ones who catch the fraudulent charges. I can’t imagine how many more people were overcharged by Hillary’s campaign, and they had no idea.”

Carol Mahre, an 81-year-old grandmother of seven from Minnesota, was one of the victims of Clinton’s campaign donor fraud scandal. In March of 2016, Mahre said she made a one-time $25 donation via Clinton’s official campaign website. However, when she received her U.S. Bank card statement, she noticed multiple $25 charges were made. Mahre, who said in an interview she only contributed $25 because she’s “not rich” and that’s all she could afford, contacted her son, Roger Mahre, to help her dispute the unauthorized charges.

Roger, who is an attorney, stated that he called the Clinton campaign dozens of times in April and early May of 2016 in an attempt to resolve the issue. “It took me at least 40 to 50 phone calls to the campaign office before I finally got ahold of someone,” Roger said. “After I got a campaign worker on the phone, she said they would stop making the charges.”

Incredibly, the very next day, Carol’s card was charged yet again, and the campaign had never reversed the initial fraudulent charges. “I was told they would stop charging my mother’s card, but they never stopped.” He added that he knows his mother did not sign up for recurring payments. “She’s very good with the internet, so I know she only made a one-time payment.” Roger also pointed out that even if his mother mistakenly signed up for recurring monthly payments then she should’ve been charged for the same amount of money each month, not multiple charges for varying amounts on the same day or in the same month. Furthermore, Roger said that after the campaign was made aware of this situation, the charges should’ve stopped, but they never did.

The Clinton campaign overcharged Carol $25 three times and then overcharged her one time for $19, a total of $94 in fraudulent charges. The campaign’s overcharges to Carol were just a few dollars short of $100. This paralleled what the Wells Fargo bank source revealed.

Since the campaign failed to amend the problem for Carol, Roger contacted her bank, U.S. Bank. However, he ran into problems when he asked U.S. Bank to refund his mother’s money. Roger stated that the bank would not reverse the charges and that a bank spokesperson told him that they had no control over companies that make unauthorized charges. At that point, Roger decided to contact his local news and filed a fraud complaint with Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson’s office on behalf of his mother. After local TV news KARE-11 ran a story, someone from U.S. Bank contacted Roger the next day and said that they had reversed and stopped the charges to his mother’s card.

Roger did eventually get a letter from a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign. In the letter, the lawyer wrote that his mother would be removed from their donor list; however, the campaign did not take any responsibility for the fraudulent charges.

“They said that they weren’t accepting responsibility for this, but they’d remove my mom from the donor list,” he said. Roger is less than happy with the way the Clinton campaign handled this nightmare for him and his mother. “This is a load of crap!” Mahre said. “The self-righteousness of politicians drives me insane. If you and I did this, we’d be thrown in jail. This is theft, fraud or wire fraud—it’s a federal crime!”

When Carol’s story became public, Roger said he heard from other people who were ripped off by the Clinton campaign. “I’ve heard this happened to other small donors,” Roger said. “People donated $25, but then when they received their credit card statement, they were charged $25 multiple times.”

The Wells Fargo Bank source said he’s apolitical but noted that the bank’s fraud department never received one call from a Donald Trump supporter claiming to have been overcharged by Trump’s campaign. “I’m only talking to you because what Hillary did is so messed up, she stole from her poorest supporters.”

Nothing New

The New York Times reported in 2007 that Clinton’s first presidential campaign had to refund and subtract hundreds of thousands of dollars from its first-quarter total often because donors’ credit cards were charged twice. Additionally, Clinton had to refund a stunning $2.8 million in donations, three times more than the $900K President Barack Obama’s campaign repaid.

A Clinton campaign worker named Kathy Callahan, who worked on Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008, claimed in a blog post that Clinton fraudulently overcharged her by several thousand dollars. She wrote that she voluntarily left the campaign’s finance committee after she discovered $3,000 in unauthorized charges made by Clinton’s campaign to her Visa card. Callahan said the unauthorized charges caused $400 in overdraft and bank charges and put Callahan over the legal donor limit. Callahan said that after a month of “begging and pleading,” she wasn’t able to get her money back until she threatened to go to authorities. However, when she was finally refunded her money, the Clinton campaign refused to compensate her for the $400 in overdraft and bank charges.

Summary

Do we need even to discuss the obvious here? Consider this:

• Since the Clintons both entered politics — first in Arkansas, then in Washington and New York — rumors of financial corruption have followed right along with them. Few Americans care to pay the price and invest the time and energy to investigate their financial wrongdoings. Quite honestly, there are quite a few  “wounded” Americans in their political wake! (“Wounded” here is an oxymoron!) You can even look outside the U.S. to Clinton Foundation issues. In Haiti, after the horrific earthquake, millions of dollars that flowed through the Clinton Foundation for aid to Haiti vanished. And financial nepotism put millions more in the pockets of Clinton cronies. Why should this latest DOJ report of Clinton Campaign fraud be surprising?
• Why do we not hear anything about any of this until after the fact? It seems that either the American Media is oblivious to the “news” that Clintons’ financial wrongdoing has been rampant or that the “Lame-Stream Media” simply do not care. No matter if it’s because of one or both, their doing so is a travesty.

I’ll close with this undeniable thought — my conclusion: Can you imagine how the heads of U.S. Media pundits would be exploding if Donald Trump was implicated in any such matters?

Oh, and then there’s this: what would be happening if the Clintons were back in the White House?