McCain has a campaign bundler scandal

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

McCain campaign bundler Harry Sargeant III, a Florida Republican, has bundled more than $140,000 in campaign contributions for John McCain, largely from individuals of modest means who have never contributed to a presidential candidate before.  While reading what follows, keep in mind that it is illegal for foreigners to contribute their own money to U.S. campaigns. 

(In an earlier post Blog For Arizona: The Double Talk Express: McCain is a Fraud on Campaign Finance Reform I reported that the Rothschild family hosted a campaign fund raiser for McCain when he was in London, for which the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a complaint with the FEC, which remains pending).

As reported by Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post Bundler Collects From Unlikely Donors – washingtonpost.com:

The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Taco Bell stores in Riverside, the owners of a liquor store in Colton.

* * *

Harry Sargeant III, a former naval officer and the owner of an oil-trading company that recently inked defense contracts potentially worth more than $1 billion, is the archetype of a modern presidential money man. The law forbids high-level supporters from writing huge checks, but with help from friends in the Middle East and the former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit — who now serves as a consultant to his company — Sargeant has raised more than $100,000 for three presidential candidates from a collection of ordinary people, several of whom professed little interest in the outcome of the election.

* * *

The 2008 presidential campaign, which could see each side spend close to $500 million, has heightened the importance of "bundlers" such as Sargeant, who not only write checks themselves but also recruit scores of other donors to give the legal limit of $2,300. Questions about such donor networks have repeatedly emerged as points of stress for the campaigns.

* * *

Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant’s network live in modest homes in Southern California’s Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March.

Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money.

"I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I’ve got a lot of friends," Sargeant said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I ask my friends to support candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually come through for me."

Donors reached by phone or interviewed in person declined to explain who asked them to make the contributions.

Ibrahim Marabeh, who is listed in public records as a Rite Aid manager, at first denied that he wrote any political checks. He then said he was asked by "a local person. But I would like not to talk about it anymore."

* * *

[N]adia and Shawn Abdalla, who are not registered to vote, said in an interview that they recalled writing a check to an organization in Miami, because a person with that organization was a friend of their mother’s. They said they could not remember his name.

Nader, 39, and Sahar Alhawash, 28, of Colton, Calif…  declined to comment about the donations.

* * *

Abdullah Abdullah, a supervisor at several Taco Bell restaurants in the Riverside area, and his wife have donated $9,200 to McCain.

Reached at work, Abdullah said he knows little about the campaign. "I have no idea. I’ll be honest with you," he said.  "I’m involved in the restaurant business. My brother Faisal recommended John McCain. Whenever he makes a recommendation, we do it."

Faisal Abdullah, 49, said he helped organize all of the contributions from members of his family. When he was asked who solicited the contributions from him, he said: "Why does it matter who? I’m telling you we made the contribution. We funneled it through the channel in Florida because that’s the contact we had. I was responsible for collecting it."

Matthew Mosk raises the right question: was it legal for Sargeant’s foreign co-worker to solicit political contributions?  More Questions About a McCain Bundler | The Trail | washingtonpost.com.

Sargeant told The New York Times this morning that he at times left the task of collecting the checks to a longtime business partner, Mustafa Abu Naba’a. The problem with that is that Abu Naba’a is not an American citizen. According to court records, Abu Naba’a is a dual citizen of Jordan and the Dominican Republic.

The law on this question appears to be unclear, said Fred Wertheimer, a campaign finance expert who runs the advocacy group, Democracy 21.

"There’s probably very little law on this," Wertheimer said. "If it is not illegal for a foreign national to bundle checks, it ought to be, since it’s illegal for a foreign national to make contributions in the first place."

Paul Ryan, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, said the Federal Election Commission has not explicitly addressed the question. Ryan said there appeared to be conflicting thoughts on this in a 2004 advisory opinion.

The New York Times then reported Family’s Donations to McCain Raise Questions – NYTimes.com that:

The Jordanian business partner of a prominent Florida businessman, who has raised more than $500,000 for Senator John McCain, appears to be at the center of a cluster of questionable donations to his presidential campaign.

Campaign finance records show Mr. McCain collected a little more than $50,000 in March from members of a single extended family, the Abdullahs, in California and several of their friends.

* * *

The donations are also startling because of their size: several donors initially wrote checks of $9,200, exceeding the $2,300 limit for an individual gift.

Making matters murkier, some couples in the family who contributed more than $9,000 to Mr. McCain also gave the maximum in December to either Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton or Rudolph W. Giuliani, or both, totaling in the case of at least one family more than $18,000.

* * *

It appears, however, that Mr. Sargeant, the finance chairman of the Florida Republican Party and the part-owner of a major oil trading firm, International Oil Trading Company, did not actually solicit the donations from the Abdullahs and their friends.

* * *

Through Mr. Abu Naba’a’s connections, Mr. Sargeant has raised more than $100,000 in contributions from several dozen Arab Americans in California, including the Abdullahs, for four candidates: Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Giuliani, Mr. McCain and Charlie Crist in his successful campaign for Florida governor in 2006. Mr. Crist is a close friend and college fraternity brother of Mr. Sargeant.

Several of the donors were emphatic in interviews that they had made the contributions on their own and had not been reimbursed. Indeed, while the donors do not fit the typical profile of people who often make large political donations, it appears many have made relatively successful livings, toiling away at small businesses they own: an auto repair shop, a discount stereo warehouse, a realty company.

* * *

Faisal Abdullah, a Palestinian immigrant who works as a director of operations of a window treatment company, identified himself in an interview as the driver behind the McCain donations from his relatives and friends. He sent them to Mr. Abu Naba’a, whom Mr. Abdullah described as an acquaintance.

* * *

He told his friends and relatives that the contributions were tax-deductible, something he later seemed surprised to learn from a reporter was not true. Many in his circle appear to have little affection for Mr. McCain but said they gave mostly as a favor to Mr. Abdullah.

Only after the Washington Post and New York Times raised questions about the campaign donations did the McCain campaign announce that it would review all donations brought in by Harry Sargeant III.  McCain campaign is reviewing bundler’s donations – washingtonpost.com  "McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said Mustafa Abu Naba’a is not a bundler for the campaign, although Sargeant is. He wasn’t registered, and he hasn’t contributed," Rogers said of Mustafa Abu Naba’a."

This potential scandal follows closely on the heels of another potential scandal, the McCain campaign donations received from employees of Hess Oil shortly after McCain flip-flopped his position on offshore oil drilling.  Lobbyists for Hess Oil work for the McCain campaign, and Hess Oil will directly benefit from this policy shift.  (see earlier post).

Harry Sargeant III and his foreign business partner Mustafa Abu Naba’a appear to be some shady characters who were sued by their "former associate Mohammad Anwar Farid Al-Saleh, who happens to be the brother-in-law of the King of Jordan, offer[ing] a glimpse into the business relationship between Mr. Abu Naba’a and Mr. Sargeant and the nature of their lucrative work. The suit, which was reported on by MSNBC earlier this year (in this piece), alleges that Mr. Sargeant and Mr. Abu Naba’a cut Mr. Al-Saleh out of his rightful one-third share of their company, International Oil Trading Company (IOTC)."

"It also highlights the apparent close ties that IOTC was able to forge with the Jordanian government as part of a lucrative contract it eventually landed with the Pentagon to transport aviation fuel to the military in Iraq." More on McCain Fund-Raiser – The Caucus – Politics – New York Times Blog

Last month, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) initiated a review of IOTC’s contract to determine whether it was overcharging the military for jet fuel, and to learn how the company, which did not submit the lowest bid, landed the contract to supply the fuel. The Pentagon has said that IOTC won the contract because it was the only company with a "letter of authorization" from the Jordanian government to move the fuel across its territory to Iraq.

Sargeant said he has met with Waxman. "We plan to cooperate fully," he said. "Everything we have done on this contract has been in the best interest of the military and the U.S. taxpayers."  Bundler Collects From Unlikely Donors – washingtonpost.com

This story deserves the same intense scrutiny from the media that the Buddhist Temple fund raiser for Al Gore and Clinton bundler Norman Hsu received.  In January, Norman Hsu was indicted in part on charges of circumventing legal giving limits by routing contributions though "straw donors."

Given the tendency of Republicans to characterize all Arabs and Muslims as being "Islamic terrorists," the prevalence of Arabic names as campaign contributors to the McCain campaign – through a Jordanian contact no less – ought to make most Republicans question "what the hell is going on here?"

Bottom line: Sargeant is one of McCain’s top campaign bundlers, and is a shady character both for his questionable fund raising for McCain and his questionable contract for jet fuel in Iraq with the Pentagon. There’s a lot of rich material here that reporters ought to be digging through for answers.