Dubious Donations Illustrated (Illegal Contributor Edition)

The Obama re-election campaign fundraising scandal deserves to be, and I think inevitably will be, a major news story. Earlier this morning I decided to find out how far an illegal donor could push the envelope and still have his contribution welcomed by the Obama campaign. So, like a number of our readers, I went to the Donate to Obama page and identified myself as Illegal Contributor. I entered my address as Cell Block 13, State Penitentiary, Stillwater MN. I identified my employer as Minnesota Penal System and my occupation as Inmate. Here is a screen shot showing the donation from Illegal Contributor:

Here are my employer and occupation:

I put a $3 contribution on one of my credit cards, and the Obama campaign accepted it. The campaign site automatically prompted me to set up a “Grassroots Fundraising” site, so I did. I identified myself as “Illegal Contributor” and added a graphic of an inmate behind bars. I included the legend “Illegal contributions wanted!” and this fundraising blurb:

Barack Obama is a money machine, but let’s not take any chances! Come to this page to make your illegal contributions. It’s easy, because the Obama campaign facilitates fraud!

My Obama Grassroots Fundraising page is here; it will be interesting to see how long it stays up, especially after this post. This is a screen shot of Illegal Contributor’s Obama Grassroots Fundraising page:

The Obama campaign acknowledged my contribution and sent this email to [email protected]:

It is inconceivable that the Obama campaign disables all credit card security measures (unlike every other presidential campaign) for any reason other than to facilitate violations of the campaign finance laws. The Obama campaign has deliberately set up its fundraising system so that legal contribution limits can easily be circumvented, and illegal contributions from foreign nationals can be accepted. It is ironic that Democrats fulminate about Citizens United and the need for disclosure of donors to non-campaign-related organizations, when the Obama re-election campaign is one gigantic fraud, structured to facilitate violation of federal campaign finance laws.

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