PrintSeptember 6, 2007
Hsu Fly (updated)
Norman Hsu has skipped, following the path of so many Clinton donors with apparent foreign sources of money who are under investigation. The question is why did the judge ever let him out on bail after he'd skipped the first time, fifteen years ago?
Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu (SHOO) has failed to appear for a bail hearing in Redwood City.Hsu forfeits the $2 million bail he posted last week. A judge has issued a new warrant for his arrest.Hsu's lawyer says he doesn't know where he is.Hsu has been a fugitive in California for 15 years during which time he became a top donor to Democratic candidates, including presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.
I wonder what the hell the San Mateo prosecutors and judge were thinking and why the FBI wasn't shadowing him. His lawyer said they'd been in contact with him just hours before the hearing but won't describe the communications they used -- i.e. phone or fax or in person.
We are now officially in a Clintonian banana republic again.
He promised to turn in his passport in. His lawyer Brosnahan said an attorney from his office searched Hsu's New York apartment on Tuesday and couldn't find it. The New York Times reports Hsu flew into Oakland on a private plane at 5:30 a.m. and that was the last anyone saw him.
I think the judge and prosecutors were dopes. I'd never have left a man with this level of flight risk out of prison. The FBI most certainly should have been surveilling him. He will never be heard of again, I'm afraid.
Gateway Pundit notes some inconsistencies in the statements by Brosnahan:
Hsu's lawyer Jim Brosnahan is quoted in the media giving two different versions on democratic donor and Fugitive Hsu's whereabouts.
The Associated Press reported this news on Norman Hsu this evening:"Mr. Hsu is not here and we do not know where Mr. Hsu is," Brosnahan said outside court. Brosnahan said that "there was some contact" with Hsu a few hours before the scheduled 9 a.m. court appearance, but he declined to say how and who talked to Hsu...
Brosnahan (Hsu's lawyer) said he didn't know if Hsu returned to his Manhattan condominium or stayed in California after his five-hour jail stint Friday when Hsu turned himself in. He was released from jail after posting $2 million bail, which a judge refused then to reduce to $1 million.But the SFGate reported this from Hsu's lawyer Brosnahan:A judge ordered him to surrender his passport, and Brosnahan said one of his legal assistants went to Hsu's New York condominium on Monday to retrieve it. Hsu was in California at the time, Brosnahan said. The assistant followed Hsu's directions, but couldn't locate the passport after 90 minutes of searching, the attorney said.
Brosnahan said someone had been in contact with Hsu a few hours before the 9 a.m. hearing, but he declined to comment on who it was and whether that contact was by phone or other means.So, in one interview Brosnahan says he does not know if Hsu went back to NYC or stayed in California and in the next interview he says that Hsu was in California on Monday.
Also, don't you think if someone from the defense team spoke with Hsu a few hours before the court appearance this morning that they would have asked Hsu where he was?
It sounds like Brosnahan knows more on Hsu than he is telling.
Whether or not this indicates he was dissembling or that there is some ambiguity in his remarks -- i.e., Hsu was not in NY on Monday but may have been there on another day between the two hearings-- I don't think the judge, the prosecutors or the FBI inspire confidence in their good sense.
Update: Al Johnson writes:
You really do have to wonder at the Justice Department's, and especially the FBI's, seeming lack of interest in Norman Hsu's movements. This is a guy who's been a federal fugitive for fifteen years, having traveled not only interstate but internationally while a fugitive from California justice. It appears that he has connections to known Chinese agents like Ted Sioeng, who figured prominently in the Clinton era campaign finance investigation that the FBI somehow allowed to die on the vine. Now Hsu resurfaces, still involved in funny money campaign financing. If there were ever a worthy subject of federal counterintelligence as well as campaign finance investigations, our boy Hsu would seem to be one. And yet... The FBI had too little interest to follow his movements for the past few days. What other agency in this great nation of ours has the resources and the investigative jurisdiction to take an interest in Norman Hsu, if not the FBI? One would think Director Mueller thinks 2008 will see a new Democratic master for the Bureau.
Update: Al Johnson writes:
You really do have to wonder at the Justice Department's, and especially the FBI's, seeming lack of interest in Norman Hsu's movements. This is a guy who's been a federal fugitive for fifteen years, having traveled not only interstate but internationally while a fugitive from California justice. It appears that he has connections to known Chinese agents like Ted Sioeng, who figured prominently in the Clinton era campaign finance investigation that the FBI somehow allowed to die on the vine. Now Hsu resurfaces, still involved in funny money campaign financing. If there were ever a worthy subject of federal counterintelligence as well as campaign finance investigations, our boy Hsu would seem to be one. And yet... The FBI had too little interest to follow his movements for the past few days. What other agency in this great nation of ours has the resources and the investigative jurisdiction to take an interest in Norman Hsu, if not the FBI? One would think Director Mueller thinks 2008 will see a new Democratic master for the Bureau.
