PrintOctober 23, 2008
'Adolf Hitler' donates to Obama campaign
Don't believe me? So has "John Galt," and "Nodda Realperson."
Today, the Republican National Committee filed another complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging massive fraud and lawbreaking by the Obama campaign in their fundraising activities.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) today filed a supplement to its complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against the Obama for America campaign addressing its acceptance of foreign national and excessive contributions, donations from unknown sources, and demonstrated lack of oversight or concern for compliance with the law. The complaint demonstrates that the Obama campaign has failed to comply with federal campaign finance law in its fundraising. RNC Chief Counsel Sean Cairncross released the following statement today concerning the supplement to the complaint:"Based on numerous press accounts that have come to light since our initial filing in early October, it is clear that the Obama for America campaign is operating outside of the law. The complete and total lack of any control mechanisms within the Obama campaign's fundraising operation has undermined any confidence in their ability to curtail excessive, foreign, and fraudulent contributions and demands immediate attention from the Federal Election Commission (FEC)."
That's only the half of it. It appears that Obama's fundraising apparatus has deliberately disabled a key piece of security software that would prevent "Adolf Hitler" from giving to his campaign.
Here's how "Mr. Hitler" did it:
Courtesy of my (real) CC number and expiration date, the Obama campaign has just received a $19.45 donation from mister Adolf Hitler, whose occupation is "Dictator" at the company "National Socialist Party of Ger" (I got cut off). I captured screenshots to prove this.No verification required. The listed address wasn't even close to my real address.While I hate to think I'm giving any money at all to these bastards, its worth it to prove once and for all that they are engaged in fraud. I will verify whether my card gets charged and report back.
Here's a credit card verification expert on what probable action taken by the campaign can result in these outrageous frauds:
It's called the Address Verification System (AVS). When you submit a credit card to the processor for authorization you get back one of four responses: zipcode match, address match, both match, or neither match. AVS is automatic and can't be turned off. You can, however, override it in special circumstances. It looks like Obama's web site has the AVS-override turned on permanently.
What happened when some of these folks tried to donate to the McCain campaign using the same bogus information? They were rejected, of course.
Another GOP tester of Obama's system gave money using his overseas credit card. It passed with flying colors. For contrast, anyone donating to Hillary Clinton's campaign from a bank overseas would have had to fax a copy of their passport in order to have the donation accepted.
Patrick Ruffini, who headed up Bush's 2004 web operation, explains what the Obama campaign is really up to:
The issue centers around the Address Verification Service (or AVS) that credit card processors use to sniff out phony transactions. I was able to contribute money using an address other than the one on file with my bank account (I used an address I control, just not the one on my account), showing that the Obama campaign deliberately disabled AVS for its online donors...
The end result? "Donors" like "Doodad Pro" can submit tons of donations totaling well above the $2,300 limit using different bogus addresses (this does clarify how donations from "Palestine", or PA, got through). And the campaign has no way to reliably de-dupe these donations, besides looking at the last four digits of the credit card number, which with 3.1 million donors is an identifier that could be shared by literally hundreds of donors, and is not as easy to eyeball like a common name or address would be. The ability to contribute with a false address, when the technology to prevent it not only exists but comes standard, is a green light for fraud.
A "green light" indeed.
Obama has raised mind boggling $605 million dollars for the primary and general election campaigns. If these safeguards were not in place, we are probably looking at the most massive lawbreaking in the history of United States election. It will make Nixon's puny efforts pale in comparison. And not even Bill Clinton could have come up with this kind of gargantuan scheme (he is probably jealous).
The FEC couldn't possibly investigate this before election day. So whatever penalties are handed out to Obama - be he president or not - won't come until long after he doesn't need any of that money.
