Hsu seems to have been a fugitive from justice, failing to appear for sentencing after a “no contest” plea in a 1991 case. Which was white collar crime. Which, in this country is treated, often, as a minor pecadillo, not a real crime, like armed robbery for $4. The fact that Hsu seems to have been living a public life, under his own name, indicates to me that the authorities in question didn’t give a damn about what he was doing. Which is about what I’d expect for most white collar crime.
It’s a shame. And the lack of pursuit for Hsu may even prove to have been a criminal act on someone’s part. (Though I doubt it.)
That he has been accused of illegally using friends and family to funnel campaign contributions to various Democratic campaigns is disturbing, if proven, but at the moment all we have are allegations.
But as shady as Hsu might be, just how far does anyone expect a political candidate to vette their campaign finance people? The red-flags that people are talking about are mostly fifteen years old - most reasonable people would assume that something that old were literally old news - a dead issue.
Unless, and until, someone can prove that someone with authority in the Clinton campaign had concrete evidence that Hsu was on the run and then they took the money anyways, I’m not going to tar Clinton with this, any more than I blame various Republican campaigns for recieving monies from Kenneth Lay.
As a criticism of Hillary, or Barrack Obama, this just seems a complete non-starter. I agree it’s newsworthy, but claiming that voters “need” to see it seems a bit much.
In the interests of full disclosure - I’ve been disgusted by the various campaign finance reform movements of recent years. Each successive set of regulations and laws seem to be announced as a panacea to fix all that’s wrong with campaign finance, and to eliminate the shady influence donors may have over elected officials. And even before the laws are signed, the flaws get published. At this point, I am cynically convinced that there are a signifigant fraction of donations to any campaign that will be shady. All one can do is hope that a specific candidate will have the fortitude to avoid caving to special favors once they have the power of their elected seat. If we’re willing to accept that it takes millions of dollars to run a campaign for national elections, we have to accept that the money has to come from somewhere.
(Apologies to my Canadian friends).