Posted by Jeff from bgp01107368bgs.wbrmfd01.mi.comcast.net (68.42.59.180) on Friday, June 14, 2002 at 10:09AM :
***Editorial Note:
The Chaldeans may have money, but sometimes their mentality is too old world. They need to realize that buying politicans will only get them empty promises.
Had those Chaldeans put $400,000 in a bank account and started an organization to help lift the sanctions (or just donated the interest to Voices in the Wilderness or something) they would have spent their money better.
At a modest interest rate of 5% per year, from 1996 to now, that money would have generated over $120,000 in interest.
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Iraqi family gave Democrats $400,000, according to Detroit paper
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Copyright © 1996 Nando.net
Copyright © 1996 Reuter Information Service
WASHINGTON (Nov 4, 1996 5:06 p.m. EST) - An Iraqi-American family who
supported lifting the U.N. embargo against Iraq to allow in food and
medicine gave $400,000 to the Democratic party at a single fundraiser,
the Detroit Free Press reported Monday.
Republicans charged it was the latest in a series of fund-raising
irregularities by President Clinton's re-election team, but Democrats
said the contribution was entirely legal.
With the campaign in its last day, the Free Press reported the Danou
family of Bloomfield Township, Michigan, gave the money at a fundraiser
they helped organize Oct. 21 for Iraqi Americans that was attended by
the president.
The Free Press said Clinton discussed relaxing sanctions against Iraq
and quoted a niece of chief organizer Samir Danou as saying the
president was receptive to the idea and "promised to work toward lifting
the embargo and help send food and medicine to the kids and the Iraqi
people."
The fundraiser attracted many prominent members of the Iraqi Christian
Chaldean American community, long opponents of Saddam Hussein but many
with relatives in Iraq where medicine and food have been reported to be
in short supply because of U.S.-backed sanctions imposed by the United
Nations.
Republicans said the report was another example that foreign policy was
for sale in the Clinton administration. The report followed stories that
the Democratic party had accepted possibly illegal campaign
contributions from Indonesian and Korean businessmen and that Taiwan had
allegedly offered to donate $15 million to the Clinton campaign in 1995.
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Amy Weiss Tobe called the
Republican attacks "another desperate attack by a desperate party at the
11th hour. It will not work."
She said the donations appeared to be legal and ordinary. "This was just
a regular fundraiser."
Republican Party Chairman Haley Barbour called the latest contribution
part of a continuing questionable pattern of contributions made by
foreigners -- from a Buddhist nun to Indonesian and Korean businessmen
-- to the Democratic Party.
In his final campaign blitz, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole
hammered away at Clinton for taking foreign contributions, saying at
several stops, "In my administration, I will not sell access to the
White House."
DNC officials admitted Sunday they had made mistakes with regard to
donations and had "failed to adequately scutinize donors" because they
were so swamped with donations.
The Free Press said Samir Danou, who has lived in the United States
since 1965, has been a regular contributor to both the Democratic and
Republican parties over the years, giving $1,000 contributions to both
Clinton and Dole earlier this year and donating $25,000 during the last
two years to the Republican National Committee.
While Congress has slapped limits on what individuals can donate to
presidential candidates, there are no limits on so-called "soft money"
contributions to party organization work, leading to current concerns
about campaign financing.
And even though it is illegal for foreigners to contribute to political
campaigns, legal aliens living in the United States can give money.
Over the weekend, Republican spokesmen raised questions about a
photograph taken at a 1993 fundraiser of Clinton and Grigori
Loutchansky, who has been linked in press reports to the KGB and Russian
organized crime. The Republicans said Loutchansky even had a private
meeting with Clinton.
But Democrats said an invitation to Loutchansky to attend a second
fundraiser two years later was withdrawn when it was discovered that
questions had been raised about his assets in 1994
-- Jeff
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