RNC Filing FEC Complaint Over Obama's Excessive, Secret, and Foreign Campaign Cash [Update: $34 Million In Particularly Filthy Lucre]

Instapundit notes an email from the RNC that reads:

"Republican National Committee (RNC) Chief Counsel Sean Cairncross will announce today a complaint that the RNC is filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against the Obama campaign. The complaint will address foreign national and excessive contributions accepted by the Obama campaign that demonstrate it is operating outside of federal campaign finance law."

The presumption is that the complaint relates to the pattern of thousands of evidently fictitious small-dollar donations Obama has accepted from donors like "Will, Good" and "Pro, Doodad" (irregularities that have already invited requests for verification from the FEC).  For contributions under $200, the FEC requires significantly fewer contributor details to be published by the campaign, unless and until their aggregate contributions exceed that threshold.

"Will" and "Pro" often reported similar nonsense (e.g. "Loving" and "You") as their employers of record and sometimes resorted to simple gibberish and random strings of letters that neighbor each other on the keyboard.

The country of origin for more than 10,000 contributions has also raised eyebrows at the FEC, with 520 appearing to originate in Iran alone.

The suspicion (my suspicion, anyway) is that these thousands of apparently bogus contribution records are being used to illicitly funnel tens (if not hundreds) of thousands [or tens of millions, per update below] of dollars to the campaign on behalf of contributors who either 1) have very deep pockets, but have already maxed out their personal contributions and need a way to shovel unlimited funds under the radar, or 2) are not U.S. citizens and are therefore prohibited from contributing.

After all, the campaign's displeasure at the Americans-only restrictions of American elections is well documented.

It's hard to imagine such a large scheme being perpetrated without one of more campaign treasury staffers being complicit (or grossly, willfully thick-headed).  In the past, the campaign has issued partial refunds related to these highly suspect donors, but (in another move that's marvelously idiotic in its most innocent interpretation) didn't refund enough to bring those donors anywhere near the $4,600 contribution limit.

Nor is this precisely strike 1 (or strikes 1-10,000, rather) for the Obama campaign.  Long-time readers will recall that no politician outside of New York took more dirty money from Norman Hsu and his band of straw donors than Barack Obama - more than $70,000 in total.  An unconfirmed account relayed to me at the time (by someone in a position to know such things) also maintained that representatives from the Obama campaign approached Hsu when they caught wind of his Clintonian largesse and began asking questions about where all of his money was coming from, agreeing to keep their mouths shut only when Hsu agreed to grease Obama's palm.

This is obviously just a distraction on the part of people who don't want to talk about socializing healthcare or imposing windfall profit taxes on select businesses, but I suppose for real law and order buffs, determining the extent of federal malfeasance perpetrated by the Obama campaign might be of at least passing interest.

Previously:  Good Will Funneling

Update:  Amanda Carpenter has much more info on the complaint (which will be formally filed on Monday), including this nugget.

RNC General Counsel Sean Carincross said various press reports have called into question at least 11,500 donors names. Those names donated approximately $33.8 million to Obama's campaign.

Carincross said, "There were no quality control devices," such as a method to verify a U.S. passport if a citizen was donating to Obama's campaign from overseas. He said he believed Obama had knowingly accepted foreign donations and taken no reasonable action to investigate the illegal donations.

For reference, $33.8 million represents roughly half of Obama's cash on hand, as of the most recent filing.