Queens Couple Makes Questionable $61,600 Donation to McCain, RNC

[Amerigo Vespucci]

McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman.

Despite what appears to be a middle-class lifestyle, the couple has written $61,600 in checks to John McCain’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, most of it within days of McCain’s decision to endorse offshore oil drilling.

A former FEC official said that it’s possible that the Rocchios had the means to make those hefty contributions — their first reported donations to a federal campaign. But the official, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that their donations also could trigger a complaint or otherwise catch the eyes of the agency’s enforcement staff, tasked to ensure that companies or wealthy individuals don’t illegally circumvent contribution limits by using employees or other third parties as “conduits” for cash. Read on…

TPM has been all over this story and it now appears that the Rocchios aren’t the only ones who are under the microscope for questionable donations to McCain and the RNC. And is it a coincidence that only a week after donations from a major American oil company low level employee, Flip Flop McCain changes his attitude on off-shore drilling? On top of that, in a TPM update, the Rocchios are renters and that their donations exceed the median household income for the area they live in.

Late Update: There’s a bit of dispute over whether Flushing, Queens, should be described as “middle class” or “lower middle class.” It turns out that the median household income in the Rocchios’ zip code is $58,069. Read on…

When the Norman Hsu story broke, Hillary Clinton was pounded day after day by the media, so we should expect them to be all over this story — right? Perhaps Keith Olbermann will run with this story and give it the national scrutiny it deserves.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/06/queens-couple-makes-questionable-61600-donation-to-mccain-rnc/

[jazzjunkysue]

1. Who says pimping your wife at Sturgis didn't pay?

[anonymous171]

2. Wow. This looks like it has legs.

Obama should push this somehow.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

3. I think we need to know everything there is to know about Alice & Pasquale Rocchio

Agreed, the legs are there...now who's gonna take this one and run with it? Hopefully Olbermann, as Crooks & Liars suggests.

[Muttocracy]

4. hmmm

:popcorn:

[file83]

5. Tip of the iceberg, perhaps??? Now we know what Exxon's doing with all that extra $$$ profit.

I hope this iceberg sinks McLame's ship.

[gblady]

9. Tip of iceberg...

was exactly where my mind went after reading that...
could get very interestingQ

[FrenchieCat]

6. See, this is the kind of shit that I'm paying attention to....

not the Veepstakes.

Those are boring to me.

Now this. This and stuff like it could make a difference.

[Franc_Lee]

7. Can you imagine how many more Alice Rocchio's there are out there?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

8. "GOP Sleeper Cells"...

...thousands of Al Queda...er, I mean, GOP operatives, waiting for the word to go into action and take on their role as a "McCain Donor."

[Heather MC]

10. HMMMMM.......My theory stop me if I am going off the deep in but.....

I keep reading articles about Middle-Class families donating unusually large sums of money to McCain's Camp. One even saying he would not Vote for McCain.



What is going here?

My crazy Theory is these people are being given the money so they can write the checks in their name. and for their silence they keep to keep a small percentage for themselves. But the money is really coming from one source. Someone who wants to donate millions to McCain but they can't so they have figured out a seemingly legal way around it.



Each campaign has Donation Bundler's who go around fund raising large sums of money in the form of several small CONTRIBUTORS. But McCain's Donators seem to be giving above and beyond their means

FISHY!!!!

[KittyWampus]

11. good angle. How much of money being laundered through middle class donators to McCain

is being kept by these people for themselves?

[Heather MC]

12. Who knows I do know this is a practice people who are Overseas

do.
I meet this guy through an Ebay purchase gone bad some years back who said he answered an email asking him to hold money in his account and move it to another account. He was allowed to keep 2% of the money as payment. that's 2% of 100K. he said he didn't know if it was illegal or not but who cares he had made a lot of money.

Considering he didn't know me from Adam he was being completely honest and flippant about it.
Prehaps they are employing that plan with these people. I mean who would have thought people would investigate each and every donor