Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign is holding fundraisers in Mexico on Wednesday, expanding its offshore money operation one day after the New Hampshire primary.
Two events hosted by the Clinton campaign treasurer Jose Villarreal will be held in Mexico City. Clinton herself will not be attending.
One of the co-hosts of the fundraising dinner is Wal-Mart lobbyist Ivan Zapien, who relocated to Mexico with the company in 2015. Clinton served on the board of Wal-Mart from 1986-1992.
Overseas fundraisers are relatively common for leading presidential candidates,
though Mexico City is not itself a common destination. Donors attending must assert that they are U.S. citizens or lawfully admitted permanent residents of the United States.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/fundraising/268782-clinton-campaign-hosting-fundraisers-in-mexico
When it comes to funneling campaign contributions through donors, it's pretty damn easy, as Hillary has managed to do in NYC's Chinatown in her 2008 campaign. All donors, even those at Hill's multiple overseas fundraisers, must "assert" they are U.S. citizens. But the campaign organizations are on an honor system (LOL) to verify those assertions.
And while U.S. journalists tracked down the Clinton campaign's questionable donors in 2008 in NYC, what investigative reporters have the backing/financing/personal bodyguards necessary to track down the alleged donors in crime-riddled Mexico City? Pretty sweet deal for Hillary.
Hillary Clinton's Chinatown Tangle
Last June, Hillary Clinton's campaign gave back $7,000 to Chinese restaurant workers who contributed $1,000 apiece for a political fund-raiser. It was her campaign's token effort to stop a common campaign-finance abuse: the use of proxies by well-heeled donors trying to get around the $1,000 limit on campaign contributions. But however well intentioned, the effort points up the difficulty all of the presidential campaigns have in trying to police their political contributions.
The problem was that the low-paid restaurant workers did not seem capable of affording $1,000 donations — and thus, it appeared likely, may have been used as proxies by other big donors. Yet the Clinton campaign did not reimburse another 15 restaurant workers — including cooks, waiters, a dishwasher and cashier — who also wrote checks for the April 13 event in New York's Chinatown. Nor did it send back money from a garment worker and phone card clerk, not to mention 15 donors who had failed to list any occupations or register to vote.
Few Chinese-American workers in New York City's several Chinatowns will reveal how much they really make. At the same time, it is not uncommon to see waiters and dishwashers among other so called menial workers who are capable of paying for cars, plunking down large initial premiums for insurance policies or making sizable down payments on homes or apartments — in cash. The banks of Chinatown centered in Canal Street in Manhattan have combined deposits of $6 billion, behind only the ritzy Upper East Side ($8 billion) among New York City neighborhood.
That creates a particular problem in trying to figure out which donations are being funneled through proxies. Fund-raisers face pressure to gather large numbers of checks but have no responsibility to screen them. Fugitive businessman Norman Hsu drew attention to the $850,000 he bundled for Clinton because of some of the donations came from people of modest means.
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1679979,00.html
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