Uh-oh. Norman Hsu has CONFESSED to orchestrating a massive fraud scheme. NOW will the Tennessee Democrat Party return the $58,000 they received in 2006 to run state and federal races?

Will Tennessee Democrat Chairman Gray Sasser stand by his “we already spent it” excuse?

Tennessee Democrat Chairman Gray Sasser is apparently unfazed at receiving $58,000 in Hsu funds that by Hsu’s own admission were obtained through fraud.

Norman Hsu confesses to pyramid scheme and pressuring investors to donate to political candidates. The complaint states that Hsu admitted that he made implied threats to his investors to pressure them to contribute to political candidates he supported.

The Wall Street Journal has the full complaint in a pdf file here. It’s a fascinating read and the details of numerous victims are recounted.

From the Smoking Gun:

SEPTEMBER 20–Norman Hsu, the disgraced Hillary Clinton fundraiser, confessed to the FBI last week that his purported business empire was nothing but a pyramid scheme and that he pressured the investors he duped into contributing to political candidates he supported. Hsu was named today in a three-count criminal complaint charging him with mail and wire fraud, and a violation of federal election law. According to the complaint, an excerpt of which you’ll find below, Hsu contacted FBI agents last Thursday and said he “wanted to speak with them about his current criminal activity without his lawyers present.”

From the Washington Post:

Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu confessed to federal agents that he orchestrated a massive fraud scheme and pressured his investors into donating money to political candidates, according to a criminal complaint unsealed by the Justice Department today.

The U.S. attorney for New York’s southern district today filed the criminal charges against Hsu for allegedly putting together the $60 million pyramid fraud scheme and committing related federal campaign finance crimes.

and this:

The complaint against Hsu alleges that he took money from a broad group of investors in California, New York and New Jersey, always under the pretense of running a clothing import business. In fact, the complaint alleges, there never was an import business. Money from each new investor was merely being used to pay off previous ones, in what the FBI called a “classic Ponzi scheme.”

The Washington Post also notes some faces from the past in Hillary’s campaign fundraising:

A list of the donors who have “bundled” large sums from dozens of individuals to give to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign includes several figures who were involved in the 1990s Democratic Party fundraising scandal that tarnished her husband’s record.
Among them is an Oklahoma oilman who testified in the mid-1990s that the firm he worked for, owned by Democratic fundraisers, sought to curry favor with Bill Clinton’s administration by providing payments and a golf club membership to a Cabinet secretary’s son.

and this:

Clinton includes on her list of “Hillraisers” — those who have committed to raising more than $100,000 for her White House bid — several financiers linked to past troubles. They include Marvin Rosen, the former Democratic National Committee finance chairman whose efforts to reward six-figure party donors with attendance at White House coffees and overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom became the focal point of Senate hearings into fundraising abuses. Rosen did not return messages left at his offices in Florida and New York.