Monday, August 11, 2008

Monir Edwan and the Obama Campaign - The Saga Continues

Last week, the Wall Street Journal quoted Obama campaign officials as saying that they returned $33,500 in illegal donations from a trio of brothers living in the Gaza Strip by December 6 2007 - but they said the refunds weren’t reported to the FEC due to a technical error.

However, on Sunday the Atlas Shrugs' blog revealed that the FEC had sent two letters to the the Obama campaign seeking additional information regarding contributions it received that appeared to exceed the $2300 legal limit.

Among those questionable contributions, were donations from Monir and Hosam Edwan. The Obama campaign responded to the first letter in May 2008, but apparently the FEC was not satisfied with its response and sent out a second letter to the Obama campaign on July 30 2008 requesting additional information for sixteen pages of questionable contributions, including several of Monir Edwan's contributions.

So apparently, the Obama campaign failed to tell the FEC about the refunded money both in its original FEC report and in its response to the FEC's letter in May of 2008 (5 months after they allegedly returned the money). Otherwise, the FEC would have had no reason to further question them about these donations in its follow up letter (in July) - which makes the Obama campaign's claim - that it returned their donations in December - all the more difficult to swallow. And according to World Net Daily, the Wall Street Journal's attempt to brush off concerns about these contributions wasn't sitting well with the newspaper's readers either.

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