Opinion: Political bundler Norman Hsu -- remember him? -- admits fraud

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Quick update for all you waiters and postal workers out there who had hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to Democratic political campaigns in your name in recent years.

Your pal, Norman Hsu, pleaded guilty today in New York to 10 counts of wire and mail fraud. Seems he was also running a Ponzi scheme that cheated investors out of some $20 million. As well as arranging generous donations to politicians like Hillary Clinton from people who would seem unable to afford them.

‘I knew what I was doing was illegal,’ Hsu told the federal judge.

Still to come, a trial on four counts of violating federal campaign finance laws. The feds say Hsu made substantial donations in other people’s names to acquire access to and influence with some 50 politicians, whose friendship he would then advertise to draw in Ponzi investors.

‘He’s like a groupie,’ explained Hsu’s lawyer, Alan Seidler. ‘He just likes the political process.’

As blogger Don Surber describes it, ‘Hsu is Bernie Madoff’s Mini-Me.’

-- Andrew Malcolm

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