Wonkette and Blue Jersey report that Hillary Clinton's campaign ran up thousands of dollars worth of unauthorized charges on the credit card of a staffer.
Kathy Callahan, the lady whose money was allegedly charged to her accounts without her authorization, posted her story on Blue Jersey:
I voluntarily left the Hillary Finance Committee after I discovered more than $3,000 in unauthorized charges from HRC campaign on my own VISA card! And that set off a wave of overdrafts and $400 in bank charges that I was stuck with. And the compliance officer Allison Wright at Hillary VA headquarters refused to reimburse me for the charges. And the senior finance reps who I notified about more than $3,000 in unauthorized Visa Charges never once aplogized or empathized with my plight, much less sent me a "sorry for all the trouble" note and a check!
Unbelievably, it took me more than a month of pleading and begging via email to get the money back. I was told verbatim:
"Kathy Callahan, you are going to be with us all the way to the White House...So let's leave the money where it is and we'll save time on inevitable future donations and transactions!"
I went into a state of abject shock, disbelief and later anger! Heartbroken. I didn't want to report this entirely correctable problem to anyone outside the Hillary campaign! One long month later, and at the behest of a bank executive who said to me a few days before Christmas Eve, "You are way way way over the legal donor limit, Kathy! What are they thinking? Are they thinking at all?"
So I followed his direction and filed a police report in Ridgefield. I then notified Allison Wright and Cc'ed senior finance reps (who I met many times) via email again about the police report and said, "Enough is Enough, already! Christmas is coming!"
It was then and only then and within a matter of seconds that I got a cell phone call and email from Allison Wright imploring me, "Kathy, please don't do anything, formally! I will send you whatever you want back, immediately!" I told her, "You can send all of my money back!"
Finally, $5,300 large came back to me but not the $400 in overdraft charges. And to think that the legal limit during the primary is $2,300 and I had already generously and enthusiastically donated $2,000 to Hillary legitimately!
I had no other choice but to walk away! And I am so glad that I did. Every cloud has a green, gold and silver lining. And in my case it's Barack Obama.
Wonkette and Political Fleshfeast have picked it up.
These are serious allegations if true. If these allegations are true, then that means that today, March 10th, will be the day that the Clinton/Spitzer political machine was laid in shambles.
The problem is that all we have is this lady's word for it that all this happened. That is the curse of online blogging -- anyone can post and say whatever they want to about other people.
The burden of proof is on Obama's supporters to prove that these allegations are true. The way to provide the proof is to provide independent corraborating evidence that these things did in fact happen. Otherwise, these allegations should be thrown in the dustbin.
Update: Open Secrets checks out -- she did in fact make donations to the Hillary campaign. Also, from the Blue Jersey link:
I used a figure of speech that might be confusing for readers and I want to clarify: By December 18 I got all of my donations back.
I happily donated $2,000. They had my VISA card on file. Unauthorized donations were made.
In addition, I was actually double charged for an event that I did attend.
Smoking gun: $5,800 is $1,200 over the legal limit.
I would say this in a court of law. I am an honest person...the following statement is true down to the letter:
Matt McQuenney who works in the compliance department at HRC headquarters told me verbatim -"What happened to you with credit card errors is happening to others,. You are not alone. Kathy, I'm trying hard to find out where and who it's coming from. What's going on!"
The question at this point is, will other people come forward?
