BlogWonks

I’ve touched on this particular subject before, but now the Washington Post has surprisingly picked up on the story as well. The Obama campaign intentionally shut off the security features on their website to allow people to make illegal campaign donations to Barack Obama. Here’s what the WaPo has to say about the matter:

Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.

In recent weeks, questionable contributions have created headaches for Obama’s accounting team as it has tried to explain why campaign finance filings have included itemized donations from individuals using fake names, such as Es Esh or Doodad Pro. Those revelations prompted conservative bloggers to further test Obama’s finance vetting by giving money using the kind of prepaid cards that can be bought at a drugstore and cannot be traced to a donor.

It’s is very doubtful that the Obama campaign has returned all of these fraudulent donations, which add up conservatively to at least 30 million dollars or so.  But, even if they have, the fact that they facilitated fraud and didn’t do anything about it until they got caught speaks volumes about how sleazy and unethical Barack Obama and his campaign organization are. There is nothing that Obama will not do to try to win this election.