Wednesday, September 05, 2007
The running Hsu
I wrote last week that the latest Democratic fundraising controversy, involving the strange Norman Hsu, would die as a political story unless some ambitious prosecutor squeezed Hsu into fingering a foreign benefactor or a leading Democrat who knew that Hsu was not on the up-and-up.
Well, Hsu bailed on his bail and is again on the lam. Unless we catch him before he slips the country no prosecutor is going to get the chance to find out whether Norman Hsu is an agent for a foreign power.
Hsu is running to avoid prison. It will be hard, though, for such a famous man to avoid capture even by the crack law enforcement personnel that have been hunting Hsu indefatigably theoretically assigned to his case for the last 15 years. Unless he gets help. Does Hsu have a client who will give it to him?
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
13 Comments:
By 
Ray, at
Wed Sep 05, 05:10:00 PM:
I doubt profoundly that Hsu was channeling a foreign power's money. Foreign intelligence services are notoriously finicky with their money, and would want a very solid return for the kinds of money he was throwing around.
I don't think Aldrich Ames was paid more over his entire career than Hsu bundled in one election cycle.
Far more likely the guy's into some sort of con game for influence.
By 
, at
Wed Sep 05, 05:25:00 PM:
My vote is George Soros money. Has Hsu met the same fate as Vince Foster but discarded? We have had worse than Putin in the big House, and looking to live there again. Just a thought.
SEW
By , at
Wed Sep 05, 05:39:00 PM:
He sleeps with the fishes. The PRC's intel services don't tolerate this kind of screw up very well.
By , at
Wed Sep 05, 06:26:00 PM:
His crime stealing $1 million, and the bail he jumped (which he posted in cash) was $2 million. I very much doubt he'll be found, and I think it impossible to believe his sentence was going to be all that ugly since he was offering full restitution. The crime was a California state crime, and since they are being required to release all non-violent offenders under court order he might conceivably served very little or even no time.
By antithaca, at
Wed Sep 05, 06:49:00 PM:
really fanning the conspiratoral flames eh?
-- not that I don't share your view --
it's just a quirky read.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Sep 05, 06:58:00 PM:
"I doubt profoundly that Hsu was channeling a foreign power's money. Foreign intelligence services are notoriously finicky with their money, and would want a very solid return for the kinds of money he was throwing around."
And just how many hundreds of millions of dollars were thrown around during the Cold War specifically to found, fund, and manipulate political parties? One of the CIA's first coups was interfering in Italy's national elections and preventing a communist regime from coming to power there.
The Brits, the Russians, the Germans, and the Americans all did it. And probably still do.
By , at
Wed Sep 05, 07:56:00 PM:
I don't think Aldrich Ames was paid more over his entire career than Hsu bundled in one election cycle.
I don't recall the Russians ever holding $1 Trillion in U. S. Government debt. Remember, if you owe enough, you've no longer got a creditor, but a partner.
By Ray, at
Wed Sep 05, 08:12:00 PM:
dawnfire: never to one person, and never without a significant return. Foreign intelligence services don't have unlimited budgets -- they're experts at the art of making do with less. And it's difficult to conceive of a foreign intelligence service hiring a fugitive as a political agent of influence, let alone a brain-dead fugitive.
I've yet to hear that Hsu got anything for his pains other than getting "super-duper ranger" status, which presumably got him a framed picture with Dem higherups.
And he's not shown any signs of IQ -- skipping bail for a case where he could very easily have plea-bargained himself to a nice short stint in Club Fed (assuming any jail time at all was involved) is the height of stupidity.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Sep 05, 08:49:00 PM:
"dawnfire: never to one person,"
How do you think we purchased the loyalties of all those Afghan warlords in 2001?
Answer: With suitcases full of money.
And (theoretically) from the Chinese government's point of view, they were giving all that money to one party, not one person, which makes perfect sense if they want that party to succeed. Again, the Russians and Americans both played this game. That one agent might control the actual disbursement to a certain group is completely rational. That other agents are (or, more likely, were until recently) present doing the same thing is also completely rational.
"and never without a significant return."
Give person X $30,000 to steal secrets with a promise of more later, and they might become a devoted mole. Or, they might just take the 30 and disappear. Investment in an intelligence asset is an investment; there's no guarantee of results. And if you're unwilling to take a chance and bet on small fries, you aren't going to be getting many agents. Many of the great spies were recruited while they were nobodies, and only gradually came into positions of influence and knowledge. Good example was the "Magnificent Five" in Britain during the Cold War. Robert Hanssen is another.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Five
Resources are 'wasted' all the time when sources croak, lie, defect, or get scared off.
"Foreign intelligence services don't have unlimited budgets"
I had no idea that the PRC was so strapped for cash that they couldn't invest in manipulating the election process of their chief geopolitical rival. Again. Who knew?
"And it's difficult to conceive of a foreign intelligence service hiring a fugitive as a political agent of influence, let alone a brain-dead fugitive."
Why? He apparently succeeded for more than 10 years.
"I've yet to hear that Hsu got anything for his pains other than getting "super-duper ranger" status, which presumably got him a framed picture with Dem higherups."
Which implies that he was not motivated in this by greed/money or recognition/ego. That leaves ideology and coercion. I can't imagine him being coerced into raising and giving away money, so that leaves ideology. Whose, is the question.
"And he's not shown any signs of IQ -- skipping bail for a case where he could very easily have plea-bargained himself to a nice short stint in Club Fed (assuming any jail time at all was involved) is the height of stupidity."
This is operating from the assumption that he's just a normal guy.
However, pretend that he has more to hide.
Suddenly, it's worth doing to keep himself out of the hands of the authorities.
By Ray, at
Wed Sep 05, 09:37:00 PM:
dawnfire:
The Afghan thing was subsidies to allies in wartime, which happened to be channelled through the CIA -- we weren't buying intelligence assets, we were buying people who could put troops in the field. In an fairly clumsy and hamfisted way, given our lack of human infrastructure in-country, I might add.
It simply doesn't fit the pattern of previous Chinese intelligence operations in this country, which featured low-key people with otherwise clean records (Katrina Leung, Chi Mak, etc.), and modest budgets.
More to the point, if somebody were to try to set up a political influence organization in the United States to affect our foreign policy, the model would not be to flash lots of cash around without asking for any significant favors, or making large scale donations unaffiliated with particular causes. The model would be a broad organization tying together groups with affinity for the foreign country, designed to engender loyalty and cohesion as a voting bloc, with frequent sponsored trips back to the country, and a large lobbying presence in DC. This would be the model, because it has already been done, just not by the Chinese. (The Chinese immigrant "community" in America is simply not that cohesive. There are Taiwanese, Hong Kong, and mainlander strains, to say nothing of the large number of quiet professionals who do not participate in any community as such. It takes something extraordinary, like, say, Nifong-style treatment of a Chinese-American scientist, to cause any feelings of ethnic unity whatsoever).
I think Hsu was motivated by ego and other psychological problems, but that makes him a moron who wanted to feel important, not a sinister agent -- again, I think any agency would have to be submoronic to hire a known fugitive to mingle in society circles. You don't bank on law enforcement remaining this clueless about a guy who has his picture taken with US senators.
"However, pretend that he has more to hide. Suddenly, it's worth doing to keep himself out of the hands of the authorities."
That doesn't hold water. How much additional investigating do the authorities usually do into the side authorities of somebody who pleads guilty to a white-collar financial crime?
Do I think the Chinese are actively spying in America? No duh. Do I think they would like to influence our elections? Of course. Do I think they're likely to do it by using a fugitive to channel no-strings-attached funding to candidates in a wasteful manner that's likely to garner them bad press, given past history? Hardly.
One thing is sure, however: we're going to hear a lot more about Mr. Hsu before this is all over.
By , at
Wed Sep 05, 10:38:00 PM:
I want to know who put up the 2 mil in bond money. If you believe as I do, that Hsu has *backing* (whether from a foreign government or not) and isn't a lone wolf, the question of who would be willing to forfeit that kind of money to keep Hsu out of jail becomes very, very interesting.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Sep 05, 11:01:00 PM:
"we weren't buying intelligence assets, we were buying people who could put troops in the field."
The same description could be applied to Chinese payments to American politicians. (or politicians' friends, relatives, businesses, or whatever)
Your two examples cited of other suspected Chinese agents were both of the realm of espionage, which is a completely different animal. In such a case, you're only paying for 1 person at a time, the agent, and only enough to buy their individual activities. Funding a national-level party requires significantly more resources due to the sheer scale of costs. And large, private donations are not terribly uncommon here, so the idea that 'flashing around' money would stand out isn't exactly convincing. Witness the donations of George Soros, or the entire stable of Hollywood actors, for example, and how little attention that receives.
Also, your description of foreign influence is that of a lobby group. Again, that is entirely different. A lobby group argues on behalf of its clients with the legislature, which is perfectly legal. The Gulf States, the Israelis, and the Japanese all deal with US lobby groups.
What is hypothesized here with Hsu is an attempt to actually alter the make-up of said legislature by interfering with the electoral process itself. Once again, manipulation of rivals' or rivals' clients' politics by funding parties, newspapers, radio stations, NGO's, et cetera, is not uncommon.
Labeling the suspect as someone with psychological problems without evidence is just an expedient. I could just as easily say that he believed he was operating at the behest of space aliens. Unless something surfaces that more directly implies motivation than a lack of recognition, his motive can only be speculated upon, but I'd still tag it ideology. Just a gut reaction that fits the circumstances.
"That doesn't hold water."
The hell it doesn't. If I were a foreigner operating shady political financial dealings and the authorities asked me to appear before a court concerning them, I'd skip the country too. Especially if there were more that they didn't know about yet. (which was the key point in my 'what if') I like how you casually tossed out 'a few years in Club Fed' but I'd like to avoid prison altogether, thanks.
"How much additional investigating do the authorities usually do into the side authorities of somebody who pleads guilty to a white-collar financial crime?"
I have no idea, and given the rhetorical form of the question, I suspect you don't either. (BTW, what's a 'side authority?') I would hope that if the 'white collar financial crime' is suspected to be foreign funding of US political parties, they'd dig quite a bit. But I'm not in the FBI.
Your summary reads as follows: 'I'm sure there are Chinese operatives here who would love to influence our elections, but it can't possibly be this guy because he has a white collar criminal record and the PRC is terrified of bad press.' ('wasteful manner' is window dressing; it's no different from all those other private donations mentioned earlier)
If they're so afraid of bad press, why did they follow through with those other espionage operations that you cited before? To pursue their national interest. Our own government does what it deems necessary to secure its own interest without much regard for bad press. Do you really think that a single-party communist state really cares about public relations in a rival country?
And as for his criminal history, it's entirely likely that any foreign handler he might have had would know nothing about it. Why should they? No one seemed to know or care. The state authorities obviously didn't, since he'd been operating freely for 15 years with an outstanding warrant.
I'm in no position to say that this guy was a foreign agent, (and if I were, I wouldn't be able to talk about it) but it's at least plausible.
(P.S. In response to your first comment of the thread; Hsu paid out about $850,000 since 2004, whereas Aldrich Ames was paid $4.6 million, $2.5 million to which he had direct access.)
By , at
Thu Sep 06, 12:50:00 AM:
Another one of clintons shady supporters on the lam i mean the clintons surrounded themselves with crooks
