Obama Camp Routed Out Illegal Donations from Palestinians

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Obama campaign officials said a trio of Palestinian brothers in the Middle East attempted last year to make $33,000 in illegal donations to the campaign via the internet.

The brothers sought to buy “Obama for President” T-shirts in some 97 attempts, 32 of which were initially successful.

They wrongly identified themselves as American citizens, campaign officials said, and listed their address as “GA”, the abbreviation for Georgia, when in fact they live in a refugee camp in Gaza, a rump city-state between Israel and Egypt that is under the control of Hamas.

The donations came in between Sept. 20 and Dec. 6 and virtually all of the money, about $33,500, was returned by December 6. But the refunds weren’t reported to the Federal Election Commission due to a technical error, campaign officials said.

The remaining $2,500 was refunded Monday. The refunds will all be reflected shortly in an amended report. New controls to prevent such attempts are now in place, the campaign said.