Clinton Writes Off $13.1 Mil Campaign Loan

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CBS News/AP

Hillary Rodham Clinton has written off $13.1 million in personal money she lent her failed U.S. presidential campaign, new disclosure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show.

Clinton lent the money to her campaign in several installments last spring as she fought Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, which she ultimately lost.

The former first lady and New York senator has been working to pay down the debt to clear the way for confirmation as President-elect Obama's secretary of state. Federal ethics rules prohibit Cabinet officials from actively soliciting campaign contributions.

Since suspending her campaign last June, Clinton has told donors she would absorb the personal loan and would not be raising money to pay it down. The campaign's latest FEC report, filed Dec. 20, was the first to reflect that she had formally forgiven the loan.

The new report showed the campaign still owes $6.3 million to vendors, down from about $7.4 million in November. The largest obligation, $5.3 million, is owed to the polling firm of Clinton's senior strategist, Mark Penn.



Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/22/politics/main4683552.shtml?tag=topHome;topStories

---

IMHO Penn should write off what Clinton owes him. He sure didn't serve her well.

[DJ13]

1. 20 more speeches by Bill and they will recover that amount

No problem.

[47of74]

2. Agreed

[Festivito]

3. May not be an illegal operation, but his brain did seem to shut down. /nt

[NYC_SKP]

4. Well she really should hold back most of that 5.3M owed to Penn.

And I'm glad the other vendors are being payed.

[Algorem]

5. she sure got rich off this politics bullshit

[No Elephants]

6. A lot of the vendors were small, like sandwich shops who supplied food to

campaign staffers and the like. Waiting this long may have put some of them out of business even before the economy hit the fan. And, mow it's the holidays.

[RamboLiberal]

7. Yep - all the little guys deserve to get paid before that loser Penn n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. There's nothing in the article saying that small vendors weren't paid back earlier

All that's happened now is that Hillary herself has formally said "the money I lent the campaign doesn't have to be paid back". We know Penn is still owed money; plus some others - but the article doesn't say who the others are.

On edit: I've found the details of who is still owed; some do look like some simpled vendors of basic services (eg catering) who I'd think ought to get paid quickly.

List: http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00431569/392378/sd/12
List for September: http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00431569/375128/sd/12

Comparing the 2, it's clear they're still spending some things - eg "Settepani Bakery" is now owed $3411, but wasn't owed anything in September. That makes it difficult to know if they're hanging back on paying the little guys or not.

[Joanne98]

8. Must be nice to just write off debt. How does that work anyway?

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. She says "the campaign doesn't have to pay me back"

Yes, she is rich enough to be able to do that - and so is Bill. Income from book royalties, speeches.

[goclark]

11. I thought they had a lot of donations that would cover

the bills for the vendors etc. :shrug: