Hillary's "No Refunds" policy

America Wants to Know welcomes all the donors to Hillary Clinton's general election campaign who have found our earlier posts ("Hillary Clinton and the big refund" and "Why Hillary won't go") by searching the Internet to find out when they can expect to get their money back.

Bad news, campers.

Not only is Senator Clinton not rushing to refund your general election contributions, she is still soliciting contributions for the general election on her web site.

This is what the contribution form looked like on HillaryClinton.com this evening:



Notice anything odd? Look closer:



It appears that if you go to HillaryClinton.com and give the campaign $4,600, Hillary Clinton will take it.

Over on the Frequently Asked Questions page of the web site, the campaign offers this helpful Q&A:

What is the maximum amount that I may donate?

Per federal law, an individual may contribute a maximum of $2300 to a candidate per election cycle. The primary elections and general elections are considered two separate cycles. So you may contribute a total of $4600, with the first $2300 going to the primary election and any subsequent contributions going to the general election.

We've said before and still believe Senator Clinton already spent the money she collected for the general election and has been falsely reporting that money -- $23.3 million at last count -- as cash on hand.

We could certainly be wrong about that.

After all, it would be crazy and reckless to spend the general election money on the primary. To do something so blatantly illegal, you'd have to think you could never, ever be caught at it. You'd have to think there was absolutely no way that you could lose the Democratic primary race.

Because if you lost the Democratic primary race, you'd be in real trouble.

So much trouble, in fact, that you'd probably double down during the last month of the primaries, even if it meant you were plunging deeper and deeper into debt.

To take a risk like that, you'd have to be the kind of person who has total confidence that you can get away with anything, especially if it borders on a gray area of the law.

This is an excerpt from attorney David Kendall's biography on the web site of his law firm, Williams & Connolly:

He began representing President and Mrs. Clinton in November 1993, in what was ostensibly a small savings and loan matter involving Whitewater Development Company, Inc. He went on to represent the Clintons in a variety of matters, including Independent Counsel, Senate, House of Representatives, FDIC, RTC, and bar counsel investigations, civil litigation, and the 1998-99 impeachment proceedings, and currently represents them in three civil matters.

So far, so good.

Tuesday's Washington Post reports that Senator Clinton just sent an e-mail to her supporters asking them to go to her web site and contribute money to help her pay off more than $22 million in campaign debt. "I hope you will continue to stand with me and support me by going back to HillaryClinton.com," she wrote.

Maybe the Clinton team simply forgot to update the web site to reflect the fact that Senator Clinton isn't going to be the Democratic nominee this fall and therefore can't accept contributions for the general election.

Maybe the webmaster quit when the paycheck was late and nobody else knows how to work the thing.

Maybe if you entered your credit card number and clicked the button, you would get an error message saying you can't donate more than $2,300.

We don't advise you to try it.

We don't think you'll get your money back any time soon.

But if you've got a refund coming from Senator Clinton's general election account, her web site still says you can contact the campaign at:

Hillary Clinton for President
4420 North Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203
Headquarters: 703.469.2008
Fax: 703.962.8600

Good luck. Let us know how it goes. We'll be happy to post your stories.


Copyright 2008

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