New Orleans 1st Logo

Clinton criticizes Obama's PAC

Section: Politics

Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press Writer

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized rival Barack Obama on Sunday for a political action committee he controls that has contributed money to elected officials in early presidential contest states.

Asked by reporters after an event in central Iowa if Obama's character was in question, Clinton said, "It's beginning to look a lot like that, ... where somebody who runs on ethics and not taking money from certain people has found out you have at least skirted if not violated FEC rules and used lobbyists and PAC money to do so," she said.

Later, Clinton added, "Contrary to what we've been hearing now for a year, (Obama's PAC) had lobbyist money, it had PAC money, and they were more than happy to take that money and use it to try to influence elections and create relationsihps with people while he was running for president."

Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson called on Obama to shut down the Hopefund political committee, and the campaign followed up with a press release shortly after. During an appearance Sunday with chief Obama strategist David Axelrod on CBS' "Face the Nation," Wolfson accused Obama of using the PAC in "apparent contravention of campaign finance laws."

The aggressiveness of the Clinton camp is a testament to the increasingly tight race between the two in Iowa, where polls show Obama in a virtual dead heat with Clinton. Polls show John Edwards also in the top mix in Iowa.

"I think that folks from some of the other campaigns are reading the polls and starting to get stressed and issuing a whole range of outlandish accusations," Obama said in a press conference Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa. "Everything that we've done is in exact accordance with the law."

Clinton also criticized Obama's health care plan on Sunday. All the other Democrats have proposed something universal, Clinton said, but Obama "got to the brink and blinked."

"At some point you've got to ask yourself, who's really committed here? Who's doing it just for political reasons, and who has a lifetime of conviction and commitment?" she said.

Hopefund distributed donations to congressional candidates as well as officials and local Democratic Party groups in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. Some of those elected officials who received contributions endorsed Obama's campaign. Others did not, with some endorsing Clinton.

Obama has made an issue during the campaign of his refusal to accept money from lobbyists or from PACs for his presidential campaign. Hopefund, however, received more than $120,000 from PACs in 2005-2006. Hopefund raised only $2,000 from PACs early this year before it stopped fundraising.

According to a Hopefund finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission two weeks ago, the committee gave nearly $160,000 between July 1 and Nov. 5 to local and congressional officials in states that are holding presidential contests next month. During that period, Hopefund gave about $210,000 to federal candidates in other states across the country.

"There's a lot that voters don't know about Barack Obama," Wolfson said. "And one thing they don't know, we found out this week, which is that he has been using and operating a so-called leadership PAC, an apparent contravention of campaign finance laws, taking in money from lobbyists despite the fact that he said he doesn't take money from lobbyists."

Obama officials have said Hopefund was merely trying to assist Democratic candidates and pointed out that of the $476,000 that Hopefund contributed in 2007, about 57 percent went to states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina.

But officials acknowledged to The Washington Post last week that campaign officials were consulted to determine who some of the recipients should be. They said the contributions did not violate FEC regulations.

"I'm not sure that there's any money left in that leadership PAC, and it's gone to candidates all over the country because we're trying to elect Democrats," Axelrod said on CBS. "And that's what we should be doing."

Hopefund has about $99,000 left, according to its report.

Clinton also had her own so-called leadership PAC, called HillPAC, that paid for some of her current campaign staff before she officially launched her candidacy. In 2006, it also contributed about $60,000 to federal and state politicians in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. The PAC is inactive now, however.

Clinton said the 2006 donations were appropriate because she wasn't running for president then. "I was a leader in the Senate and I had an obligation as a leading Democrat to raise money to help Democrats run and win," she said Sunday.

The Obama campaign also pointed out that Clinton delivered a check for $100,000 last week from her family's tax-exempt charitable foundation as a donation to a proposed public library in South Carolina.

More Articles