Flip flips the lid off Hsugate?

Not quite yet but it’s looser than it was yesterday. He starts with a simple question: why is Norman Hsu, the bundler di tutti bundlers, listed as the bundlee on a donation he made in June of this year? Hsu’s supposed to be out there rounding up new contributors for the Democrats; he’s the last guy who’d need to be solicited for a donation by some other fundraiser. From that slender thread comes a pattern linking his contributions to those of Fred Hochberg, CEO of the Lillian Vernon catalog company, fellow “HillRaiser” and trustee of the New School, and former cabinet member in the Clinton administration. Hsu didn’t make his first political donation until 2003 but Hochberg’s been donating to Democratic campaigns for years — and, funny thing, Hsu seems to favor (and disfavor, in the case of Chuck Schumer) the very same candidates Fred Hochberg does. Is Hochberg simply advising him on which Democrats are “good eggs” and which are bad or is there something more to the apparent collusion here that might explain, at least in part, how Hsu came by all that filthy lucre that went into the Democrats’ coffers? That’s the part of the lid that hasn’t come off yet. But like Flip says, this much would seem to be true:

There are still a lot of details yet to emerge that will undoubtedly shed additional light on these linakges, but it seems quite clear that Norman Hsu and Fred Hochberg are and have for some time been closely associated. It’s abundantly clear that the Clintons and Hochberg are quite intimately associated. This seems to draw Hsu and Clinton uncomfortably close to one another.

And while the complexity and duplicity that saturates this whole affair may offer Hillary a bit of confusion cover that she can use to equivocate when pressed, it’s now becoming increasingly far-fetched that Hillary took Norman Hsu for no more than a kindly, deep-pocketed fan.

Expect to see the Hochberg story in the news next week sometime, most likely in the Journal. That’s how far out in front of it Flip is. Click.

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