Obama's aunt made illegal campaign contribution to him

Times:

Barack Obama's 'Auntie Zeituni', found by The Times living on a Boston housing estate, appears to have made an illegal contribution to her nephew's presidential campaign because she is not a US citizen.

Following the revelation, Obama's campaign issued a statement saying that Senator Obama had no knowledge of his aunt's immigration status, and that he believed all appropriate laws should be followed in dealing with the issue.

Zeituni Onyango, 56, the half-sister of Mr Obama's Kenyan father, gave a total of $260 to the Obama campaign during the third quarter of this year, records show.

US election rules require that individuals making presidential campaign contributions be US citizens, and political campaigns are required to make "best efforts" to verify that, a Federal Election Commission spokesman said.

The Associated Press reports that Ms Onyango is living in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago.

...

Ms Onyango was the first Kenyan relative to welcome Mr Obama on his first visit to his father's homeland in 1988, and she is a large character in his best-selling memoir Dreams From My Father.

"'Welcome home', Zeituni said, kissing me on both cheeks," Mr Obama wrote.

A relative said Ms Onyango moved to America about eight years ago. For the past five years she has been living in public housing in gritty South Boston.

Asked by The Times how long she had been living in America, she said: "I have been coming to America ever since 1975. I always come and go."

...

Let's see. She is an illegal immigrant living on the dole in public housing in Boston and made an illegal contribution to Obama. For anyone else that would be a problem, but it has not shown up on the front pages of the NY Times and the Washington Post which means it is not real news to most of America.

While the AP reported the illegal status its story did not report the illegal campaign contribution to my knowledge. The fact is there are more such donations tot he Obama campaign which has been following a policy of conscientious avoidance on the issue. They want to be able to claim the clean heart empty head defense.

The BBC report mainly quotes the unquotable news agency.

Michele Malkin has more on Auntie the absconder.

Mark Steyn on finding the aunt:

... if Aunt Zeituni had settled in Wasilla — say, in lodgings across the way from Bristol Palin's boyfriend's ex-girlfriend's uncle's sled dog's veterinarian's ammunition dealer — the fact that she's an "illegal immigrant" might have come out a lot sooner, even if only from the Atlantic Monthly investigative unit driving by and asking her whether Joe the Plumber had ever serviced Trig's real mother's double-wide.

...

By the way, one thing you can say for certain is that Aunt Zeituni's deportation order will never be enforced. Demanding proof of identity at polling stations, requiring address verification for credit-card contributions, getting hung up on foreigners donating to candidates, enforcing deportation orders . . . To raise such footling technicalities as "the law" is racist and so, in a squeamish politically correct culture, we let it slide, even as it corrupts the integrity of the democratic process and the defining act of a free society.

...

President McCain may give her a pardon.

The lefty blogs are calling this story a smear. That requires a redefinition of the word smear to include any factual information that is inconvenient for their candidate. To be a smear the story needs to be inaccurate or false and misleading. While this story may be embarrassing it is not a smear and it is unlikely to effect the results of this election.