Perhaps I spoke to soon when it appeared that MSM was attempting to ignore the Norman Hsu scandal. As I said before everyday we’re digging up more and more conduits of money funnels that Hsu used to give to Democrat candidates all in everything from local races up to Presidential candidates such as Hillary Clinton.

However, that may be changing as the scandal grows so large not even uber biased MSM can miss out on the intrigue. Today’s NY Times has a large article on Hsu’s Shadowy Money Trail. It’s actually a very good article and exposes even more connections and adds another twist, and one which we hadn’t considered before. To wit: was the money that Hsu funneled his money and if not where did he get it.

“At the center of the ever-deepening mystery of Norman Hsu, the fugitive fund-raiser who was captured after a brief flight from the law last week, is the question of how he evolved from a bankrupt swindler in 1992 to a wealthy donor to many Democratic candidates, and a bundler of campaign contributions to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2007.

A review of financial records for one of Mr. Hsu’s companies begins to shed light on some of his recent activities, including his dealings with a circle of campaign contributors that has fallen under suspicion since news of Mr. Hsu’s criminal past, murky business interests and unexplained riches rocked the Democratic Party.

The records show that Components Ltd., a company controlled by Mr. Hsu that has no obvious business purpose and appears to exist only on paper, has paid a total of more than $100,000 to at least nine people who made campaign contributions to Mrs. Clinton and others through Mr. Hsu. The payments occurred in the spring of 2003, several months before Mr. Hsu emerged as a contributor to Democrats and more than a year before he started bundling checks from those same people for various campaigns. In all, he has raised more than $1 million for Democrats.”

At the crux of the 1996 scandal was whether or not the Chinese government traded money for nuclear technology campaign contributions to the Clinton/Gore campaign. Let’s review via “The Idiot’s Guide to China Gate”.

“In his book “The China Threat,” Washington Times correspondent Bill Gertz describes how the system worked.

Defense contractors eager to sell technology to China poured millions of dollars into Clinton’s campaign. In return, Clinton called off the dogs. Janet Reno and other counterintelligence officials stood down while Lockheed Martin, Hughes Electronics, Loral Space & Communications and other U.S. companies helped China modernize its nuclear strike force.

“We like your president. We want to see him re-elected,” former Chinese intelligence chief Gen. Ji Shengde told Chinagate bagman Johnny Chung.

Indeed, Chinese intelligence organized a massive covert operation aimed at tilting the 1996 election Clinton’s way.

Clinton’s top campaign contributors for 1992 were Chinese agents; his top donors in 1996 were U.S. defense contractors selling missile technology to China.

Clinton recieved funding directly from known or suspected Chinese intelligence agents, among them James and Mochtar Riady, who own the Indonesian Lippo Group; John Huang; Charlie Trie; Ted Sioeng; Maria Hsia; Wang Jun and others.

Commerce Secretary Ron Brown served as Clinton’s front man in many Chinagate deals. When investigators began probing Brown’s Lippo Group and Chinagate connections, Brown died suddenly in a suspicious April 1996 plane crash.”

Ok, sans the rehashing of Ron Brown’s demise, we know via this article of Hsu’s connection to China Gate figures, which brings us around to the question again, “Where did the money come from that Hsu used”. There is no explanation from cursory looks at his financials, and at this point I would wage that it’s the same stream of funding used in 1996.

One thing is evident the story is growing and not soon to go away. One the other intriguing developments is the supposed suicide attempt of Hsu which I don’t buy for a minute. While it’s just a gut feeling “staged suicide” is a common way of enforcing exit used by Chinese agents.

It would explain that - while not being published - there is extreme security surrounding Mr. Hsu until he can be brought back to California. I believe that one of the reasons that the feds dropped the interstate charges of flight against him was to position to place him in protective custody.

Just a hunch, but we’ll see.