Court hearing delayed for former Clinton fund-raiser

April 24, 2008

NEW YORK - Top Democratic fund-raiser Norman Hsu, once a prized supporter of Hillary Clinton, is talking with the government to try to settle charges that he cheated investors out of millions of dollars and made illegal donations to politicians, his lawyer told a judge.

In a letter Tuesday, attorney Hugh M. Mundy said he was requesting a 30-day adjournment of a court hearing set for tomorrow because "the parties have begun settlement negotiations" and the government is turning over evidence for him to review.

US District Judge Victor Marrero granted the delay request, moving the hearing to May 23.

Hsu, 56, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he violated federal campaign finance laws. He was accused by prosecutors of persuading his victims to invest at least $60 million from 2000 through August 2007 in companies that supposedly extended short-term financing to businesses. The government said he lost at least $20 million of the investor money.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

INEZ, Ky. - John McCain said yesterday that Americans face a tough economic outlook with high gasoline prices likely to remain, and that his Democratic opponents would make matters worse.

The presumptive Republican nominee visited the tiny Kentucky coal town of Inez 44 years after President Lyndon Johnson stood on a front porch here and declared a "War on Poverty" that McCain said failed because of excessive government bureaucracy.

McCain was driven through the mountains to that woodframe house Johnson visited, but it was padlocked with the front porch fenced off and a "No Trespassing" sign posted, and a car with a broken window in the driveway. He said the home was "significant and symbolic that we have a lot to do."

REUTERS

Hillary Clinton may have saved her presidential bid with her big win in Pennsylvania, but she also drew a rebuke from her home-state newspaper - which also happens to set the political agenda for much of the media - for how she conducted her campaign.

The New York Times, which had endorsed Clinton over Barack Obama, slammed her yesterday in an editorial: "It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election."

The Times specifically cited a last-minute Clinton TV ad that featured images of Osama bin Laden and suggested that only she - not Obama - was tough enough to handle crises as president. "On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11," the editorial said.

FOON RHEE