Breaking via TPM: Hess Corp "Office Manager" & Husband Gave HUGE Bucks To McCain

[KittyWampus]

this is all breaking on TPM homepage.

A working class woman and her husband who rent an apartment in Flushing, Queens EACH gave $28,500 to elect McCain.

Hess Corporation "Office Manager" And Her Husband Both Gave $28,500 To Elect McCain
By Greg Sargent - August 4, 2008, 2:14PM

As we reported below, ten Hess Corporation executives and Hess family members each gave $28,500 to the RNC's committee to elect John McCain president, just days after he reversed his previous opposition to offshore drilling.

But the story gets better.

It turns out that Hess executives aren't the only ones who gave such huge sums to elect McCain -- generosity towards McCain apparently extends down into lower levels of Hess staff. A lower level employee gave the same, too, and so did her husband, even though he works for Amtrak.

The FEC filings show that Alice Rocchio, who's identified as a Hess office manager, and her husband, Pasquale Rocchio, who's described as an Amtrak "track foreman," each separately donated $28,500 to the RNC-McCain fund, which is called McCain Victory 2008. They gave the money on June 24th, the same day that the ten Hess execs and family members each shelled out the same amount.

So the Rocchios, who live in Flushing, Queens, donated a total of $57,000 to McCain's efforts.

I just reached Ms Rocchio and she insisted adamantly that the contributions were theirs.

"It was my option to give," she told me. "This is my favorite candidate...I fully acknowledge that was done by myself personally, my own doing." She added that the same went for her husband.

When I pointed out that the Rocchios' job titles seemed to jar a bit with the size of their donations, Ms. Rocchio said that no one could guess the real income levels of other people.

"No one knows what someone's income taxes say," she told me.

Ms. Rocchio declined to say whether the contributions had been bundled by another Hess employee or who bundled them.

Late Update: It should also be noted that FEC reports have no record of any Federal political contributions for the Rocchios before 2008. They both gave the maximum of $2,300 to McCain's campaign this year.

Also, special thanks to TPM Reader AT for spotting this.

[yellowcanine]

1. Hmm. Sounds suspiciously like "straw" donations to me.

[americanstranger]

2. Nobody seems to be interested in this story.

The other three threads:

See here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6585079

And here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6585019

And here...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6584436

My foot is tired from kicking these things.

- as

[Fleshdancer]

3. No job is worth lying for...especially when you're the office manager

I guess some people are more addicted to oil than others.

[MrScorpio]

4. "The Republican National Committee: We're in It For The Money" nt

[cascadiance]

5. Wasn't it Hess gasoline stations listed by BuyBlue.com as one of the few "blue" gasoline places?

We didn't have them here on the West Coast (I go to Costco, and for a while was going to 7/11 when they sold Citgo gas).

[rainbow4321]

6. There were similiar questionable donations to HRC in Chinatown

Huge amounts of $$ from people with little income...some of whom they could not even locate. At all. I read one "donor" saying that while he did attend some HRC gathering, he never donated ANY money. Yet it was in the FEC records that he did.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=244566


The Los Angeles Times ran an eyebrow-raising story this morning about how Hillary Clinton is raising money from a highly unlikely source: New York's Chinatown.

"Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton's campaign treasury," the paper reports. "In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000."

According to the article, powerful Chinese neighborhood associations pushed residents to donate to the Clinton camp. The source of many of these donations remains a mystery.


The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records.

[truthisfreedom]

7. It's time to really dig into this. $28K is not a paltry sum. If they did it twice, they probably

did it hundreds of times.

[FrenchieCat]

8. $28,500 is a huge chunk of money for just about anyone except for the top 1%

and corporations.

This smells, and I hope that it gets looked into by the entire media.....

If it doesn't, you'll know why.

[Iodine99]

9. Couple gives $57,000

The IRS needs to find out how they got this money. Also, I have heard that certain companies will give employees a raise to donate to Republican candidates. The raise will cover the amount given. IRS should see if that was done.

But I don't have any personal info - just what people have told me.

[TwilightGardener]

10. Gee, has the MSM said a WORD about this today? Crickets...