Obama, Others Decline to Return Ponzi Scheme Cash

R. Allen Stanford is not someone you'd want to be associated with these days: He's currently on trial for one of the biggest Ponzi schemes since Bernie Madoff, to the tune of $7 billion dollars. But Reuters did a little digging and found that Stanford's legal troubles haven't been enough to convince a handful of politicians and political campaign committees to return the roughly $1.8 million the disgraced billionaire doled out.

The donations, which came directly from Stanford, his fellow executives at Stanford Financial, and from a PAC associated with the company, went to both sides of the aisle. Those who haven't yet returned the cash include both campaign committees and individual politicians. Among them: President Obama. 

The Obama camp donated Stanford's 2008 campaign contribution of $4,600 to a charity just days after Stanford's alleged scheme became public, somewhat easing the PR burden of the tainted campaign cash. But campaign finance records show that the president may have received as much as $31,000 when you tally up other contributions Stanford made to Obama's other campaign committees, as well as money that came from other senior Stanford execs and the company's now defunct PAC. The campaign would not comment on the record to Reuters.

The information comes from the court-appointed receiver who is currently trying to get back the money in order to return it to Stanford investors. According to him, the delinquent committees and the amounts they received from Stanford include:

-Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: $950,500.

-National Republican Congressional Committee: $238,500.

-Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: $200,000.

-Republican National Committee: $128,500, 

-National Republican Senatorial Committee: $83,345.

And the individual politicians who still need to return donations from the Houston-based financier include Obama, as well as Texas Republicans Rep. Pete Sessions and Sen. John Cornyn. As Reuters explains in more detail, many of the campaigns and committees are negotiating with the receiver, either directly or through the court system, on the exact amount—if any—that they'll have to give back.

Some politicians have already returned the donations from Stanford, including House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. John McCain. 

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of the subhead for this post misidentified the amount of Stanford's campaign contributions.