by Andrew Walden

After discovering that he could not rely on every single outlet in the Hawaii media to keep his secrets, Mufi Hannemann has been forced to claim that he will not be accepting any donations from a June 9 Pittsburgh rail contractor wannabee’s fundraiser.…here is what KHON2 reported June 11:

Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann says he will not accept any funds from a gubernatorial campaign event held this week in Pittsburgh tied to a major rail consultant.

Suggested donations ranged from $500 to $5,000….

Hannemann took a brief leave from a rail-related Washington visit to appear at a campaign fundraiser held in Pittsburgh, with the RSVP number to transit consultant and former Bombardier official Paul Overby.

The mayor’s city schedule cannot list campaign-related activities, and his local campaign managers say they were not aware of it. The side trip was not taken at city expense; the flight between Washington and Pittsburgh was paid for by the Hannemann campaign committee….

The state-required notice of this event is not yet posted on the Campaign Spending Commission's website, though the mayor says the notice was filed within the past couple of days.

This is interesting because in the video accompanying the KHON2 story, an invoice for the Pittsburg trip is shown.  It is clearly date-stamped May 3, 2010 and the date on the invoice itself appears to be April 29, 2010.  Thus, unless Hannemann wants to invent yet another excuse for going to Pittsburgh, the fundraiser was planned at least six weeks in advance. 

VIDEO: LINK (Invoice shows up at 45 second mark.)

Note that this story has not run on any other TV news station nor in the Star-Advertiser or any of the sister island papers.  Carroll Cox is an Abercrombie operative who has been positioned in the media as a “watchdog”.  (Cox claims he does not support Abercrombie, so just for fun, go to his websites and see if you can find even one word of criticism of Abercrombie in the midst of the attacks on Hannemann, Djou, and Aiona: http://carrollcox.com/, http://www.envirowatch.org/.)   But even with the resources of a major Democrat campaign behind him, Cox could get only one media outlet to handle the story.  And according to Cox:  

KHON pulled the story after their manager received a call from Hannemann.  KHON claimed the story was not on their website due to technical difficulties.   Later it was reposted after the public called in to complain.

After that failed, Hannemann had to go to “Plan B” resulting in this twisted and self-contradictory statement: 

Hannemann spoke with KHON2 today from the Oklahoma: “With respect to event in Pittsburgh, in my view although it was a fundraiser, I saw it more of a meet-and-greet, to be able to touch base with folks who have known me since college, and with the Pittsburgh Steelers, one of my favorite teams (favorite, but other than that he has no connection with the Steelers). No donations collected that evening (a lie), and I’m not coming back to Honolulu with contributions, nor will I accept any contributions from that fundraiser."

According to state law, notices of intent to hold fundraisers must be filed with the Campaign Spending Commission prior to the date of any function in which the suggested contribution exceeds $25 dollars, even if the fundraiser is held out of state.

We will have to watch the next CSC filings to see if Hannemann received any Pennsylvania-based donations.  

It would be a mistake to accept Hannemann's word that he is going to return all the money he claims he didn’t receive at the fundraiser. 

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Link to all candidates’ notices about their fundraisers: http://hawaii.gov/campaign/view-reports/cc/2010-fundraiser-notices

Kaauwai: Hannemann in Pittsburgh "Whacking the rail transit piñata"

Ilind: Carroll Cox gets Mufi fundraiser story

Carroll Cox Show: Questions raised by Mufi's campaign fundraising in Pittsburgh  According to Cox:

NOTE:  KHON pulled the story after their manager received a call from Hannemann.  KHON claimed the story was not on their website due to technical difficulties.   Later it was reposted after the public (ie Abercrombie campaign) called in to complain. Please watch and make comments.   Here is the link to the KHON website story.

The Story, Part II - Mufi Hannemann talks about the Pittsburgh fundraiser on KHON at 6:00 PM, 6/11/10

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