Clinton Campaign Cites Flawed Background Check

A spokesman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign yesterday blamed a faulty background check for the campaign's failure to raise any questions about Norman Hsu, a previously unknown businessman who suddenly became one of its biggest fundraisers.

Though a commonly used public record search shows that Hsu had multiple business lawsuits filed against him dating to 1985, filed for bankruptcy in 1990, and was a defendant in two 1991 California court matters listed as possible criminal cases, the campaign said its computer checks used insufficient search terms that did not include the two middle names Hsu used in the California case. "In all of these searches, the campaign used the name Norman Hsu, which, like the search results of other committees and campaigns, did not turn up disqualifying information," Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson explained.