Clinton finance committee member leaves after unauthorized charges

A member of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign’s finance committee resigned last month after she said the campaign billed her credit card thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges. She is now backing Barack Obama, according to a post she made on Bluejersey.com.

Kathy Callahan, a Psychotherapist from Ridgefield, said that after making an initial donation of $2,000 to the Clinton campaign with her credit card, she was repeatedly charged at least $3,500 more.

“They had my number on file and they kept using it like it was their own. I was blindsided,” she said in a telephone interview with PolitickerNJ.

After trying to get her money back, Callahan said that a Clinton official said “"Kathy Callahan, you are going to be with us all the way to the White House...So let's leave the money where it is and we'll save time on inevitable future donations and transactions!"

Reports filed with the Federal Election Commission show Callahan donating $5,500 to the Clinton campaign between March and October of 2007 – that’s $900 more than the legal limit of $4,600 for the primary and general elections combined. She received $5,800 back from the campaign --  $1,200 on November 2nd and three separate checks for a total of $4,600 in December.

After a month of trying and failing to get the bulk of her money back, with the exception of the one refund in November, Callahan eventually filed a report with the Ridgefield Police Department – at which point she said she was reimbursed her money by the campaign.