Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu is a fugitive after failing to show for a court hearing Wednesday:

Hsu, whose criminal past has roiled the campaigns of top presidential candidates, was scheduled to ask a judge to cut in half the $2 million bail he posted last week when he turned himself in after spending 15 years on the lam from a felony theft conviction.

Instead, San Mateo Superior Court Judge Robert Foiles ordered Hsu's bail forfeited to the county and issued a new arrest warrant. If Hsu is arrested again, he will be jailed without bail this time.

Hsu, a Hong Kong native, was also supposed to turn over his passport Wednesday. Hsu's prominent Silicon Valley criminal defense attorney Jim Brosnahan said Hsu failed to give the passport to the legal team on Monday.

"Mr. Hsu is not here and we do not know where Mr. Hsu is," Brosnahan said outside court. ...

Hsu pleaded no contest in 1991 to a felony count of grand theft, admitting he'd defrauded investors of $1 million. ... He was facing up to three years in prison when he skipped town before his 1992 sentencing date.

After pleading guilty to fraud in 1991, Hsu jumped bail rather than appear at his sentencing hearing for his agreed-upon three-year stretch. Fifteen years later, the long arm of the law finally caught up with Hsu after funneling over $1.5 million to Democrats around the country.

So what did the California court do? Let him out on bail again -- and Hsu has apparently skipped again, to no one's surprise but the moron who granted bail in the first place.

"It would be wholly inappropriate to link this in any way to the '96 campaign cycle investigations, just because both involve Asian-Americans," Lawrence Barcella, a lawyer for Hsu, who is a top donor to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, told Politico.com.

No. It's because both involve the craven Clintons, a trademark incuriosity about the backgrounds of big donors and a network of generous contributors of notably meager means.

-- Robert Stacy McCain, assistant national editor, The Washington Times

UPDATE:
At the American Spectator, Philip Klein finds that Hsu's corporate records don't "hold up to closer scrutiny."

And the latest Associated Press update says:

On Wednesday, Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who initially said he would keep the $6,200 from Hsu, announced that he would give the money to charity.

UPDATE 6 p.m.: Suitably Flip provides a chart comparing Hsu to Jack Abramoff -- hat-tip to Blue Crab Boulevard, who notices that left-leaning bloggers seem strangely uninterested in the disappearing donor. -- RSM