text: Robert W. Roche has lived in China and Japan for the past 27 years, although he maintains a residence in Chicago. He has used his extensive connections to raise money for the Obama campaign, and has pledged to raise $500,000 for the Obama campaign this year, an upgrade from the $100,000-200,000 he agreed to raise four years ago. He donated the maximum $50,000 allowable to Obama's inauguration fund in 2009.
  Roche's wife, Ritsuko Hattori-Roche, along with Roche's business partner Don Yang, are the sole stockholders of Bireme Limited, a Cayman Islands-based company.
  The Roches and Yang used their business in the Cayman Islands to orchestrate the purchase in 2011 of a majority of the stocks of Acorn International, a Chinese infomercial company that Yang and Mr. Roche cofounded in 1998. Acorn's board objected to the purchase offer, calling it "inadequate … opportunistic," and "coercive," and charged that it would give the Roches and Yang a majority share of the company's stocks, effectively giving them control of the company.
  In addition to his bundling pledges and direct donations to the Obama campaign, Roche also donated $100,000 to Obama's Super PAC, Priorities USA—including a $50,000 donation made shortly after Obama announced his personal approval of the group. Obama initially opposed Super PACs, which allow unlimited donations, but reversed his opposition in February and allowed his campaign to direct donors to Priorities USA.
  The Super PAC became the object of intense controversy this summer after it released an advertisement suggesting that Republican nominee Mitt Romney may have been responsible for the death of a steelworker's wife from cancer.
  On July 11 of this year, Roche hosted a kick-off fundraiser in Shanghai, China, for the Obama Victory Fund at his hotel in downtown Shanghai, URBN. URBN's website describes it as "a boutique hotel set in the heart of Shanghai's downtown area."
  The Obama administration has granted Roche extensive access to key administration officials. White House records show that Mr. Roche has visited the White House 24 times during Obama's term, and has held meetings with former chief of staff William Daley and Obama adviser Peter Rouse.
  In 2010, Obama appointed Roche to his Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations. Roche is also a co-chair of the technology wing of Obama's campaign, Technology for Obama.
  He has extensive business connections in Asia. He has chaired the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, and has served as a governor of the American Chamber of Commerce Japan, as well as a board member of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo's USA Pavilion.
  In 1991 he founded Oak Lawn Marketing, which "concentrates on introducing successful U.S. products to the Japanese market."
  Roche has used his profits to set up multiple trusts for his "lineal descendants."
  A prominent Democratic donor with ties to the Red Chinese government may be implicated in the Obama campaign's flouting of federal campaign finance law, according to a bombshell investigative report.
  The groundbreaking new study, authored by the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), highlights the "curious case" of Obama.com, a website previously, and possibly still, owned by Obama campaign bundler and frequent White House visitor Robert W. Roche.
  The website—which is not one of the hundreds of different domain names owned by the Obama campaign—is examined at length in the report as a major potential gateway for illegal foreign donations to the campaign.
  Visitors to the site, more than two-thirds of which are located outside the United States, are redirected to the Obama campaign's main donation page at barackobama.com.
  The GAI investigation found numerous links to Obama.com on foreign blog sites and forum boards, links that "increase the probability that foreign nationals will try to donate to the Obama campaign." Furthermore, the GAI discovered that search engine optimization (SEO) techniques were employed at some point in order to generate foreign traffic to Obama.com.
  The GAI report cited Obama.com's existence and the unusually lax online security measures on the Obama campaign's donation page as evidence the campaign may be breaking the law. At the very least, these two factors indicated the need for further investigation.
  Following Obama's victory in November 2008, Obama.com began redirecting visitors to a page selling inauguration merchandise and soliciting donations for the inauguration celebration. Roche personally donated $50,000, the maximum allowable amount.
  He has contributed more than $375,000 to Democratic campaigns and committees since 2007,and at least $100,000 to the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA, which notably ran an ad suggesting that Obama's opponent Mitt Romney was responsible for a Missouri woman's death from cancer.
  At some point in 2012, the webpage began directing visitors to a donation page on the Obama campaign's website.