MORE ON THE STANFORD FINANCIAL SCANDAL, including an appearance by some familiar faces:

Like rats deserting a sinking ship, in the wake of the SEC’s fraud charges against Stanford on the 17th, Senator after Senator and Congressman after Congressman has come out saying they are returning the money Stanford gave them. Senators Chris Dodd (Chairman, Senate Banking Committee, $27,500), Bill Nelson ($45,900), John McCain ($28,150), and even President Barack Obama ($4,600, but $31,750 firmwide) have all announced that they will be donating the money that Stanford gave them to charity. On the House side, Representative Charles Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and who sponsored legislation that limited IRS audits in the Caribbean – where Stanford was having $100 million IRS back-taxes problems — said he would be donating the $10,800 he received to charity.

Even the family of Vice President Joe Biden has been forced to offer to return $2.7 million to the receiver that Stanford had invested in a co-branded investment fund owned by Biden’s son and brother. The fund has offered to turn over the $2.7 million investment it received from Mr. Stanford’s firm in 2007 to a court-appointed receiver in the SEC’s civil fraud case involving Mr. Stanford, according to Paradigm’s attorney, Marc X. LoPresti. The $50 million fund was jointly branded between the Bidens’ Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Financial Group entity and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund.

For all the condemnation aimed at finance types, these guys don’t seem to mind being in bed with them. And as I’ve mentioned before, returning the money doesn’t mean you weren’t in bed with them, it’s just laundering the sheets, after.

Plus, I note that Stanford’s receiver wants the money back, not donated to charity. And I’d like to know more about the “charities” that this money is donated to.