WASHINGTON DESK - A Democrat Party fund-raiser, Johnny Chung, recently decided to cooperate with federal investigators from the Justice Department about the circumstances under which he was involved in a $100,000 fund transfer made to the Clinton-Gore Campaign in 1996.
According to reliable sources, Chung has made good on that promise. He has told federal investigators that the source of those funds was a high ranking Chinese military officer and high ranking Chinese Communist Party hack who doubled as an aerospace executive whose father was General Liu Huaqing.
In a stunning revelation, New York Times staff writer Jeff Gerth reported that Chung has told federal investigators on Thursday that the Hong Kong aerospace engineer, Liu Chao-ying, disclosed the source of the money she donated to Clinton.
At one fund-raiser to which Chung gained admission for Liu Chao-ying, she was carefully photographed standing with president Clinton at a Los Angeles Clinton-Gore Campaign fund raiser in July 1996.
The Clinton White House began circling the wagons Thursday, as Clinton aide Jim Kennedy, told reporters, 'We had no knowledge about the source of Chung's money or the background of his guest...it was clearly
not appropriate for...her to see the president.'
Before the White House could mount more of a counter-attack on Johnny Chung, however, Chung bolstered his credibility by submitting authenticated bank records of the funds transaction to federal investigators.
The Justice Department now has direct evidence obtained by its own investigators that the Chinese government was overtly engaged in making illegal political contributions to the Clinton-Gore Campaign and the Democrat Party in exchange for presidential action.
Within the time-frame of the illegal Communist Chinese contribution to the Clinton-Gore Campaign, president Clinton had signed a retro-active Executive Order protecting Loral, the U.S. contractor which handed over top-secret U.S. military ICBM targeting technology to the Communist Chinese for use in Chinese missile testing.
Chung's account is credible in view of the facts coming to light this week that puts Liu's firm at the center of Red Army missile research.
It is not a difficult link to make between president Clinton's questionable Loral Executive Order and Liu's campaign contribution. The legal effect of Clinton's action granted Liu's firm access to U.S. ICBM targeting technology for strategic use in Red Army ICBMs and made Liu an attractive Chinese entity for U.S, space contractors like Loral and Hughes Aircraft to do business with in China.
The Times reports that a representative of the Chinese government denied that Beijing was behind the illegal contributions. 'China has always abided by the laws and regulations in this country...We have nothing to do whatsoever with political contributions in this country.' Yu Shu-ning, a Chinese embassy spokesperson is said to have offered in explanation to Chung's statements to Justice Department investigators.
In 1996 president Clinton made a decision that went into effect on election day that enhanced the financial viability of Liu's business ventures that would depend upon American satellites research and U.S. ICBM
targeting code secrets.
Pentagon experts have concluded that the arrangement has harmed American national security by advancing China's rocket and missile capabilities.
Details of this debacle are leaking out in the Times story that has Chung as instrumental in helping Liu obtain a visa to enter the U.S. in early July 1996. A week later Chung wrote the DNC that he wanted to bring Liu and a Chinese medical executive to a July 22 fund-raising dinner to be held in the Southern California Brentwood home of Eli Broad.
Both of his guests' names were placed on the guest list after
Chung wrote a check for $45,000 to the DNC on July 19th.
A week later, Chung set up a California corporation for Liu and himself, records show.
Liu arrived in Los Angeles on July 21, and the next day Chung
accompanied her to two fund-raising events attended by Clinton, according to a law enforcement official quoted by the Times. The first was an early evening $1,000-per-plate gala at the Beverly Hilton.
Later that night, Chung and Liu attended a $25,000-per-couple
dinner at Broad's home that raised more than $1.5 million for the
1996 Clinton-Gore Campaign. President Clinton was photographed with Liu at that gathering.
Senator Fred Thompson(R) after a very frustrating investigation blocked and delayed by the Clinton White House drafted a detailed narrative in February 1996 containing some new information on the activities of Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung, among other figures.
A draft report of 1,500-pages prepared by the Republican staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, made public in February 1996, detailed the roles of top Democrat Party fund-raisers and connections to Communist Chinese interests and outlined a plan by the Chinese government to subvert American elections which had been carried through.
Thompson urged the Justice Department to continue investigating campaign finance involving Communist Chinese illegal contributions to the DNC and possibly others, as well.
Janet Reno, U.S. attorney general, is now expected to launch the appointment of yet another investigation of criminal activity by the Clinton White House that was the subject of Senator Thompson's Senate inquiry but which has only come into sharper focus on the president himself, on Thursday.
