Posted on 02/03/2004 12:06:57 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Buying access
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
With the release of a two-year-old confidential report to Attorney General Janet Reno exposing the agency's protective cover of President and Mrs. Clinton in the 1996 campaign finance scandal, I believe it is high time the report's author, Chuck LaBella, be given public praise.
You see, I met with LaBella during my involvement in the scandal and gave him information critical to his report.
On March 9, 1998, I pled guilty to violations of campaign finance laws before Federal Judge Manuel Real. A few days after the proceeding, I was approached at a private club in downtown Los Angeles by Robert Luu, who was acting as a messenger from the Chinese government.
"Delay, delay, delay," Luu told me, adding that President Clinton's upcoming visit to China was "more important than anything."
"Keep your mouth shut," he said. "If you keep your mouth shut, everything will be fine, but if you talk, everything will be out of control."
Luu continued, "A high-ranking Chinese official in Beijing and a high-ranking official in Washington, D.C., agreed to take care of your case. If you have to go to jail, you will go to a country-club jail. If you keep your mouth shut, you will retire in style."
Luu said a presidential pardon had even been discussed as an option for me, should I have been convicted.
What Luu didn't know, however, was that I had already agreed to cooperate fully with the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Congress. I was wearing a body wire, and the entire conversation had been audio- and video-recorded.
But at 4:00 p.m., before the meeting with Luu took place, my attorney's office received a phone call from the New York Times. Clearly, a high-ranking official had leaked the fact that I was cooperating with the FBI in order to burn the sting operation.
My attorney tried to kill the story for the sake of the operation, but the Times said it would only hold back if FBI Director Louis J. Freeh personally called the paper. Obviously that call never happened.
Concerned for my safety, the FBI told me I did not have to go through with the meeting, but I said I would cooperate no matter how dangerous it may be.
The sting was a success. The next day, the Times broke the story.
That morning I received a call from an FBI agent who said, "Mr. Chung, it's time to go. We need to take you and your family to a safe place."
For the next three weeks, my family and I were kept under heavily-armed government protection 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I later found out from government officials that a "hit squad" from China had come to kill me. During those three weeks, a group of four men from Beijing, and another group composed of two men and one woman, sought to kill me.
In early June of 1998, while still under guard, former Justice Department task force supervisor Charles LaBella requested a meeting with me. He was writing the now-famous "LaBella report" and needed more information.
I've never had the chance to read his report, but I know what I said to him in that hotel room. I have decided to share that conversation with the public.
Meeting the head of the prosecuting team investigating my case was a bit uncomfortable, to say the least. But LaBella broke the ice when, upon seeing me he said, "You look exactly like your picture."
Immediately put at ease, I said, "Mr. LaBella, you are a man with integrity. You are investigating your own boss."
At this point, I had already been hunted by not one, but two different Chinese crime teams, and my future was unclear. In light of the circumstances, I felt compelled to tell LaBella, "I am under heavy FBI protection, but in case anything happens to me, please write down everything I have to say to you because I know you are writing your report."
At that time, FBI agents were kept at a distance from me so they did not hear our conversation. LaBella pointed to a piece of paper, which he used to take notes of our conversation. By the time we were finished, both sides of the paper were filled with the following information.
First, I told LaBella of the snag the FBI and I had hit with the New York Times, and that the only way reporters could have heard anything about the operation was if a government official who knew about the sting leaked the information.
Second, I made sure he knew the head of the civil division in the Justice Department was involved in "taking care of my case."
Then I told Labella the money I contributed was for political access, and that the Clintons knew it.
"This is the White House," I told him, "not my house or your house. If the residents of the White House do not want you in, you cannot set foot in there. If they don't know who you are, you don't get in."
I often told administration officials, "The more access I am given, the more business I can generate, which means I can afford to give more donations."
They clearly knew I was cultivating my business relationships with businessmen from Asia -- including from China.
In my conversation with LaBella, I recounted the circumstances surrounding the times I made financial contributions to the Clintons and the Democratic National Committee. While inside the White House, I gave $50,000 to Margaret Williams, chief of staff to First Lady Hillary Clinton. I specifically told Williams the money was for access.
I had a "wish list" which the Clintons granted. It included a picture with the president and first lady, eating lunch at the White House and an exclusive tour. It was suggested I pay $80,000, but I paid $50,000.
I asked Williams' secretary, Evan Ryan, "Does the first lady know about my contributions to help pay her debt to the Democratic National Committee?"
Ryan said to me, "Yes, the first lady definitely knows."
But what Ryan, nor anyone else in the White House, didn't tell me was that it is illegal to receive money for campaigns inside a government building. I didn't know that -- I was the new kid in town, but Ryan and Williams should have known. All government officials should know that.
I later gave Africare, a non-profit organization that raises money for poor African nations, a $25,000 donation at the suggestion of Corlis Moody, director of the office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the Department of Energy -- right-hand woman of Secretary O'Leary. I was told the money would secure a meeting with the Secretary of Energy for a Chinese oil company. I understood that to mean: no donation, no meeting.
In the summer of 1996, I attended a 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign event at the Los Angeles Century Plaza Hotel. I brought 18 Chinese national businessmen to the event and introduced them to Richard Sullivan, the chief finance director of the DNC, and the fundraiser for the Clinton-Gore committee, Karin Sternfeld. I gave a check made out to the DNC for $25,000, but Sternfeld handed the check to my former general manager and asked that it be split into 25 separate $1,000 checks.
As I told LaBella, clearly Sternfeld and the other fundraisers present knew these men were Chinese. Why did they ask me to change the check when they knew the money was from a foreign country?
Another instance was when I hosted a fundraising event in the fall for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. I was breaking down another check into smaller quantities with one of my company shareholders, Mr. Lee, in front of four professional fundraisers: Sullivan; Sternfeld; Kimberly Ray, another Clinton-Gore fundraiser; and the fundraiser for Kerry. All acted as though they didn't see anything related to the transaction, despite the fact that we were sitting at the same table. I even have a picture to prove it.
"Why didn't they stop me?" I asked LaBella at our meeting. "I didn't know my transactions were illegal. But when I was told they were, I pled guilty. I admitted I was wrong -- why don't they?"
My contributions to the DNC and the Clinton-Gore campaign finance committee were the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I happened to know the head of Chinese military intelligence, Gen. Gi Sheng-de, was trying to influence American elections.
Gen. Gi told me, "We like your president. We'd like to see him re-elected. I will give you $300,000, and you can give it to your president and your Democrat Party."
Of course, the money was taken away from me after the campaign finance scandal erupted by Chinese mafia operative Peter Chang in Los Angeles. The mafia there has strong ties with the Chinese government.
Having crammed as much of our conversation as possible onto his one sheet of paper, LaBella and I concluded our meeting.
Before we went our separate ways, I shook LaBella's hand and looked him in the eye when I said, "I'm going to count on you to report this. You have all the information, no matter what happens to me now."
We said goodbye to each other, I was taken back to my secret location by the FBI agents, and LaBella went on to complete his report.
On Feb. 3, 1999, after filing the 94-page report with Janet Reno, Chuck LaBella resigned as interim U.S. Attorney, saying he felt he had lost the confidence of the attorney general and her top deputies.
Mr. LaBella, I want to publicly praise you for a job well done. You are a man with personal and professional integrity. You dared to stand up to do what is good for the American people despite the cost of losing your public career. My hat's off to you.
The American people should be very proud to have had someone like you working for them. I salute you.
-Hillary Clinton- archives, comments, and opposition research --
INA TODAY.com - INTERNATIONAL NEWS ANALYSIS -- TODAY by Toby Westerman: "RED CAPITALISM -- CAPITALIST MEANS TO COMMUNIST ENDS" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "In 1997, then-Chinese President Jiang Zemin (who remains in charge of China's military) and then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed to establish a "multi-polar new world order" to replace the purported "uni-polar" world under U.S. domination. As recently as January 25, 2003 during an official state to France, Chinese President Hu Jintao vowed to work for a "safer, more diverse and united world" - an implicit attack upon what China and France term U.S. "unilateralism," and support for a "multi-lateral" world. To dislodge the U.S. from its current position of strength, Beijing must have the military power to successfully challenge America. China's military expansion is designed to accomplish this goal.") (February 2, 2004) (Read More...)
I do that as much as possible with related posts, in the hopes that people seeking further information will find it useful- there is an immense amount of information here if you know where to look.
The LaBella Memo: Not Ready For Prime Time?
Op-ed by Brent H. Baker, vice president of the MRC, as printed in the March 15, 2000 edition of The Wall Street Journal
By Brent Baker
Friday morning's Los Angeles Times revealed much of the content of the long-secret memo prepared by Charles LaBella, the Justice Department's former campaign-finance investigator, whose wish for an independent counsel to probe White House fundraising was rejected by Attorney General Janet Reno. The report revealed Mr. LaBella's conclusion that Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and former Clinton aide Harold Ickes had all received special treatment from Justice.
Not a word about the disclosure appeared on the ABC, CBS or NBC morning news shows Friday. And not a syllable about it aired Friday night on ABC's "World News Tonight," the "CBS Evening News" or the "NBC Nightly News," even though the networks had all day to produce a story. Nor did MSNBC's hour-long "The News with Brian Williams" touch it. The story did top CNN's "Inside Politics" and "The World Today" as well as Fox News Channel's "Special Report with Brit Hume." FNC's "Fox Report" ran a story a few minutes into the 7 p.m. ET show.
Was the LaBella story bumped for more important news? Judge for yourself. ABC's "World News Tonight" led on Friday with a story on what anchorman Charles Gibson warned was the "most dramatic evidence yet" of how humans alter the environment, a study in Science magazine that found pollution reduces rainfall. ABC's second full story of the night: How a Centers for Disease Control report documented media overhype of the flu epidemic.
ABC and NBC did take up campaign stories Saturday night, but both ignored the LaBella development. College basketball bumped Saturday's "CBS Evening News" off most eastern affiliates Saturday night, but a transcript shows the program did raise the LaBella development. Correspondent Mark Knoller looked at how Mr. Gore is trying to portray himself as a crusader for campaign finance reform.
After showing the vice president meeting with Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, Mr. Knoller noted: "But Gore again finds himself on the defensive on that issue. A previously secret report has surfaced which was written two years ago by Charles LaBella, who, at the time, was the Justice Department's chief campaign finance investigator. In the document, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, LaBella says Gore 'may have provided false testimony' about fund-raising matters, and called for the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate fund-raising by the president, Gore and even the first lady."
Sunday night sports bumped both the CBS and NBC evening shows in the East, leaving only ABC's "World News Tonight." On it, reporter Terry Moran examined how Mr. Gore is making campaign finance reform a theme of his campaign with the goal of winning over John McCain's voters.
Mr. Moran raised Mr. Gore's controversial past fundraising, but failed to mention Ms. Hsia or Mr. LaBella: "What's striking about Gore's newfound enthusiasm for reform is his own checkered history on the subject. His 1996 visit to a Buddhist temple where funds were illegally raised has become a symbol of abuse and today Governor Bush mocked Gore's new claim to be a reformer. . . . The Republicans will try to portray Gore as a hypocrite for calling for campaign finance reform now, but Gore is trying to inoculate himself by admitting, as he did today in the New York Times, that he has made mistakes and now he says he speaks with the conviction of a convert on the need for reform."
If the networks continue to ignore major revelations about his activities and convictions of his aides, Mr. Gore won't have to inoculate himself against anything.
Don't forget to pop popcorn.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.