Replies

China-gate figure Johnny Chung pled guilty to funneling $10,000 to Kerry and $18,000 to Clinton's 1996 reelection on orders from Chinese General Ji, then the head of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) military intelligence. The money donated to Kerry came directly from cash provided by the Chinese Army General.

According to stories published in the New York Times, Newsweek and the New York Post, Chung came to Kerry's office in July 1996 to seek help in getting Lt. Colonel Liu Chaoying in to meet with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Lt. Colonel Liu was then an executive of China Aerospace, a PLA military owned company that produces nuclear tipped missiles. Liu's sponsor Johnny Chung made clear during a meeting in Senator Kerry's office that she was interested in getting China Aerospace listed on the U.S. Stock Exchange.

Lt. Col. Liu was well known in military and intelligence circles. Lt. Col. Liu's father, a retired PLA general, was until 1997 vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. In response, Kerry ordered his aides to contact the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to Newsweek, "the next day Liu and Chung were ushered into a private briefing with a senior SEC official." Within a week of the SEC meeting, Kerry's staff wrote Chung asking him to host a Sept. 9 fund-raiser.

KERRY - "NO RECOLLECTION"

Kerry claims that he never met Johnny Chung or Lt. Col. Liu until the Sept. 9 fundraiser. However, according to the Newsweek reports, Kerry wrote a personal note on July 31 to Chung.

Dear Johnny", wrote Kerry. "It was a great pleasure to have met you last week." Kerry also closed the July 31 note with a personal thank you to Chung for being "on my team".

On Sept. 9, 1996, Chung held the Kerry fund-raiser at a Beverly Hills hotel that raked in the $10,000 of Chinese Army money for the senator's re-election campaign. Kerry stated that the Chung note and money was "old news."

The Democrat front-runner also claimed the "Dear Johnny" note was routine in fund-raising.

"I have no recollection of it at all," stated Kerry.

Kerry's cash links to Beijing do not end with Chung, Lt. Col. Liu and Loral. A controversial Chinese-American businessman involved in the 1996 fundraising scandal turned out to be a donor to Kerry's political campaigns.

Campaign records filed with the Federal Election Commission show that George Chao-chi Chu contributed to the campaign of John Kerry. Kerry has returned only part of the money donated by Chu according to the FEC.

Chu had been one of the Democratic Party's top fundraisers, raising more than $500,000 before the China-gate scandal hit in 1997.

"Mr. Chu has never been convicted of any crime," stated Kelley Benander, a spokeswoman for Kerry's presidential campaign. "While it's never possible to know the complete history of every one of the thousands of donors to the campaign, we do have an established vetting process for contributors," said Benander.

Benander did not explain why Kerry returned some of Chu's donations despite the fact that Chu had never been convicted of any crime.

Chu's contributions raised questions because of his links to the Communist Chinese leadership in Beijing and to John Huang, a central figure in the scandal.

Chu once escorted Richard Blum, the wealthy husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), to Beijing to meet Deng Pufang, son of late Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping. Federal regulators also investigated his import-export company, Da Tung International, throughout the 1980s President Clinton appointed Chu to an advisory committee on trade with China in 2000.

China-gate figure John Huang also donated money to Kerry. Huang later pled guilty to illegal fundraising for the DNC. Huang remains free despite the fact that he refused to answer whether he was an agent of the Chinese military over 2,000 times while under oath.

According to Court records, Huang was cited for contempt for refusing to answer but the Judge in the case has never imposed any penalty against Huang. Kerry's campaign, on the other hand, elected to return Huang's donation.

In the case of Mark Jimenez, however, Kerry has so far elected to keep the money donated by the Florida businessman who was convicted of election fraud in November 2002.

A U.S. federal court in Florida sentenced ousted Philippine congressman Mark Jimenez to more than two years in jail for federal election fraud. Jimenez was sentenced to 2 1/4 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.2 million restitution on his guilty plea to election conspiracy and tax evasion charges.

Jimenez fled to the Philippines when he was charged of making illegal donations to the DNC during the 1990s. There he became a confidante of jailed ex-president Estrada. Jimenez returned to the United States to face charges after the 2000 U.S. elections. The court ruled in November that Jimenez contributed illegally to the campaigns of then-president Clinton and other Democrats. Jimenez said he hoped his guilty plea would serve as "a lesson in my country" where political corruption is frequently alleged but rarely admitted.