Reuters, in its own story on the Senate committee’s investigation, quoted a knowledgeable source as saying the China plan apparently concentrated on getting sympathizers elected to Congress, rather than trying to sway a sitting member of Congress on a particular bill.

If that is true, the committee either does not know the specifics or has chosen not to name names or indicate how successful that effort was. And because there have been three congressional elections since that plan was implemented (1996, 1998, and 2000), it raises the question as to how many congressional challengers have since been elected with questionable Chinese money and what path they are following in China matters. It should be added that, as numerous documents and reports show, many recipients of Chinese largesse and influence were unaware of its source.

The Senate committee reviews the criminal investigation of Johnny Chung, who states that he "had been given $300,000 by a senior PRC official to assist in the election of President Clinton,” although the FBI traced only $20,000 of that to the Democratic National Committee.

The Senate report adds, "There is also reporting regarding contributions from other sources made to a Republican candidate for state office and a Republican state office holder.” No names are mentioned in that statement either, but NewsMax has examined documents that may shed light on the matter.

Naming Names

The House Committee on Government Reform has issued hearings and documents that name names. Though the very existence of these reports was acknowledged at the time they were issued, many of the specifics were barely mentioned or buried in media reports.

Among the more revealing chapters in the committee’s files was a report on the family of Ted Sioeng, a foreign national whose vast business empire and top-drawer political connections were brought to bear in this country on behalf of the People's Republic of China. The House panel describes Sioeng as a native of Indonesia who "was raised by an ethnic Chinese family and considers himself Chinese.”

Among the House panel’s conclusions:

Aid to Republicans and Democrats

Clinton, Gore, Gingrich

The influence with Clinton and Gore is already well known. But the influence with Gingrich pales in comparison and appears to have been more casual, according to the House panel’s findings.

Steven Kinney, Fong’s campaign consultant, approached the Sioeng family and asked for contributions to organizations supported by the speaker. The end result was that the Sioeng-owned Panda Industries donated $50,000 to the Gingrich-backed National Policy Forum. Sioeng sat next to the speaker at an outreach event for Asian Americans at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and had his photograph taken with the speaker. "During this meeting,” the House committee says, "the Speaker and Sioeng discussed U.S.-China relations.”

"Sometime in December 1995,” the Government Reform Committee goes on to say, "Jessica Elnitiarta [unlike her father, an American citizen] approached Fong to have him obtain a congratulatory letter from the speaker for a badminton tournament sponsored by one of [Sioeng’s] businesses. Fong secured the requested letter, which appeared in a promotion brochure for the tournament.

"The Committee notes that the subject of fundraising donations did not come up in the 1995 meeting between the Speaker and Sioeng. In fact, the two had a ‘very cordial conversation and made no mention of political contributions.’”

As for the $50,000 contribution to National Policy Forum, "The Committee also concludes that there is no evidence that the source of the monies used in the Panda Industries’ contribution to the NPF was from foreign funds. The Committee notes that in any event, as a 501©(4) corporation, the NPF could legally accept foreign donations.”

The issue with Gingrich appears to be not a question of illegality, but rather the more subtle nuances regarding "influence.”

The House investigators note that, overall in 1995 and 1996, the Sioeng family made political contributions of nearly $600,000, with $400,000 going to the Democratic National Committee and $182,500 going to Republican candidates and organizations.

Bear in mind, moreover, that the Sioeng case is a mere snapshot of just one phase of the committee’s investigation. Multiply that a few times over, and you can see the scope of communist Chinese influence in U.S. politics.

The LaBella Report

The most blatant example of knowing of campaign contributions or at least, looking the other way, is to be found in the committee’s publication of the LaBella Report.

Charles LaBella, recall, was supervising attorney for a task force appointed by then-Attorney General Janet Reno shortly after the Chinese spy scandal broke full force during the 1996 presidential election cycle.

After spending months examining the case for months, LaBella submitted a report recommending the appointment of a special prosecutor to fully investigate the case. Reno rejected the advice. This was consistent with her refusal to appoint any special counsel during Clinton’s second term and with her role of fronting for the Clinton White House every time criminal activity was charged.

Again, the existence of this memo has been widely publicized, but some of its more remarkable revelations remain largely unknown to the public today. At the time, the media focus was on the dispute between Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh, who supported LaBella’s call for an independent counsel.

The report notes a pattern suggesting "a level of knowledge within the white House — including the President’s and First Lady’s offices — concerning the injection of foreign funds into the [Clinton] re-election effort.”

Less emphasized in the media reports are such morsels of information as the e-mails between staffers at the National Security Agency (NSC) that were typified by the following exchange:

Revealing E-mails

From an unidentified NSC staffer: "It turns out they [members of a delegation visiting President Clinton for photo ops] are various Chinese gurus, and the POTUS [president of the United States] wasn’t sure we’d want pictures of him with these people circulating around.”

In response, Robert Suttinger, director of Asian Affairs at the NSC, "warned about [Johnny Chung] and what White House access” meant to him:

"I don’t see any lasting damage to U.S. foreign policy from giving Johnny Chung the pictures. And to the degree it motivates him to continue contributing to the DNC, who am I to complain?”

Chung, remember, was a conduit between high officials of the PRC and Democrat party coffers. The NSC is charged with maintaining a priority focus on advising the president on the national security interests of the United States. Partisan fund-raising concerns supposedly are not involved with this entity.

In January 1995, Chung wrote to Doris Matsui, deputy assistant to the president, that "in the next two years [leading up to the election], I will be coordinating a lot of visits from Asian business leaders to support the DNC.”

La Bella further states that "tainted foreign conduit donations continued to be solicited by [Charlie] Trie [a Clinton friend from the president’s Arkansas days] and accepted by the DNC and Clinton/Gore.” Further, the supervising attorney told Reno that certain actions by the president and first lady "suggest a conscious decision not to learn the truth about Trie’s fundraising activities.”

In summation, then, there is a report that the communist Chinese government tried to focus on electing non-incumbents to Congress, funded both parties in an effort to extend influence, and exerted a level of influence at the White House that would have been considered scandalous only a few years ago. This is a mere tip of the iceberg of what is known. And the many questions that have been raised suggest that what is known is a mere tip of the iceberg of what is not known.

Too Many Skeletons

What is also suggested is that there are so many skeletons in so many closets that a massive cover-up on China has been under way for some time.

On July 14, 1998, then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott told his colleagues on the Senate floor that the Clinton White House was not cooperating with the inquiries of the Senate Intelligence Committee or several other Senate committees that were investigating the Chinagate scandal, adding that an independent counsel should be appointed to conduct an impartial probe into "serious and credible charges of direct Chinese Government financing or involvement in the 1996 elections.”

The following day, at one of the committee’s rare open public sessions (usually the panel meets behind closed doors) Democrat members on the Senate Intelligence committee, in their opening remarks chastised Lott for his supposed "partisanship.”

Committees investigating foreign threats did not used to include such lockstep partisan political resentments in the hearing room.

Just last week, the National Archives released the records of the old House Committee on Un-American Activities, later renamed the House Committee on Internal Security. That panel had a 37-year record of going after Communists, Nazis and other enemies of freedom, under Democrat and Republican chairmen. In fact, Democrats were in control in all but four years of the committee’s history. And with some notable exceptions, there was a bipartisan feeling of "We’re all Americans when it comes to investigating enemies of our country.”

Ultimately, the hard left caught up with the panel and abolished it through back-door maneuvering in 1975.

"Don’t worry,” a left-wing House member told a colleague who was on the House committee. "We’ll put it all in the Judiciary Committee, and they’ll carry on the work in a subcommittee.”

After the left-wing lawmaker walked away, an associate commented to the committee member that this looked hopeful. The committee member shook his head and said of his colleague, "Lying bastard!” That pessimism proved accurate. The Judiciary Committee never did anything.

NewsMax.com has learned that at that time, the committee was in the midst of an investigation of Soviet financing of the U.S. Communist Party’s Daily Worker. Later, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became generally known that the Soviet Union had bankrolled the U.S. Communist Party all along.

This is not to say that the abolition of the committee headed off immediate revelation of this. The panel was refraining from "going public” with the information to protect Morris Childs, an undercover agent for the FBI who had gained entrée to the highest levels in Moscow.

But a source with knowledge of that era did not disagree with the suggestion that had the committee been allowed to proceed with its work, Americans would have been alerted to this much sooner than they were. Moreover, public knowledge would have added political and diplomatic firepower to President Reagan’s ultimately successful effort to bring down the Soviet Union.

How much useful knowledge of China’s spying on America is being withheld from American citizens today by a Congress bitterly split on issues pertaining to America’s security and perhaps with a "bipartisan” interest in withholding valuable information on what has come to be loosely termed "Chinagate?”

This is a country that is preparing for war with the United States, after all.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

China/Taiwan

Clinton Scandals

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