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Jewish World Review July 6, 2000 / 3 Tamuz, 5760

Chris Matthews

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How Bubba's teapots clang


http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- PRESIDENT CLINTON scolded the press last week for throwing "the word 'scandal' around... like a clanging teapot." "Let's be careful," he instructed reporters. "Let's be very specific."

Let's.

Let's focus on what the president called "this campaign-finance thing," on this broader claim that the only people to suffer these past years have been the innocent.

Let's check those Clinton assertions against the Justice Department's own busy record:

In December 1998, Johnny Chung, a Democratic fund-raiser who compared buying access to the White House to buying tokens to ride the subway, is sentenced for bank fraud and tax evasion.

In August 1999, former Lippo Group conglomerate executive John Huang pleads guilty to felony charges that he conspired to make campaign contributions to the Democrats and to reimbursing employees with funds from Indonesia.

In November 1999, Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie, a Little Rock, Ark., businessman, is found guilty of making political contributions to the Democrats in someone else's name. Antonio Pan, also indicted, remained outside the country.

In December 1999, Democratic donor Yogesh Gandhi is sentenced to a year in prison for mail fraud, tax evasion and violating federal election law by aiding and abetting the making of a political-campaign contribution by a foreign national.

In March 2000, Maria Hsia, a Gore fund-raiser, is found guilty of five felony counts for her role in arranging more than $100,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic Party and its candidates in 1996. Some $55,000 was connected to the Gore visit that year to a Buddhist temple near Los Angeles.

The Justice Department had charged Ms. Hsia with arranging to have nuns and monks write checks to the Democratic National Committee. Later they were reimbursed by the temple itself, which, as a religious, tax-exempt institution, is prohibited from making political donations.

In April 2000, a federal grand jury indicts two Buddhist nuns for contempt of court for failing to appear as witnesses in the government's criminal trial against Ms. Hsia. The two remain fugitives.

In June 23, 2000, Pauline Kanchanalak pleads guilty in federal court to raising $690,000 in illegal foreign money for the Clinton-Gore '96 re-election effort. Most of the money was raised in connection with a White House "coffee" in June 1996.

President Clinton spoke of "totally innocent people's lives wrecked" by what he called his critics' "scandal machine."

The Justice Department's own record proves there was also a lot of guilt to pass around, a lot of scandal that was not only "alleged" but real, a lot of content to those "clanging teapots" of the president's.



JWR contributor Chris Matthews is the author of Hardball. and hosts a CNBC show of the same name. Send your comments to him by clicking here.

Up

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