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Jewish World Review July 6, 2000 / 3 Tamuz, 5760
Chris Matthews
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
07/03/00: AlGore's latest hazard
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