Election for Sale

Last week Johnny Chung, a prominent business leader from Los Angeles, confessed to raising $300,000 illegally for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 1996 elections. Chung, one of the Democratic Party's biggest fundraisers, confessed to taking money from China and funneling it to President Clinton's campaign. And there may be more. According to the New York Times, millions of dollars were channeled from the Chinese government to the Los Angeles bank used by Chung.

When the story originally broke in 1996, rumors had already been swirling about the White House's shady fund-raising ties. At first the administration vehemently denied any ties to Chung; then, once pictures of Chung with several Chinese nationals at the White House with Bill and Hillary Clinton surfaced, the administration denied the ties to China. These excuses made it apparent that fund-raising rules had been disregarded, and the Justice Department began an investigation.

It is ironic that Clinton, who has always been an ardent proponent of campaign-finance reform, would stoop so low as to take money--and plenty of it--from an illegal source. The number one rule in campaign finance regulation is, after all, "do not take money from foreign governments."

The hypocrisy of the administration is the least of our fears, however. More importantly is the fact, amid massive allegations of Chinese tampering--stealing nuclear technology and spying in several of our most top-secret labs--that they also tried to influence our Presidential elections. Testifying before a Senate committee, Chung revealed that $200,000 of the money had come from Lieut. Col. Liu Chaoying, a Chinese military officer and aerospace executive who reportedly said to Chung when he give him the money, "We like your President. We want him to win."

The DNC, in conjunction with the White House, purported to not know of Chung's dangerous ties. However, as Judge Manuel Real, who sentenced Chung to jail, said, "If they didn't know what was going on, I think they are the dumbest politicians I've ever seen."

The attempt to influence the 1996 elections and, thus, American policy towards Chinese technology companies and China in general, is an insidious attack on national security. Revelations of the White House's blunders are becoming are all the more concerning given China's increasing antagonism. That Chung is the only one taking the fall for the Clinton administration is not surprising. That the President Clinton winked and smiled for the camera while thousands, perhaps millions, of illegal dollars flowed into DNC coffers, is.