Yesterday afternoon, NBC reported that John Kerry provided material assistance to Liu Chaoying [spelled differently throughout the article], an arms dealer and espionage agent for China, in exchange for campaign contributions:

In 1996, Senator John Kerry was locked in a hard-fought and close reelection campaign with Massachusetts Governor William Weld. Kerry was the policy wonk, noted for his expertise in international crime, arms and drug dealing, and intelligence. ... [Johnny] Chung gave $10,000 to Kerry's campaign -- most of it illegally -- hosted a fund-raising party in Beverly Hills, and threw in an extra $10,000 to honor Kerry at a Democratic Senate Campaign Committee event. Kerry eventually returned all the Chung money.

In return, Kerry opened a door for a friend of Chung: Liu Chaoying.

So the man who claims he opposes special interests and claims he can't be bought certainly seems available for rent when necessary. While helping contributors and friends of contributors happens all the time, seldom does one see a politician who participates so blatantly and then turn around and get so sanctimonious about it.

But Kerry's hypocrisy isn't really the story -- his bad judgment in his "friends" presents a clear danger to the US:

The woman, Liu Chao Ying, worked in high ranking positions for two companies responsible for brokering one of the biggest and most controversial arms sales of the 1990's -- a $300-million missile deal with Pakistan. The two companies were sanctioned by the United States for their deals with Pakistan. ...

"Who is Colonel Liu?" asked William Triplett, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and author of two books on Chinese influence in US politics. "She began her military intelligence career with Chinese Navy intelligence. She has been, in succession, assistant to the President of the China National Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation and the China Great Wall Industries Corporation, both of whom have been sanctioned twice -- in 1991 and 1993 -- by the United States for ballistic missiles sales to Pakistan. She later became president of China Aerospace Industrial Holdings Ltd. and she made illegal campaign contributions to the Clinton Gore ticket and John Kerry in 1996.

"She is a communist,” says Triplett; she is a high-tech spy; she is an arms broker and she met Bill Clinton at a fund raiser and John Kerry in his Senate office."

Kerry wasn't able to swing everything Liu wanted, which was a listing for her company on the stock exchange, but Kerry, as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, did arrange a meeting for the Chinese spy with the Securities and Exchange Commission after Chung slipped his 1996 campaign some illegal cash. Nor can Kerry plead ignorance of Liu's illegal arms dealings, unless he's so vapid that he doesn't vet the people to whom he gives such high-level assistance. Liu's companies had already been sanctioned by the US twice: once in 1991 and again in 1993 for illegal arms sales to Pakistan -- giving Pakistan a missile system capable of nuclear-arms delivery.

Kerry met with Chung in 1996 through staff connections with Richard Sullivan, the DNC staffer who had gotten $351,000 from Chung for the Clinton/Gore ticket and other Democratic candidates. In the last week of July, he met with Kerry, who agreed to fax over a letter to the SEC (which reports to the Senate Banking Committee) and his staffers did so while Chung watched. Chung promised to support Kerry, and later did so through a number of illegal campaign contributions.

And what was the ultimate source of the money? Chung later told investigators and an open Congressional hearing that General Ji Shengde, the number two in Chinese military intelligence might have been the ultimate source, describing a meeting in the basement of a Hong Kong restaurant where Ji told him of a plan to funnel $300,000 to the Clinton campaign, explaining “we like your president”.

Not only did the Chinese like our president, apparently they liked Kerry too, and for much the same reason: he was accessible and he delivered when asked. Chung later pled guilty to a number of charges and cooperated with federal investigators looking into Chinese election tampering in 1996.

So here we have John Kerry, who in the middle of a war wants us to trust him with the Presidency, taking money and giving favors not just to campaign contributors, not just twice-sanctioned nuclear-arms dealers, but to Chinese espionage agents -- by using his position on the Banking Committee to pressure the SEC into meeting with Liu. Is this corruption and catastrophically bad judgment what we want to see in the White House? Kerry showed a tremendous lack of judgment and discernment, even if he didn't know Liu was a spy; her involvement in illegal arms sales would have been a matter of public record. Kerry was either too greedy to properly check the backgrounds of people with whom he "asked" the SEC to meet or he was too stupid; in either case, he's hardly the man to protect the US, especially in wartime.

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Who cares about alleged adultery when you have campaign contributions, influence peddling and espionage like this? Senator John Kerry, D-MA, unwittingly tried to help a Chinese espionage agent and arms dealer in 1996 in return for campaign contribution... [Read More]

Tracked on February 18, 2004 11:34 AM