A day after Vice President Al Gore defended the Clinton
administration’s China policy and blamed predecessors for permitting
suspected nuclear espionage by Beijing, a new Judicial Watch lawsuit
names him as a defendant in the Chinagate scandal.
The lawsuit names two shareholders of Loral Space and Communications
as plaintiffs, W.L. Meng and S.S. Jones. They are suing Gore, the
Clintons, the Democratic National Committee, John Huang and others for
allegedly granting export licenses for high-technology transfers to
China in exchange for campaign contributions from American companies.
They’re also suing Gore for his apparent part in the selling of seats on
trade missions to China.
Bernard Schwartz, another defendant in the lawsuit and the chairman
of the board and chief executive officer for Loral, allegedly
contributed large sums of money to the Clinton campaign with money
coming from Loral. Court documents said that Schwartz used part of a $36
million bonus which he had negotiated for himself under Loral’s merger
agreement with Lockheed “to reimburse himself for his unlawful
contributions and to provide a source of funds for further unlawful
contributions.”
Because of the alleged unlawful contributions to the Clinton campaign
by Schwartz, Clinton transferred authority for export licensing from the
State Department to Commerce which enabled Schwartz to secure an
unlawful waiver from Clinton to launch his company’s satellite in China,
according to court documents. The documents go on to say that Schwartz
later secured additional waivers from Clinton.
Due to Schwartz’s alleged involvement with unlawful contributions and
technology transfers, which Judicial Watch claims had compromised U.S.
security interests, Loral’s business interests have been damaged thus
instigating the lawsuit from shareholders.
Judicial Watch said that finally Gore would be held accountable for
the actions of the current administration of which he is a part. The
public-interest government watchdog quickly pointed out, however, that
neither the Democrats nor the Republicans ever wanted to get into the
Chinagate issue because the American companies that transferred the
technology to China gave heavily to both parties.
Concerning the trade missions to China, Judicial Watch said that
espionage likely occurred as well since American businessmen, knowingly
or unknowingly, came into contact with Chinese intelligence agents.
Commenting on the conduct of the current administration in regard to
the Chinagate issue, Larry Klayman, Judicial Watch chairman and general
counsel, said, “The Chinese own this administration — so the decision
to not only transfer high technology, but also to cover up security
breaches of nuclear secrets, comes as no surprise. The Chinese had to
purchase something for the millions they pumped into the 1996
Clinton-Gore campaign.”
Remarking on Gore’s involvement in Chinagate, Klayman said, “With Al
Gore, the Chinese have their investment for the future.”
