Word: thompson
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WASHINGTON, D.C.: For Fred Thompson, the main problem with illicit Asian donations is that they don't seem to be news to anyone. But last week's swing-and-a-miss performance has forced Thompson and his committee to downshift, laying the groundwork for what they see as a pattern of illicit Asian contributions to political campaigns. Today's Exhibit A: a memo in which John Huang asked the Lippo Group, for whom he worked in 1992, to "please kindly wire" some $50,000 to the Democratic Party. Before long, a red-faced DNC was announcing the return...
...Thompson is not expected to expose every Democratic fund-raising transgression at the hearings he will chair through much of the summer. Most of the primary witnesses have refused to testify, in fear of increasing their exposure to criminal charges now that a federal task force of FBI agents and prosecutors is proceeding at a much slower pace to investigate Huang and his web of donors. Thompson is limited by law in his scope, dogged by Democrats to expand the probe and pressed by his own party's conservatives to confine it. Meanwhile, key Democratic fund raisers, including Charlie...
...Thompson's potential star witness, Huang may have as much value bound as unbound. The Constitution gives Huang the right to remain silent, but not to avoid a trip to the Capitol. If Thompson wants to compel Huang's appearance, all he needs to do is issue a committee order and, if necessary, get a judge to dispatch U.S. Marshal escorts to Huang's California home. And that would be only the opening act of a great political play...
Dramatic effects may be required for Thompson to give new life to a story that so far has proved nothing more than the need for campaign-finance reform. Nor has the tantalizing possibility of high-level government espionage materialized. Reports of a Beijing plot to reach deeply into American politics are sketchy, based on intercepts of telephone calls to the Chinese embassy that intelligence analysts say can be interpreted variously...
...Mark Thompson...