a similar story — this one involving Communist China — that developed during Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign. The Washington Post reported in 1998 that “evidence gathered in federal surveillance intercepts has indicated that the Chinese government planned to increase China’s influence in the U.S. political process in 1996.”
.. Many people still believe that a major cover-up of that scandal worked — in part because the media expressed skepticism and devoted only a fraction of resources they are spending on the Trump–Russia story. Network reporters expressed outright skepticism of the story, with many openly criticizing the late senator Fred Thompson, the chair of the Senate investigating committee, for wasting time and money.
.. congressional hearings on the China scandal in the summer of 1997 were dwarfed by reports on the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace and the death of Princess Diana.
.. The Chinese fundraising scandal involving DNC finance vice chairman John Huang first came to light in the final weeks of the 1996 presidential campaign. A former Commerce Department official, Huang was a top fundraiser who scooped up suspect foreign cash for Team Clinton.
.. The DNC was forced to give back more than $2.8 million in illegal or improper donations from foreign nationals.
.. Chung confessed that at least $35,000 of his donations to the Clinton campaign and the DNC had come from a Chinese aerospace executive — a lieutenant colonel in the Chinese military.
.. A total of 120 participants in the fundraising scandal either fled the country, asserted their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, or otherwise avoided questioning. The stonewalling worked — and probably encouraged Hillary Clinton in her own cover-up of her private e-mail server and her ties with the Clinton Foundation.
.. Indeed, much of the media basically gave the Clintons a pass on evidence that special-interest donors to the Clinton Foundation frequently managed to score favors from the State Department. Journalist Peter Schweitzer revealed in his book Clinton Cash that State had helped move along an infamous deal that granted the Russians control of more than 20 percent of the uranium production here in the United States.
.. The company involved in acquiring the American uranium was a very large donor to — you guessed it — the Clinton Foundation.
.. But a little humility and honesty on the part of the media would be appropriate. Much of the breathless and constant coverage of the Russia scandal is motivated by the media’s hatred of Donald Trump
.. When it came to the Clintons, the media tended to downplay or even trivialize many of their scandals. But, to be fair, a little bit of self-awareness is beginning to show up in the Russia coverage. Last Thursday, Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC noted that when it came to “opening the door” to lowering the standards of conduct by a modern president, Bill Clinton led the way with his lying and scandalous behavior.
China Gets Failing Grade on North Korea
In Beijing’s view, the current crisis was largely created by U.S. belligerence, and thus the onus is primarily on Washington to fix it, with China acting as facilitator.
.. An irritated China on Tuesday hit back at U.S. pressure to do more. “The ‘China responsibility theory’ on the peninsula nuclear issue can stop,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Yet China is Pyongyang’s enabler: Up to 90% of North Korea’s foreign trade runs through its neighbor. And commerce is surging; Pyongyang is a bustling capital.
Beijing appears to believe that living with a nuclear North Korea is preferable to the alternatives: the collapse of its socialist ally spilling refugees into its industrial heartland and bringing U.S. troops to its border.
.. How would Beijing respond if Taiwan reactivated its nuclear program?..But then, the unthinkable is now reality: President Trump talks about a “major, major conflict.”.. Seoul didn’t drop the effort until 1980—after the U.S. suspended a plan to pull out troops.. A North Korea capable of hitting the U.S. with a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile would, once again, raise questions about U.S. willingness to come to the rescue. Would Washington risk Seattle for Seoul? That, in turn, might spur demands for a homegrown nuclear deterrent.
What Would Gates Do? A Defense Chief’s Plan for North Korea
Robert Gates, the most seasoned senior U.S. national-security official of the last half-century, lays out a response
The Gates proposal proceeds from several basic principles. First: There simply is no good pure military option for attacking North Korea. The sheer destruction and danger of an all-out war on the Korean Peninsula take that idea off the table.Second: “China is still the key no matter how you slice it,” Mr. Gates says. As has been noted by every recent American administration, China is the one country with sufficient leverage over North Korea to make a difference... “It seems to me the need is for a comprehensive strategy you would lay out to the Chinese at a very high level, which would basically have both a diplomatic and a military component.” In other words, make a deal with China before you deal with North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un, directly.
.. Under the Gates approach, the U.S. would make China the following offer: Washington is prepared to recognize the North Korean regime and forswear a policy of regime change, as it did when resolving the Cuban missile crisis with the Soviet Union; is prepared to sign a peace treaty with North Korea; and would be prepared to consider some changes in the structure of military forces in South Korea.
In return, the U.S. would demand hard limits on the North Korean nuclear and missile program, essentially freezing it in place, enforced by the international community and by China itself.
.. “I think you cannot get the North to give up their nuclear weapons,” Mr. Gates says. “Kim sees them as vital to survival. But you may be able to get them to keep the delivery systems to very short range.”
.. the North Koreans would have to agree to invasive inspections that could insure a limited nuclear stockpile of no more than a dozen or two dozen nuclear weapons, as well as inspections to ensure they aren’t developing more weapons or further capabilities for delivery.
.. On the flip side of that offer, Mr. Gates says, the U.S. would present a tougher alternative for China: “If that is not an outcome you can accept, we are going to take steps in Asia you hate.”
.. Absent such an agreement, the U.S. would “heavily populate Asia with missile defenses.” That would include missile-defense buildups in South Korea, Japan and aboard additional American ships stationed in the Pacific. In addition, the U.S. would declare that it would shoot down “anything we think looks like a launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile” from North Korea.
U.S. Tells North Korea It Is Prepared to Go to War
The U.S. warned North Korea that it is ready to fight if provoked, as Pyongyang claimed another weapons-development breakthrough following its launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile a day earlier.
.. “Self restraint, which is a choice, is all that separates armistice and war,” Gen. Brooks said. “We are able to change our choice when so ordered.…It would be a grave mistake for anyone to believe anything to the contrary.”
.. The U.S. had sought Beijing’s help in pressuring North Korea, but recently President Donald Trump said that route had been fruitless. “Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter. So much for China working with us – but we had to give it a try!” he said in a tweet on Wednesday.
.. “A single volley could deliver more than 350 metric tons of explosives across the South Korean capital, roughly the same amount of ordnance dropped by 11 B-52 bombers,..Meredith Sumpter, director of Asia for Eurasia Group, wrote in a note to clients Tuesday that the odds of a U.S. military strike on North Korea remain low—about a 10% probability—adding it would probably be well-signaled by the U.S. and “clear to outside observers in advance of any military move.”