Ed Brunner
New member
This intrigues me as it gives a whole new slant to the China Connection and the Fund Raising White House Scandals. It looks like the main culprit is Al Gore.
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/6/30/142059
Gore Had Ties With Buddhist Temple Going Back Years
NewsMax.com
Friday, June 30, 2000
Despite his sworn denial that he knew little about the Buddhist temple he visited on April 29, 1996, or that he was aware that his visit was a fund raiser for the Clinton-Gore campaign, Al Gore had ties to the temple’s leadership stretching back seven long years, according to Kenneth Timmerman in a forthcoming article in the American Spectator.
During his four-hour interview with Justice Department official Robert J. Conrad Jr., Gore said that although he had heard about the temple he had never visited it before. He vehemently denied that he was aware of the fact that the temple affair was a fund-raising event for the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign.
"I felt this visit was something they would be very pleased with because it showed honor to their community and to their place of worship," he told Conrad. Writes Timmerman, "Sensitive Al was just trying to show respect."
The truth is that his ties to the Buddhist sect have been so close that the temple sect’s Venerable Master Hsing Yun helped finance a January 1989 trip Gore made to Asia that included a visit to the temple's headquarters in Taiwan, Timmerman reveals.
"In fact, so deep and so consistent are Gore's ties to the Fo Kuang Shan Buddhist order and to the convicted DNC fund-raiser who first introduced him to the monks, that his denials are nothing short of breathtaking," Timmerman writes.
That convicted DNC fund-raiser was the notorious Maria Hsia, who in April 1988 helped organize the Pacific Leadership Conference (PLC) along with two other figures prominent in the 1996 fund-raising scandals, James Riady and John Huang. The group lobbied then-Senator Gore, who was involved in writing the 1990 Immigration Act.
Timmerman says the three turned to the Hsi Lai Temple and its presiding monk for funds. Over time they raised about $1 million in campaign funds for Democrats, including Gore.
In July 1988, the group contacted the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee and offered to host an Asian tour for key Democrat senators. "By late November, the Senators they had initially approached backed out," Timmerman reveals.
Then Maria Hsia met Gore at a Georgetown fund-raising event and invited him to come along on the junket. Afterward, she sent Gore a letter promising both political and financial support.
"If you decide to join this trip, I will persuave [sic] all my colleagues in the future to play a leader [sic] role in your future presidential race," Hsia wrote. The letter was sent to the attention of Gore's top fund-raiser, Peter Knight.
Accompanying Gore on the Asian junket were Maria Hsia, James Riady, John Huang and other PLC members. On January 11, 1989, Gore and the group toured the Kiaoshung Monastery on Taiwan as the guests of Hsi Lai Temple Venerable Master Hsing Yun, who, according to the Senate investigation of the infamous Los Angeles temple fund raiser, helped foot the bill for the Taiwan leg of the trip.
After the junket, Gore’s ties to the group strengthened. Hsia set up two fund raisers for Gore in West Los Angeles on April 30, 1989, Timmerman writes. He returned to Los Angeles on May 21, 1989, for a $250-per-plate dinner at the home of PLC founding member Tina Bow, which Hsia organized. Co-chairman of that event was Eddy Yang, an adviser to the temple’s Venerable Master Hsing Yun. The affair raised $20,000 for Gore.
Timmerman cites a 1997 story in the Los Angeles Times that said after the fund raiser Gore sent a thank-you note to one of the Buddhist monks, saying that he "deeply appreciates your support and the support of your congregation."
Notes Timmerman, "Given the fact that Gore was up for re-election to the U.S. Senate in Tennessee, where the monastics could not vote, the only support they could have given him was financial."
That became clear when Gore wrote Hsia a couple of days later, telling her that his doomed presidential campaign "has delayed my efforts to raise money for the 1990 campaign and left our coffers empty for the upcoming race. Your contribution at the early stage of this effort has helped to replenish our account."
In addition to the so-called hard money raised directly for the Gore campaign at the fund raiser, Hsia and her friends "made sure that $29,500 in soft money they had donated to the DSCC was 'tallied' to Gore's hard money accounts for his 1990 U.S. Senate campaign." In a separate letter to Hsia dated Jan. 31, 1989, Gore thanked her for "crediting my DSCC tally" with those checks.
"For more than twelve years, Al Gore has maintained a lucrative relationship with an Asian-American fund-raiser the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee said it had learned ‘has been an agent of the Chinese government,’" Timmerman says.
"He went on a tour of Asia paid for in part by the Hsi Lai Temple, and took campaign contributions from monks and nuns of the order," Timmerman concludes. "Gore's attempt to falsely categorize this long-standing relationship as something haphazard or impromptu demonstrates once again his precarious relationship to the truth."
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You have to be there when it's all over. Otherwise you can't say "I told you so."
Better days to be,
Ed
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/6/30/142059
Gore Had Ties With Buddhist Temple Going Back Years
NewsMax.com
Friday, June 30, 2000
Despite his sworn denial that he knew little about the Buddhist temple he visited on April 29, 1996, or that he was aware that his visit was a fund raiser for the Clinton-Gore campaign, Al Gore had ties to the temple’s leadership stretching back seven long years, according to Kenneth Timmerman in a forthcoming article in the American Spectator.
During his four-hour interview with Justice Department official Robert J. Conrad Jr., Gore said that although he had heard about the temple he had never visited it before. He vehemently denied that he was aware of the fact that the temple affair was a fund-raising event for the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign.
"I felt this visit was something they would be very pleased with because it showed honor to their community and to their place of worship," he told Conrad. Writes Timmerman, "Sensitive Al was just trying to show respect."
The truth is that his ties to the Buddhist sect have been so close that the temple sect’s Venerable Master Hsing Yun helped finance a January 1989 trip Gore made to Asia that included a visit to the temple's headquarters in Taiwan, Timmerman reveals.
"In fact, so deep and so consistent are Gore's ties to the Fo Kuang Shan Buddhist order and to the convicted DNC fund-raiser who first introduced him to the monks, that his denials are nothing short of breathtaking," Timmerman writes.
That convicted DNC fund-raiser was the notorious Maria Hsia, who in April 1988 helped organize the Pacific Leadership Conference (PLC) along with two other figures prominent in the 1996 fund-raising scandals, James Riady and John Huang. The group lobbied then-Senator Gore, who was involved in writing the 1990 Immigration Act.
Timmerman says the three turned to the Hsi Lai Temple and its presiding monk for funds. Over time they raised about $1 million in campaign funds for Democrats, including Gore.
In July 1988, the group contacted the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee and offered to host an Asian tour for key Democrat senators. "By late November, the Senators they had initially approached backed out," Timmerman reveals.
Then Maria Hsia met Gore at a Georgetown fund-raising event and invited him to come along on the junket. Afterward, she sent Gore a letter promising both political and financial support.
"If you decide to join this trip, I will persuave [sic] all my colleagues in the future to play a leader [sic] role in your future presidential race," Hsia wrote. The letter was sent to the attention of Gore's top fund-raiser, Peter Knight.
Accompanying Gore on the Asian junket were Maria Hsia, James Riady, John Huang and other PLC members. On January 11, 1989, Gore and the group toured the Kiaoshung Monastery on Taiwan as the guests of Hsi Lai Temple Venerable Master Hsing Yun, who, according to the Senate investigation of the infamous Los Angeles temple fund raiser, helped foot the bill for the Taiwan leg of the trip.
After the junket, Gore’s ties to the group strengthened. Hsia set up two fund raisers for Gore in West Los Angeles on April 30, 1989, Timmerman writes. He returned to Los Angeles on May 21, 1989, for a $250-per-plate dinner at the home of PLC founding member Tina Bow, which Hsia organized. Co-chairman of that event was Eddy Yang, an adviser to the temple’s Venerable Master Hsing Yun. The affair raised $20,000 for Gore.
Timmerman cites a 1997 story in the Los Angeles Times that said after the fund raiser Gore sent a thank-you note to one of the Buddhist monks, saying that he "deeply appreciates your support and the support of your congregation."
Notes Timmerman, "Given the fact that Gore was up for re-election to the U.S. Senate in Tennessee, where the monastics could not vote, the only support they could have given him was financial."
That became clear when Gore wrote Hsia a couple of days later, telling her that his doomed presidential campaign "has delayed my efforts to raise money for the 1990 campaign and left our coffers empty for the upcoming race. Your contribution at the early stage of this effort has helped to replenish our account."
In addition to the so-called hard money raised directly for the Gore campaign at the fund raiser, Hsia and her friends "made sure that $29,500 in soft money they had donated to the DSCC was 'tallied' to Gore's hard money accounts for his 1990 U.S. Senate campaign." In a separate letter to Hsia dated Jan. 31, 1989, Gore thanked her for "crediting my DSCC tally" with those checks.
"For more than twelve years, Al Gore has maintained a lucrative relationship with an Asian-American fund-raiser the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee said it had learned ‘has been an agent of the Chinese government,’" Timmerman says.
"He went on a tour of Asia paid for in part by the Hsi Lai Temple, and took campaign contributions from monks and nuns of the order," Timmerman concludes. "Gore's attempt to falsely categorize this long-standing relationship as something haphazard or impromptu demonstrates once again his precarious relationship to the truth."
------------------
You have to be there when it's all over. Otherwise you can't say "I told you so."
Better days to be,
Ed
