Senior Spy Penetrated Oval Office in 1996 - Interview with Edward Timperlake
Washington Weekly
1/24/99 By RICKI MAGNUSSEN AND MARVIN LEE
Senior Spy Penetrated Oval Office in 1996
Interview with Edward Timperlake
By RICKI MAGNUSSEN AND MARVIN LEE
"You can't characterize it in any other way," says Edward Timperlake, co-author of "Year of the Rat: How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash. [1]"
"Johnny Chung, who was paid by Colonel Liu, penetrated to the oval office," Timperlake tells the Washington Weekly. "Colonel Liu is a senior spy. She went to the spy academy."
Liutenant Colonel Liu Chaoying began her military intelligence career with Chinese navy intelligence. She made illegal campaign contributions to the Clinton Campaign through Johnny Chung in 1996. And she met Bill Clinton in person at a dinner at the private Brentwood, California home of Clinton supporter Eli Broad on July 22, 1996. Liu's main interest is satellites for military purposes. Several subsequent decisions by the Clinton administration were favorable to the transfer of technology for the development of the military satellite program of the People's Liberation Army for which Liu works.
This is just one of the mindboggling revelations in the bestselling book [1] by Timperlake and Triplett. We interviewed Timperlake last week about the success of the book, how its message has been received, and what we can expect in the future from Chinagate.
QUESTION: What made you write this book?
TIMPERLAKE: Bill and I have combined over 50 years of experience in national security. I was on the House side he was on the Senate side. In January a year ago, when the Monica Lewinsky story broke, we realized that the complete story hadn't been told at all. The White House had been compartmentalizing it into very small pieces and we were very much afraid that the Monica story would dominate the headlines. We, as national security experts, thought that we would write a national security book that would at least put a coherent picture in front of the American people to tell them how much this administration put them in jeopardy. And as we got into it, the book just expanded. We originally thought that the book was going to be pretty narrow, but the more we looked, the more we found.
QUESTION: And you also went to China.
TIMPERLAKE: Yes I went to mainland China and Bill went to Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan twice.
QUESTION: And in what way did that influence your research?
TIMPERLAKE: Well, Bill found the gangster Triad connection [1]. That was very, very telling. We found the kind of a network for the payoff in China for people that penetrated our system, Bill found that, searching in Macao. I found in Shanghai a very strange stock market that everybody claimed, when the president was there, was like the New York big board, and actually it is not. It's much more a computer trading operation. By that I mean computers and trading, not trader or trading operation. The building was owned by one Wang Jun of Polytechnologies, the guy who the president met with at the White House coffee, whose firm Polytechnologies was indicted for smuggling automatic weapons into America. I found that on site in Shanghai.
QUESTION: The White House, the Department of Justice, and the mainstream press now seem in agreement that the only guilty parties in Chinagate are private companies and Chinese money launderers. Is Chinagate dead as a political issue?
TIMPERLAKE: No, Ma'am. Because, regardless of what they are saying at The White House, the Department of Justice and the mainstream media, I think we, through some ability and through some luck have uncovered the truth. And the truth is the truth and it will come out. So regardless of whether they wish it to be a dead issue, betting the future of President Clinton and the Democratic party on the good behavior of The People's Republic of China is not a good idea. They (China) will not behave well if history shows any evidence of their previous behavior. Eventually something will happen. And it will affect Americans. I just hope we stop any problems before American military are threatened or killed or America is threatened again like we were in 1996 when we had carriers trying to stop the intimidation of Taiwan. They directly threatened America. I think that we really have put a spotlight on the event.
QUESTION: Is there more information not known to the public that you have not been able to include in your book or that you have learned after the book went to press?
TIMPERLAKE: Yes there is, but two things: (1) Bill and I have surrendered our security clearances, we don't want to step over that line. I don't want to violate security. Both of us respect that. (2) We had a rule that we don't want to go on less than two sources or hard information--you know government reports or filings or things like that.
But we heard a lot of rumors, some of which we believe and some of which are kind of way out there. We chose not to put those in the book because we don't want to speculate. One of them is that the money was much greater than the millions that we identified. And I want to make sure that your readers know that I'm speculating. The other part is that the corruption was deep and the Chinese operation was interconnected in China. We heard that the networks were better coordinated than we suspect. But we did not write any of that because we wanted to get facts, facts, facts, conclusion in the book. The book is solid that way. The reason why I'm saying what the rumors are is because eventually, over time, some of these may come out and be verified.
QUESTION: So you say that you speculate that the money were much greater ....
TIMPERLAKE: Yes, we did not put that in the book though, but you asked: what could happen in the future? Well they could find more money, they could break the conspiracy. You know a hundred people fled the country. And Johnny Chung did talk. That's one guy. Now, if anyone else is held accountable under penalty of prosecution for long criminal sentences and they start to talk, I think that there is going to be a lot more that the American people will hear about on a criminal conspiracy. But I am now speculating, because we don't know.
QUESTION: But could you be more precise? You say that you are speculating that the money was much greater and in a wider conspiracy but there must be some reason for you to speculate?
TIMPERLAKE: Yes there is, and I have not seen this first hand and I did not deal with grand jury information but I heard Johnny Chung talked a little bit about the relationships and the interconnections. His spy master was Lieut. Col. Liu and apparently they were a little bit gossipy. But that's just pure speculations.
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