WASHINGTON – Key senators investigating espionage at American nuke labs said yesterday they’ve uncovered new evidence that the Chinese military funneled money through U.S. banks to buy influence in Congress.
“There are very suspicious banking relationships here,” said Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into security breaches at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, the top Democrat on the committee, agreed. “The effort was to influence not only the presidential elections, but … congressional elections,” said Kerrey, who appeared with Shelby yesterday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Both lawmakers refused to provide additional details but said upcoming reports would shed more light on the charges.
Their allegations came as the Energy Secretary Bill Richardson – for the first time – conceded that the Chinese government stole America’s nuclear secrets during President Clinton’s administration.
“There have been damaging security leaks,” Richardson said on the same show. “The Chinese have obtained damaging information … during past administrations and [the] present administration.”
In the past, senior White House officials, from Clinton on down, have denied that any nuclear secrets were stolen – or in the case of Clinton, denied being told about stolen atomic blueprints.
Both Shelby and Kerrey criticized Clinton’s staff for not keeping the president in the loop – though they hinted that they had doubts about the truth of Clinton’s denial that he’d ever been briefed. All Shelby would say was: “Maybe the information never got to [Clinton].”
Added Kerrey: “It would be very surprising if [as Clinton] says now, ‘I didn’t know about this,’ and he should have known about it way back in 1996.”
In response to allegations that the Chinagate fund-raising scandal may be linked with nuclear espionage, the spy-scandal investigation seems ready to widen, with Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) prepared to begin his own probe.