NO THANKS TO FRED THOMPSON

...Trie back to the Chinese government...

...John Glenn, the ranking minority member, said, "I recall nothing to document allegations that China had done anything illegal...

...Meaning Republicans...

...The great majority of information about this matter cannot be discussed further in open session," the chairman said at the end of his statement...

...CAMPANE: That is correct...

...NO THANKS TO FRED THOMPSON by Andrew Ferguson When the news broke that Johnny Chung had told Justice Department prosecutors he did indeed funnel Chinese government money to the Democrats during the 1996 elections, Sen...

...When he opened his committee's special hearings into finance abuses of the 1996 presidential campaign, he read a statement of the kind that journalists like to call a bombshell...

...Money was shown traveling from entities controlled by the Chinese government into When Democrats weren’t dismissing evidence of Chinese intrusion into presidential fund-raising, they were ridiculing the very idea that such a plan could exist...

...The committee's Democrats objected, energetically...

...The presentation was tedious and often slipshod, but you didn't have to be too gullible to put the picture together...

...He started those [campaign-finance] hearings by saying there was this [Chinese] connection, and he was much derided...

...And let me say that I'm deeply, deeply sorry we didn't pursue the matter more seriously last year...

...But that kind of affirmative evidence would probably come, based upon my experience in criminal cases, from the ability to access foreign bank records...

...Wu to Mr...

...The first witness before the committee was former DNC finance director Richard Sullivan...

...But Sen...

...As stagecraft, Thompson's opening statement was at once brilliant and disastrous...

...I read the same material and his statement goes beyond what I can say...

...The committee’s authority stops at the Pacific Ocean line...

...Thus was the testimony turned on its head: Evidence of the plan was made to seem as though it proved there was no plan at all...

...John McCain pounced on the story...

...BARON: Did you find any evidence that money from the Chinese government was involved in any of the transfers to Mr...

...Then Glenn added: "I refuse to play around with intelligence information loosely...

...Well, Senator, you're right...

...He acknowledged that the committee had classified evidence showing a Chinese plan to infiltrate congressional and state elections, but not the presidential race...

...The case was strong, but it was, as it had to be, circumstantial, and this allowed committee Democrats to assert that the hearings failed to do what no one had claimed they would: directly establish the mechanics of the Chinese plan...

...Wu may have come from an earlier originating source . . . BARON: I take it your answer is you did not find any affirmative evidence that established a relationship between the money that came from Mr...

...I think there's a number of people that owe Fred Thompson an apology," McCain said...

...None of the committee's most vocal Democrats would comment on the new revelations about Johnny Chung and the Chinese plan...

...So far, McCain's challenge has had only one taker, and that taker is . . . Sam Donaldson...

...Sam is singing solo...

...Under the normal rules of common courtesy—so different from the stylized and bogus etiquette of politics— Fred Thompson today would be showered with words of praise and remorse...

...the accounts of surrogates like John Huang and Charlie Trie...

...Reporters like smoking guns...

...They want John Dean, White House taping systems, Ollie North saying of course he did it and he'd do it again if he had the chance...

...It riveted reporters' attention to the hearings, but also raised expectations that the hearings would present dispositive evidence of the plot...

...And that's it...

...Days later, Glenn revised his view...

...I want, as I did last year, to see everything come out with regard to this...

...I hope the Justice Department continues just as hard as they can on this thing," he said...

...Trie that you’ve described...

...Sometimes, as the hearings wore on, it seemed as though nothing could make Thompson's case to his critics' satisfaction, short of a color polaroid of Chairman Mao handing over an outsized check to a grinning Bill Clinton...

...Robert Torricelli pretended to be incredulous...

...And he and his colleagues stuck to it for the duration of the hearings...

...Although most discussion of the plan focuses on Congress, our investigation suggests that it affected the 1996 presidential race and state elections as well...

...A fine illustration of the Democrats’ tactic was the minority counsel Alan Baron’s questioning of FBI agent Jerry Campane...

...The rest is silence...

...The press quickly lost interest, and the hearings virtually vanished from the evening news, except for the occasional story about how people weren't following the hearings—probably, of course, because they weren't seeing them on the evening news...

...The plan had a goal: to buy access and influence in furtherance of Chinese government interests...

...Circumstantial cases are boring...

...If that was the best the committee's first witness could do, he cooed, "one can only conclude that the final witness, after we have exhausted this process, is unlikely to find China on a map...

...Glenn had his story, and he was sticking to it...

...This is the dodge of a defense counsel, not the good-faith effort of an investigative body examining a breach in national security...

...Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...

...Suddenly his eyes grew misty, and a tear rolled down his chiseled cheek...

...Torricelli looked very happy and tan...

...To no one's surprise, he testified he'd seen no indication of the Chinese plan in his own fund-raising...

...It didn’t seem to matter that Thompson’s statement had been reviewed, and indeed edited, by the FBI (including director Louis Freeh), the CIA, and the National Security Agency, with the clear implication that they approved Thompson’s interpretation of the evidence...

...Sen...

...When Democrats weren't dismissing evidence of Chinese intrusion into presidential fund-raising, they were ridiculing the very idea that such a plan could exist...

...Meow...

...CAMPANE: I’m unable to say whether any of the funds that appeared to originate with Mr...

...It was shown moving then into the trembling, outstretched palm of the Democratic National Committee, with the active encouragement of the Clinton White House...

...The committee faced the additional obstacle of dozens of witnesses who had either fled the country or refused to testify under the Fifth Amendment...

...To underscore the point, the minority delayed by several weeks giving immunity to witnesses who were willing to testify, and insisted on a year-end deadline that offered a further incentive for other witnesses to run out the clock in silence...

...I made that last part up...

...The committee had seen evidence, he said, "of a plan hatched during the last election cycle by the Chinese government and designed to pour illegal money into American political campaigns...

...Thompson explicitly disavowed that intention, since it would require releasing classified material...

...Wu, to Charlie Trie, who then donated the money to the DNC...

...Glenn was asked about the Chung story on Face the Nation...

...May I just say a word on behalf of Senator Fred Thompson," Donaldson said on ABC's This Week...

...When asked how the committee could continue its investigation with the most important witnesses on the lam or keeping mum, Glenn replied: "That's their problem...

...Campane had detailed the transfer of money from the account of a Chinese arms merchant, known as Mr...

...Nevertheless, over the following weeks, the Republicans on the committee managed to present a good circumstantial case for the plot's existence, with some detail about how it worked and who specifically was involved...