Ed Whitfield: “I wanted to confess tonight that I do represent 31,000 tobacco farmers and tobacco companies through their political…”

“I wanted to confess tonight that I do represent 31,000 tobacco farmers and tobacco companies through their political action committee using hard money, which is legal, which Shays/Meehan does not try to address at all. So they are not talking about hard money, that I have received hard money from tobacco companies; and I do not apologize for that. But I would also like to point out that there is a gentleman named Ted Sioeng, who is from Indonesia, and he is the largest cigarette manufacturer in Red China today. I have a picture here of Mr. Sioeng and our President Bill Clinton. Mr. Sioeng gave Mr. Clinton and gave the DNC $400,000. And by the way, it was not hard money, it was soft money. Now, I do not object to soft money, except in this instance there is a Federal Election Commission rule 441(e) that says it is illegal for foreign nationals to contribute money to campaigns in the United States. And so, I would just remind the gentleman that his President, I guess he is all of our President, some of us like him more than others, but he accepted $400,000 from this gentleman.”