Joe Pitts: “we all remember the fund-raising scandal that the President and the Democrats got themselves into in 1996, foreign money…”

“we all remember the fund-raising scandal that the President and the Democrats got themselves into in 1996, foreign money and money laundering. But perhaps the worst part was the apparent influence of the People's Republic of China. We all remember that the Loral Corporation which leaked sensitive missile data to China was a major Democratic contributor that year. In fact, Bernard Schwartz, the president and CEO of that company, the largest single contributor to the DNC, was recommended in 1998 as the focus of an independent counsel investigation to find out if there was a connection between donations and technology transfers. Well, one would think they would learn their lesson. But we found out last week that Mr. Schwartz is again giving huge amounts of money to the Democrats. FEC reports show that he has given an average of $40,000 a month to Democrats since January of 1999, most of it in unrestricted soft-money donations. I call on the Democrats to return these donations until we determine once and for all what his role was in leaking sensitive missile data to the Chinese. This is not just a matter of ethical conduct. It is a matter of national security.”