"In March, 2003, the FBI arrested a Chinese-American businesswoman and Republican fundraiser, alleging that she had passed a frighteningly broad range of American intelligence secrets to the People's Republic of China (PRC). For two decades, Katrina Leung had been a paid bureau informant, supplying information on Chinese intelligence operations in America... Intelligence sources told The Washington Post that Leung had single-handedly compromised 20 years of American counter-intelligence work against the PRC. Democrats, who in 1997 weathered endless--and ultimately unproven--accusations of selling political favors or national security secrets for PRC money, can take a measure of satisfaction from this unlikely coda: The only bonafide Chinese spy so far turns out to have been not only a Republican, but a well-connected GOP fundraiser. And not just any Republican fundraiser, but one who happened to be sleeping with one of the lead FBI agents investigating Democratic fundraising."

A Buzzflash News Analysis: "Poor Katrina Leung. If only she had given her FBI-earned money to Democrats, her bright smile would be appearing on newspaper front pages day after day, and Republicans would make sure every one in the country knew how to pronounce her name. She wouldn't be known as, simply, a 'political fundraiser'; she'd have the more dignified title of 'major Democratic Party donor and spy.' Republican attack dogs in Congress would already be conducting full-scale investigations. A special prosecutor would be called for. She would be vilified by Rush Limbaugh as a spy for the Democratic Party, which he would accuse of siding with the enemy. Bill O'Reilly would denounce her and the Democrats. Regnery Press would already have two books out railing about how she and the Democrats have committed treason against America. Ann Coulter would be calling for the chairman of the DNC to be put before a firing squad. But Katrina Leung is unlucky in the celebrity category."

Joshua Micah Marshall writes in the Talking Points Memo: "How does the Grey Lady stack up on the Katrina Leung Republican affiliation question? Not so well. By TPM's count, the NYT has published 14 articles on the L'Affaire Leung, the first on April 10th and the most recent, today, May 9th. Of those, by my count, only three make any reference to her as a GOP fund-raiser." Yet the 'liberal' Times pushed and pushed the bogus Chinagate story against Clinton and Gore. (Eventually, the congressional Cox Report on Chinagate revealed that the major secrets were lost during the Reagan-Bush years. Defense Intelligence Agency documents show this may have been part of Iran-Contra deals. See Consortiumnews.com for details).

"A former F.B.I. supervisor in Los Angeles was indicted today on new and more serious charges of letting an informant steal classified information that she passed on to China... a federal grand jury in Los Angeles brought four counts of wire fraud and two counts of negligence against the former agent, James J. Smith, 59, who worked in the F.B.I. for nearly three decades in Chinese counterintelligence. He retired in 2000... The indictment... contended that Mr. Smith lied to the F.B.I. repeatedly about his two-decade affair with an informant [and GOP fundraiser], Katrina Leung. The authorities said that Mr. Smith told his superiors in 19 reports that he considered Ms. Leung a 'reliable' informant and that he failed to disclose their sexual relationship. His transmission of four of those reports to Washington was the basis for the wire fraud counts. Mr. Smith also failed to tell the F.B.I. that Ms. Leung had refused to take a polygraph test in 1991, the authorities said."

CNN reports: "Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Lieberman Sunday asked the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate whether an accused spy may have illegally funneled money from the government of China to the Republican Party in the 1990s. Lieberman made the request in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller, said Adam Kovacevich, press secretary to the Connecticut senator. He confirmed details to CNN of the story, which was first reported in Sunday's Washington Post. Katrina Leung, accused of being a Chinese double agent, was also a political fund raiser for the Republicans."

"The arrest of accused double agent Katrina Leung has elicited a Pavlovian response from some members of our crack press corps. After hearing the word 'Chinese' in connection with the words 'political activist and fundraiser,' many have instinctively jumped to somehow link her with... Al Gore. Gore, you will remember, attended a fundraiser at a Buddhist Temple - a fundraiser at which, as Bob Somerby describes, 'there was no ticket price, there were no registration stables, there was a non-political speech, no one was thanked for contributions' (Money was illegally raised at the Temple, but not at the event Gore attended). Nonetheless, to some in our media, there must be an Al Gore connection here somewhere... The truth is that Leung is a well-known Republican party activist and fundraiser. If any Gore-related investigations were compromised by her involvement with former FBI agent Smith, it is likely that any disinformation she provided was designed to hurt, and not to help, him."