I’m so old I remember the Johnny Chung scandal back in the 90s. (You would have tnhought it was the greatest threat to American national security since the Rosenbergs.) In fact, I even remember the “Hunter Biden laptop” scandal from this morning, in which it’s alleged that he arranged bribes from China on behalf of his father at some point — or something. It’s very hard to know exactly what it’s about.
But I’d totally forgotten about this:
Elections finance law complaints against an Asian day-spa operator from South Florida who allegedly funneled contributions from Chinese elites, likely including foreign nationals, to a campaign committee backing then-President Donald Trump have quietly been dismissed.
The dismissal by the Federal Elections Commission came despite a staff finding that laws likely were broken and that the matter merited the FEC’s full attention. The six-member panel split 3-3, as is its usual practice, on whether to proceed, with Democrats voting yes and Republicans saying no. Four votes are needed for a full investigation to occur. The dismissals were first reported by the Florida Bulldog.
Complaints against Li “Cindy” Yang, who raised campaign cash and parlayed persistence to gain access to Republican circles in Florida and get pictures taken with the then-president, were filed by Common Cause, a Washington-based watchdog group, and the Campaign Legal Center. The dismissal of those complaints came three years after the Miami Herald first revealed Yang’s activities in a series of articles titled Trump Tourism. WHO HAS GAINED ACCESS TO PRESIDENT TRUMP AND MAR-A-LAGO THROUGH CINDY YANG?
“Attempting enforcement in these matters would not be a prudent use of agency resources,” Republican Chairman Allen Dickerson and commissioners Sean Cooksey and James “Trey” Trainor III wrote in a statement dated Sept 6. Get unlimited digital access Subscribe now for just $2 for 2 months. The Herald investigation found that over an 18-month period Yang published online ads targeting overseas clients — mostly from China — promoting Trump fundraisers as opportunities to mingle with the then-president, his family and other top Republicans.
Her clients ranged from Chinese tech executives who took $50,000 photos with the president at a New York fundraiser for his re-election campaign to a Chinese-born American citizen and avid Trump supporter with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The Herald also documented how Yang made contributions to Trump Victory, the president’s PAC, in the name of friends and relatives, an apparent violation of campaign laws as are contributions from foreign nationals. Li ‘Cindy’ Yang attended Sen. Rick Scott’s Sunshine Ball in Washington, D.C..
Events attended by Yang included a “Safari Night” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach resort, now his permanent residence and currently tangled up in a federal criminal investigation because government documents, some marked “top secret,” were stored there in an insecure manner. In declining to pursue the allegations, the Republican members cited an approaching statute of limitations that “provided no time for us to sufficiently investigate.”
None of the dozens of complaints about Trump-related fundraising have been deemed worthy of investigation by the full commission. The general counsel for the FEC issued a 33-page report in June presenting preliminary findings that Yang violated campaign contribution laws. That report details Yang’s appearance at two high-profile fundraising events for Trump with groups of Chinese business people and the donations that preceded their attendance.
The report encouraged the FEC to continue investigating whether Yang had made “excessive contributions,” “contributions in the name of another” and provided “substantial assistance in the making of foreign national contributions.” “The alleged violations of our campaign finance laws are egregious,” Democratic commissioner Ellen Weintraub wrote in a statement. “Our commitment to pursuing foreign national matters seems now to be an empty promise — or a commitment that varies based on who benefited from the prohibited funds.”
The report references reporting by the Herald in 2019, which revealed Yang’s access to top Republican politicians, particularly Trump, and national security concerns prompted by her ties to groups associated with the Chinese government. Yang served on the leadership teams of the Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China (CPPRC) and the Miami branch of the United States Association for Science and Technology, both of which have “direct links” to the Communist Party in China, according to a report by Mother Jones.
Here’s the kicker:
Yang came into the spotlight amid the filing of charges against Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, for visiting Asian spas that had been linked in social media posts to alleged prostitution. Yang was the founder and former owner of one of the spas, and still owned other Florida day spas unconnected to the case.
You can’t make this stuff up.
And by the way, Yang isn’t the only Chinese national with suspicious ties to infiltrate Mar-a-lago. But hey, no biggie. Hunter has a laptop with dirty pics. That’s what we really care about.