http://www.softwar.net/thenews.html COMMERCE DEPT. BLOWS CHINA-GATE CASE - 1996 DOD REPORT MISSING On Friday, April 23, 1999, the Commerce Dept. partially complied with the Federal Court of Judge Robert Payne. The order, issued two months ago, forced the Commerce Dept. to turn over documents on meetings with Chinese Army officers. The Commerce Dept. fully released 1,004 pages of materials that it had previously denied existed. In addition, 116 pages of materials were either partially or fully withheld for unknown reasons. The total number of documents turned over is nearly three times the original estimate provided on April 22, 1999 by the Dept. of Justice. The Commerce Dept. turned over the 116 classified documents to Federal Judge Robert Payne for his review "in camera" or behind closed doors. Judge Payne ordered all the secret China-Gate materials to be stored in a special secure vault, guarded by armed Federal Marshals 24 hours a day. Judge Payne will obtain a written explanation supplied by the DOJ attorney and the Commerce Dept. as to why the materials cannot be released. Softwar will view the Commerce arguments (not the secret documents) and reply with written counter-arguments. Finally, Judge Payne will rule whether the documents in question can or cannot be released. Commerce, however, failed to comply with the full legal action. A required index of the secret materials, called a "Vaughn" index, was not provided by the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) attorney representing the Commerce Dept. Without the index, there is no way to determine exactly what is being called secret by the Commerce Dept. The DOJ attorney officially requested an extension of time to file the required index. This reporter objected. The motion is before Federal Judge Payne for his review. According to the motion now before Judge Payne, the Dept. of Justice attorney is blaming the delay on office renovation. The DOJ attorney said the delay was also caused by "the war" in "Kosovo" and the "shooting in Colorado." The China-Gate suit is quickly turning from a political and espionage disaster into a legal rout for the Clinton administration. A cursory examination of the turned over documents has revealed that the legal response is filled with major mistakes. For example, the Commerce Dept. either withheld or failed to deliver a 1996 report from the Dept. of Defense. Commerce could only find a single page of the multi-page report, which they delivered to SOFTWAR on July 23, 1999. The remaining pages are either being withheld, have been destroyed, or were never found. The Commerce Dept., however, neglected to check the SOFTWAR lawsuit and the SOFTWAR web page. This reporter included the ENTIRE 1996 DOD report as evidence in the original lawsuit. The full DOD report was delivered to SOFTWAR in 1998 in response to a previous Freedom of Information (FOIA) against the Commerce Dept. In fact, the full DOD report has been available for nearly a year on the internet. http://www.softwar.net/dod.html What has been reviewed so far can only be described as stunning. The documents show the level of contact between the Chinese Army and the Clinton Commerce Dept. to be far deeper than previously admitted. The information also includes Chinese Army meetings with the Energy Dept. in an effort to obtain U.S. nuclear technology. The first full review of the newly released China-Gate documents will be published in SOFTWAR's April 27, 1999 editorial on www.worldnetdaily.com - Chinese Army Inside the Commerce Dept. ================================================================ 1 if by land, 2 if by sea. Paul Revere - encryption 1775 Charles R. Smith SOFTWAR http://www.softwar.net [EMAIL PROTECTED] Pcyphered SIGNATURE: 2CE788B01DFD5E200F2145B9A5A393BE499BDC5AE01F83DE968C20F142A3968D 0F5A4C9310DC1B414E17C736F9B37BD8F49C6D85DEBC31872BEFE320BD62A4A8 34003FC7F7838FA3 ================================================================ SOFTWAR EMAIL NEWSLETTER 04/26/99 *** to unsubscribe reply with "unsubscribe" as subject *** ================================================================
