Remember the Indonesian Chinese banking family, the Riadys of Lippogate infamy?
Maybe not. It's hard to keep so many crooks straight. I am refreshing my memory (and learning) in The Year of the Rat by Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett II.
Early on, the authors explain that the Riadys had "a long-term relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency," as the Senate later learned from the CIA, and the Riadys had a long-term relationship with the Clintons.
As of Clinton-Gore Inauguration Day 1993 -- to which James Riady and the Riadys' American representative John Huang gave $100.000 apiece; and to which the Riadys brought a large number of friends from Indonesia -- here is what the authors say about the Riadys of Indonesia.
They were knowing, participating agents of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and its intelligence services.
They had talent-spotted Bill Clinton fifteen years earlier, when he was an obscure politician from Arkansas.
They were instrumental in gaining the Democratic presidential nomination for Clinton in 1992 [through key infusions of cash].
Through illegal campaign contributions, they became the number one contributors to the Clinton-Gore ticket in the 1992 national election, and they targeted their funds at key states that were ultimately vital to Clinton's and Gore's election.
Presumably, they were not bailing out Clinton and Gore simply out of the goodness of their hearts; they expected to be paid off.
So they were paid off, and not only in spades (assorted favors, legislation, including turning US clean coal territory into a national park so as not to compete with Riady clean coal) but also in advanced military technology which the Clinton administration showered upon Riady allies in Red China in myriad ways.
Twenty-five years later, Red China, of course, is an advanced military and economic power, thanks in so many ways to American presidents, especially including Bill Clinton.
More and more it becomes clear that our unlikeliest president ever, Donald Trump, with all of his contradictions, represents the first and only pushback to inexorable American decline long enabled from the top. For example, we may see in Trump's planned aluminum and steel tarriffs America's last stand to save these vital strategic industries from extinction inside the USA, as discussed here.
Continuing to accuse Trump of "colluding" with America's enemies without evidence, without logic, becomes the last shrieking line of defense for our real enemies, foreign and domestic. The tactics are familiar, or should be, and I am sorry to say they usually prevail.