The custodian of Joe Biden’s vice presidential records, a key witness in his classified document probe, was caught up in another documents scandal while working at the Commerce Department during the Clinton administration, court records reveal. Longtime Biden aide and gatekeeper Kathy S. Chung was interviewed by federal prosecutors and congressional investigators in the Biden classified document probe and was previously sanctioned for her part in the withholding and even destroying of key documents in the federal case that sought sensitive records from a central figure in the so-called Chinagate fundraising investigation of the late 1990s.
A special prosecutor is now investigating whether Biden unlawfully handled top-secret materials in early 2017. Chung was given the assignment of removing documents from Biden’s office and scattering them all across the Eastern United States. She stored them at various private offices in D.C., including the Chinatown neighborhood. Some of the highly sensitive papers also ended up at his home in Wilmington, Del.
Congressional investigators noted that the documents included intelligence in China and at the same time Chinese transferred $6 million dollars to Hunter with no apparent reason and that Hunter rented Biden’s house in Delaware, where classified documents were kept in the garage where the door was almost always open. Chung had previously worked with Hunter Biden before landing a job with Joe. They note that the mishandling of White House papers took place during the 14-month period in 2017-2018 when the Chinese were wiring almost $6 million in payments to Hunter.
Chung told the court in the 1999 affidavit:
“In performing this search, I was assisted by an employee of the Computer Help Desk who informed me that some documents could not be opened.”
Hunter Biden and Chung have a long history dating back to their days working together at the Commerce Department during Bill Clinton’s presidency. It was there that Chung – a longtime Democrat working in the federal bureaucracy – became a witness in a case involving convicted Chinagate fundraiser Jian-Nan “John” Huang, who was a top Commerce official.
In 1993, President Clinton named Huang, a China-born banker friend from Little Rock, deputy assistant secretary of international economic affairs at Commerce, where he was responsible for Asian trade matters. Within a month, Huang was given a top secret security clearance and received twice-weekly intelligence briefings by CIA analysts. At the same time, it was later revealed, he was meeting regularly with Chinese diplomats and other officials tied to Beijing.
Watchdog group Judicial Watch sought documents concerning Huang’s access to trade secrets and his trips to China. Chung was one of the administrators responsible for producing such documents under the Freedom of Information Act.
But the department was sanctioned for withholding and even destroying key documents in the federal case ‒ Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Commerce, et al ‒ in which Huang was listed as the lead defendant. After U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled Commerce’s search “grossly inadequate” and “unlawful,” Chung and her superiors were ordered to conduct another search. Still, Chung came up short in producing Huang-related documents from the computer of her boss, Melissa Moss, in the Office of Business Liaison, according to her sworn declaration in the case, a copy of which was obtained by RCI. A Clinton appointee like Hunter Biden, Moss worked with Huang on controversial Asian and other foreign trade junkets for Democrat donors. She came to Commerce from the Democratic National Committee, where she had served as finance director.
The Justice Department, through a specially appointed task force, investigated Huang as a possible “agent of influence” for China. In 1999, Huang pleaded guilty to a felony violation of campaign finance laws for arranging illegal foreign donations. Even though the felony charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, he was sentenced to one year of probation and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of several co-conspirators.
