CIA: Cold open.

Cold open. This is a declassified Central Intelligence Agency memorandum concerning the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs investigation of alleged Chinese influence in United States campaign finance. Dated February tenth, nineteen ninety‑eight, the document was released publicly through The Black Vault archive. Provenance. The memorandum was disclosed by The Black Vault as part of its online collection of United States intelligence records. The release is attributed to a Freedom of Information Act request, though the specific case number is not listed. The document was made available on the archive’s website at the URL archive.org/download/us-china-intel-CI02332/CI02332_djvu.txt. The document. The memorandum opens with a letter addressed to the Honorable Fred Thompson, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Washington, District of Columbia, two thousand fifty‑nine. The letter reads: “Dear Mr. Chairman: This letter is in response to your fourteen January, nineteen ninety‑eight request that we conduct a classification review of a document that you plan to have the Committee adopt as part of the public report on the Committee’s investigation of campaign finance abuses. We have reviewed the four February nineteen ninety‑nine redrafted version of the document (copy enclosed). To the extent it contains intelligence information that we provided to the Committee, I have determined that it accurately portrays that information and can be made public without damage to intelligence equities. In making this determination, I take no position on the analysis or conclusions contained in the document. The Committee obtained information from a variety of sources beyond the intelligence community and must draw its own conclusions from all of the information available to it. I thank your staff for working with us to protect intelligence equities. Sincerely, [signature]” The enclosure is marked “SECRET” and bears the reference OGC‑98‑50283. The attached report, titled “The China Connection: Summary of Committee’s Findings Relating to Efforts of the People’s Republic of China to Influence U.S. Policies and Elections,” proceeds as follows: “The Committee’s investigation uncovered instances of political contributions made with foreign money. Either contributing or soliciting this money were individuals with business or political ties to the People’s Republic of China, who escorted Chinese officials and businessmen to meetings with President Clinton and Vice President Gore, and who otherwise facilitated efforts to shape United States policy toward China. The intelligence portion of the Committee’s investigation sought to determine whether the foreign contributions and the political activity were coordinated, or if the People’s Republic of China was in some way behind any foreign political contributions. The Committee’s findings were derived not from cooperative disclosures of the People’s Republic of China, but from gathering information from our law‑enforcement and intelligence agencies and open sources, and piecing it together. Although the Committee received and reviewed a vast amount of information, there are nevertheless gaps in what the Committee has gathered. Discovering these gaps might lead to the inadvertent disclosure of certain sources and methods used to obtain information about Chinese efforts. Mindful of these gaps, the Committee has endeavored to report what it has learned faithfully and accurately. The Committee’s investigation in this area proceeded behind closed doors. Virtually all of the information gathered by the Committee was classified, much of it at top‑secret and compartmented levels. The Committee took extraordinary steps to protect the information from disclosure, including limiting access to the information to members and a very well‑numbered group of appropriately cleared staff, using secured facilities to maintain materials and to hold briefings, meetings, and hearings, and adhering to numerous special restrictions placed by the intelligence agencies regarding the handling of the information. The Committee was also restricted as to what could be presented in public hearings because of the classified status of much of the relevant information. The same restrictions constrain what can be shared in this report. Although hampered by time constraints and limited cooperation from some federal agencies, the Committee has gathered significant information. The Committee determined that United States law‑enforcement and intelligence agencies, as well as open‑source material, indicated that the People’s Republic of China fashioned a plan before the nineteen ninety‑six elections with the goal of influencing our political process, initially through stepped‑