Taiwan gov’t challenges authenticity of Clinton emails, after junket revelations
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TAIPEI (The China Post/ANN) - Taiwan's foreign ministry (MOFA) on Friday declined to address an alleged Taiwan junket offered to U.S. presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s campaign team, as revealed in WikiLeaks’ recent batch of Podesta emails, saying it would not comment on information coming from unknown sources.
According to local media, Taiwan’s former top envoy to the U.S. Shen Lyu-shun admitted he had met John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, but said they had not provided any free trips for Clinton’s team.
“Our professional relationship has been strictly honest,” said Shen.
WikiLeaks on Wednesday released the fifth cache of emails from the hacked private account of Podesta, containing 673 messages.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has claimed to be sitting on as many as 50,000 messages, and has been releasing them since Last Friday.
Clinton spokesperson Brian Fallon called WikiLeaks “a propaganda arm of the Russian government, running interference for their pet candidate, Trump,” alleging the hacking was a Kremlin-directed effort.
The Washington Post pointed out the Clinton campaign “did not say that the emails released Friday concerning Clinton’s speeches had been faked.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied the allegation.
Among the emails released Wednesday afternoon was one titled, “Re: Daschle Taiwan trip.”
In August 2015, Podesta urged Clinton aide Jake Sullivan to take a “free trip to Taiwan with (Tom) Daschle,” referring to former majority U.S. Senator from South Dakota who worked as a Washington lobbyist.
When Sullivan replied “I think we're okay!” Podesta shot back, “Don't be such a scrooge. One of your kids might like a free trip.” The final email showed Sullivan agreeing to pass on the offer to his team.
Ex-envoy Rebuts Rumors
According to the Central News Agency (CNA), Podesta and Shen’s meeting was arranged through The Daschle Group, a lobbying group founded by Tom Daschle.
Shen said Daschle had indeed visited Taiwan, “probably with a group representing a private think-tank,” but said he did not know if the group included any people working on Clinton’s campaign team.
The costs should have nothing to do with the Taiwanese government, added Shen.
He recalled his meeting with Podesta, during which they conversed about topics such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Taiwan-U.S. relations, and Podesta had expressed particular interest in Taiwan being the ninth largest trading partner of the U.S.
“But I did not say I would offer them a free trip to Taiwan,” Shen said.
