Claim: Foreign Chinese prostitution money is allegedly behind the groups funding Congressman Jim Renacci’s Republican majority.
Verdict: REFUTES

Retrieved passages:
title: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
text: lawsuit and alleged that Adelson "approved of prostitution at a casino in Macau". The DCCC repeated the charges in press releases that attacked Republicans Jim Renacci, Scott DesJarlais, and Jim Gerlach. Adelson fought back against the claims, which he called "outrageous", and filed a brief threatening a libel suit against the DCCC which demanded that the "DCCC retract the claims, apologize for them, and retain any documents associated with them in preparation for a potential lawsuit". Politifact, a nonpartisan fact checking organization, rated the DCCC's claims as "pants on fire", saying that the DCCC "seized upon [a] questionable claim, extrapolated

title: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
text: and exaggerated it to taint all of Adelson's political donations with prostitution earnings" and then carried "that on down a convoluted line to Scott DesJarlais and talk about "his Chinese prostitution money"". On August 2, 2012, under immense pressure from Adelson's right wing propaganda machine, including almost daily coordinated disinformation on Fox News, talk radio, House and Senate Republicans, and the RNC, the DCCC issued a public apology, saying: In press statements issued on June 29 and July 2, 2012, the DCCC made unsubstantiated allegations that attacked Sheldon Adelson, a supporter of the opposing party. This was wrong. The statements

title: Sheldon Adelson
text: Hospital. In August 2012, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), after being threatened with a libel suit, apologized and withdrew two blog posts that claimed Adelson had donated "Chinese prostitution money" to Republicans. Another organization, the National Jewish Democratic Council, posted on their website that Adelson "personally approved" of prostitution at his Macau resorts. Adelson sued for libel, but a federal judge dismissed the suit in September 2013, ordering Adelson to pay the NJDC's legal fees. In 2007, Adelson's estimated wealth was $26.5 billion, making him the third-richest person in the United States according to Forbes. and $26 billion for

title: Chinese in Fiji
text: linked to illegal human smuggling activities for prostitution since 2006. Several night club owners who are Fijians of Chinese origin such the Wei Zhang and his wife Liu Da Jun (East Court Reastaurant), Billy Chen and Lum Moon Woot (Angel Night Club) and Yan Xiu Hua (Signals Night Club) have been accused of involvement in allowing mainland Chinese prostitutes to solicit for businesses within their premises from mainland Chinese fishing crews. Well-known persons of whole or partial Chinese descent include former Cabinet Minister Pio Wong, former Senators Kenneth Low and James Ah Koy, Peter Lee (former long serving General Manager

title: Johnny Gosch
text: local police do not believe that Bonacci is a credible witness in the case and have not interviewed him. Bonacci accused Republican party activist and businessman Lawrence E. King Jr (b. 1944) who also served as director of the Franklin Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska, of running an underage prostitution ring and victimizing him since an early age. In 1990, a county grand jury declined to charge King, finding the allegations to be "a carefully crafted hoax". Paul Bonacci and Alisha Owen were indicted on state perjury charges. A federal grand jury also declined to indict anyone for child prostitution

title: Prostitution in China
text: confiscating passports, confining victims, or physically and financially threatening victims to compel their engagement in commercial sex. Well-organized criminal syndicates and local gangs play key roles in the trafficking of Chinese women and girls in China, recruiting victims with fraudulent employment opportunities and subsequently forcing them into commercial sex. Illicit brokers increasingly facilitate the forced and fraudulent marriage of South Asian, Southeast Asian, and African women and girls to Chinese men for fees of up $30,000. The men—sometimes in partnership with their parents—often incur large debts to cover these fees, which they attempt to recover by subjecting the “brides” to

title: Johnny Chung
text: federal investigators that $35,000 of the money he donated came from China's military intelligence. Called a "hustler" by a U.S. National Security Council (NSC) aide Robert Suettinger, Chung befriended former Lt. Col. Liu Chaoying during a Commerce Department trade mission to China. In a July 20th 1997 Chicago Tribune article Johnny Chung was quoted as saying, "I see the White House is like a subway: You have to put in coins to open the gates." Chung later testified under oath to the U.S. House Committee in May 1999 that he was introduced to Chinese Gen. Ji Shengde, then head of

title: Propaganda in China
text: to lobby on behalf of initiatives, such as export liberalization, on which they are aligned with the PRC." Through its agents in America, the PRC has financed a number of political candidates. Katrina Leung, a Chinese spy, contributed $10,000 to the campaign of Richard Riordan, the former mayor of Los Angeles. When he lost his primary to Bill Simon Jr., Leung contributed $4,200 to Simon's campaign. At the direction of her Chinese handlers, Leung also contributed to the 1992 campaign of George H. W. Bush. It is estimated that Leung donated around $27,000 to politicians in the 1990s on behalf

title: 1996 United States campaign finance controversy
text: the fund-raising activities had uncovered evidence that agents of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before the 1996 presidential campaign. The journalists wrote that intelligence information had shown the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. was used for coordinating contributions to the DNC in violation of United States law forbidding non-American citizens or non-permanent residents from giving monetary donations to United States politicians and political parties. A Republican investigator of the controversy stated the Chinese plan targeted both presidential and congressional United States elections, while Democratic Senators said the evidence showed the Chinese

title: Campaign for Accountability
text: the bottom of allegations that the Macau casino operations of Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corp. are tied to organized crime. Weismann said that "Given the extent to which Mr. Adelson's wealth derives from Macau and his dominant role in funding Republican candidates, it seems highly likely that illegal foreign money has made its way into American elections." A spokesman for the Las Vegas Sands Corp. denied the allegations, and the CfA subsequently issued a retraction of its statement, saying: "The available evidence supports further investigation into these alleged matters but does not support the statements made by CfA outside

title: Jack Abramoff CNMI scandal
text: plumbing. A Department of the Interior report found that "Chinese women were subject to forced abortions and that women and children were subject to forced prostitution in the local sex-tourism industry." The Senate passed the Murkowski worker reform bill unanimously, but the bill was then blocked by Tom DeLay in the House. In 1993, the government of the CNMI hired Preston Gates to lobby for it. Between October 1993 and September 2001, the firm was paid about $6.7 million by the CNMI government, about 72% of the government's overall lobbying payments. The CNMI government was one of the firm's biggest

title: Ted Sioeng
text: an agent of China. According to an unclassified final draft of a report by the US Senate committee then investigating campaign finance abuses, half of the $400,000 given to the Democrats by Sioeng and his family was "funded by transfer from overseas accounts," suggesting that the money came from the Chinese government. Mr Ted Sioeng, who is ethnically Indonesian, began his life in an orphanage. He was then brought up (in Indonesia) by an Indonesian Chinese couple, which led to his interests in China. He is married with five children, including his eldest, daughter Jessica Elnitiarta, who heads the family

title: Prostitution in China
text: in the course of attempts to steal their money and property. There have also been a growing number of criminal acts, especially incidences of theft and fraud directed at men who buy sex, as well as bribery of public servants. Offenders often capitalise on the unwillingness of participants in the prostitution transaction to report such activities. Organised crime rings are increasingly trafficking women into and out of China for the sex trade, sometimes forcibly and after multiple acts of rape. Mainland China also has a growing number of "heroin hookers", whose drug addictions are often connected to international and domestic

title: Political funding in Australia
text: donors could be channels to advance Beijing's interests. In response to the allegations, Malcolm Turnbull ordered an inquiry into espionage and foreign interference laws. In December 2017, opposition MP Sam Dastyari resigned under pressure from a political scandal where he was accused of going against the Australian government's policy on the South China Sea as well as accusations of accepting financial favors from Chinese companies. Shortly afterwards, the Coalition Government announced plans to ban foreign donations to Australian political parties and activist groups. This was a remarkable turn of events as Australia historically had no restrictions on political donations from

title: China Lobby
text: also tried to counter the domestic American interest groups which seek to bring pressure upon the PRC to move from a fixed currency to a floating currency. In 2004, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) created a working group to look at new ways for outward immigration to benefit China, a policy that was first initiated in 1985. The group was tasked with balancing the need to promote economic development and protect national security and social stability. Seminars were organized to discuss Western immigration laws. Neil Bush, son of George H.W. Bush (who had been instrumental in opening China to

title: Propaganda in China
text: of the PRC. A 2012 report by the Government Accountability Institute cites other examples: It was discovered that officers from the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. "sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee before the 1996 presidential campaign." While these allegations have been denied by the PRC, "Secret communications between Beijing and the Chinese Embassy in Washington establish that the influence-buying plan was ‘government sanctioned…'" In 1996, People's Liberation Army intelligence officer Gen. Ji Shengde provided Johnny Chung, a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee, with $300,000 to donate towards President Bill Clinton's reelection. Chung

title: Money laundering
text: Court, Northern California, San Francisco Division, FBI special agent Emmanuel V. Pascau alleged that several people associated with the Chee Kung Tong organization, and California State Senator Leland Yee, engaged in reverse money laundering activities. The problem of such fraudulent encashment practices ("obnalichka" in Russian) has become acute in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union. The Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG) reported that the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Turkey, Serbia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Kazakhstan have encountered a substantial shrinkage of tax base and shifting money supply balance in favor of cash.

title: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
text: In August 2014, the DCCC said it had 444 field staff working in 48 states and planned to add 219 more by the end of August as part of its efforts to manage an expanded ground game across the nation for the 2014 midterm elections. Controversy arose after the DCCC issued press releases on June 29 and July 2, 2012 which claimed that funds from which Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas casino owner, donated to the Republican Party come in part from "Chinese prostitution money". The press releases were repeating allegations from one of Adelson's former employees who filed a

title: Tong Mingqian
text: municipal congress members, exchanging goods and cash worth a total monetary value of some 110 million yuan ($17.7 million). Tong, as Hengyang party chief, was the top official overseeing the election process. During the process, it was said that some 518 out of 527 delegates to the municipal congress and 68 congress staff members accepted or received cash or gifts. The scale of the vote-buying scheme earned the scandal significant notoriety nationally, and was said to have been the most serious vote buying scheme since the communist state was founded in 1949. On December 18, 2013, Tong was placed under

title: Prostitution in Asia
text: a diplomatic affair dubbed as the Brunei beauties, Senator Ernesto Maceda, with testimony from Rosanna Roces, claimed that there were illegal recruitment of Filipinas in Brunei as prostitutes and entertainers. Prince Jefri, the brother of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah were among those linked to the scandal, in which Ruffa Gutierrez, Vivian Velez, Lea Orosa, Aurora Sevilla, Sheila Israel, Rachel Lobangco, Tetchie Agbayani, Maritoni Fernandez, Gretchen Barretto, and Cristina Gonzales were alleged to be amongst the victims. Prostitution in Cambodia is illegal, but prevalent. The 2008 Cambodian Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation has proven controversial, with international concerns