Democrats, in Southern California and nationally, are rallying around San Gabriel Valley-area Rep. Judy Chu, who is fiercely pushing back after a GOP congressman suggested she was disloyal to the nation after reports in conservative media that she and the longtime CEO of a Pasadena-based bank have ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
The accusations, denied as racist and unfounded by Chu in a series of statements over the last two weeks, sparked among the fiercest pushback after Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas appeared on Fox News on Wednesday, saying that Chu “should be looked into” by the FBI following reports in the conservative outlet the Daily Caller of her ties to Dominic Ng, the CEO of San Gabriel Valley-based East West Bank, and that she was “honorary president” for the All American Chinese Youth Federation (AACYF), a group whose other leaders are said to have belonged to an alleged Chinese intelligence service.
“I think that everyone that’s standing up for the Chinese Communist Party should be looked into, yes,” Gooden answered to a question from host Jesse Waters.
“I think Judy needs to be called out,” he said, adding that he questioned “her either loyalty or competence. If she doesn’t realize what’s going on then she’s totally out of touch with one of her core constituencies.”
Gooden suggested that Chu should no longer have access to intelligence briefings.
The comments, which echoed an earlier letter penned by Gooden and five other Republicans to the FBI demanding an investigation into Ng’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party, drew immediate ire from Democrats and Chu herself as the allegations questioning her loyalty, and that of Ng’s, echoed over cable news and print in recent days.
Chu immediately pushed back, telling the Washington Post after Gooden’s Fox spot that Gooden’s comments questioning her loyalty to the U.S. were “absolutely outrageous,” based on “false information spread by an extreme, right-wing…
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