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China

Catching Corrupt Chinese Officials With Bedroom Evidence

XINHUA, CHINA.ORG.CN (China),

Worldcrunch

BEIJING – There's a new study in China aimed at finding out more about the lives of the corrupt. Among the findings of the study, dubbed the "Officials' Image Crisis Report," was that 95% of Chinese officials being investigated for corruption also kept mistresses, according to Xinhua.

The link between political and economic corruption and having mistresses is of particular interest in China because it is often the way the crooked get caught. Sort of the modern Chinese version of nabbing murderous gangsters by investigating them for tax evasion.

The study by the Crisis Management Research Center at Renmin University found that more than ten high-level Chinese officials had their extra-marital affairs exposed on the Internet in 2012. "According to our statistics, among all the corrupted officials caught in 2012, 95 percent had mistresses and more than 60 percent kept concubines; all of these statistics are worsening the general official image," said Tang Jun, director of the Crisis Management Research Center at Renmin University.

[rebelmouse-image 27086245 alt="""" original_size="1728x1152" expand=1]

Busted! (Wikimedia)

More and more Chinese officials have had to step down in recent years because of sex scandals and corruption cases -- or both. Last week, authorities from the city of Chongqing sacked ten departmental-level officials and managers of state-owned companies who were involved in “indecent video” scandals.

Last November, Lei Zhengfu, a district Party secretary –also from Chongqing – was fired after a video of him having sex with his 18-year-old girlfriend in a hotel was posted online.

“In the era of new media, the speed and range of information dissemination has altered. The maintenance of the image of the government and its officials faces huge challenges,” Tan Jun said.

The Chinese public has been calling the mistresses “anti-corruption busters.” Interestingly, said Tan Jun, “a sex scandal is the easiest way to make an official step down. In China, an official's sex scandal always leads to the exposure of other possibly corrupt and illegal doings on his part,” reported China.org.cn.

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The Weight Of Trump's Indictment Will Test The Strength Of American Democracy

The U.S. legal system cannot simply run its course in a vacuum. Presidential politics, and democracy itself, are at stake in the coming weeks and months.

The Weight Of Trump's Indictment Will Test The Strength Of American Democracy

File photo of former U.S. President Donald Trump in Clyde, Ohio, in 2020.

Emma Shortis*

-Analysis-

Events often seem inevitable in hindsight. The indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump on criminal charges has been a possibility since the start of his presidency – arguably, since close to the beginning of his career in New York real estate.

But until now, the potential consequences of such a cataclysmic development in American politics have been purely theoretical.

Today, after much build-up in the media, The New York Times reported that a Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Trump and the Manhattan district attorney will now likely attempt to negotiate Trump’s surrender.

The indictment stems from a criminal investigation by the district attorney’s office into “hush money” payments made to the adult film star Stormy Daniels (through Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen), and whether they contravened electoral laws.

Trump also faces a swathe of other criminal investigations and civil suits, some of which may also result in state or federal charges. As he pursues another run for the presidency, Trump could simultaneously be dealing with multiple criminal cases and all the court appearances and frenzied media attention that will come with that.

These investigations and possible charges won’t prevent Trump from running or even serving as president again (though, as with everything in the U.S. legal system, it’s complicated).

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