Lost in the shuffle.

Shouldn't this be a bigger story than hurricanes, polls, and maybe even Rathergate?

Spy meeting

By Associated Press |
Published on Wednesday, September 22, 2004

WASHINGTON -- A South Korean embassy official who met with John Kerry fund-raisers to talk about creating a political group for Korean-Americans was in fact a spy for his country, raising concerns among U.S. officials that he or Seoul may have tried to influence the fall presidential election.

South Korean and U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Chung Byung-Man, a consular officer in Los Angeles, worked for South Korea's National Intelligence Service at the time he was meeting with Kerry fund-raisers.

A spokesman for the South Korean consulate office said Chung was sent home in May amid "speculation" he became involved with the Kerry campaign and Democratic Party through contacts with fund-raiser Rick Yi and that his identity couldn't be discussed further.

"According to international tradition, we cannot identify, we cannot say who he is, because he is intelligence people," spokesman Min Ryu said.

The State Department said it has discussed Chung's reported activities with the South Korean government and has no reason to doubt Seoul's representations he was an intelligence agent.

The department believes Chung's contacts with donors and fund-raisers, if accurately described in reports, were "inconsistent" with the 1963 Vienna Convention that prohibits visiting foreign officials from interfering in the internal politics and affairs of host countries, a spokesman for its legal affairs office said.

Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton said the campaign did not know Chung was an intelligence agent or that Yi, one of the campaign's key fund-raisers in the Asian-American community, was meeting with him until it was brought to light by the AP.