4) Chinagate – Not to be outdone by her prior scandals, Hillary then masterminded a scheme whereby the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign of 1996 took bribes from communist Chinese banks and their government to bankroll the president's and the Democratic Party's re-election efforts when it appeared, due to their low standing in the polls, that all the stops needed to be pulled out. It was the lawsuit that I brought against Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, where at Hillary's instruction, he literally sold seats on Department trade missions to China and elsewhere, which principally uncovered this. In late 1996 and early 1997, the scandal had burgeoned to such a level that joint congressional hearings were empaneled, ultimately to be shut down when Democrats uncovered illegal fundraising by some Republicans. The two parties, faced with mutual assured destruction, simply took an exit stage left. However, I soldiered on with my lawsuit. And, while I uncovered a lot about Bonnie and Clyde and their Chinese "friends," this scandal ultimately took back seat to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, since the media preferred sex to foreign espionage and graft. Hillary and Bill were ironically saved by Monica, who became the lightening rod drawing attention away to what at the time was perhaps the biggest scandal – Chinagate – in American history.