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Presidential election 2008: 19 days to go: Green card war heats up
COUNTERSUIT:
A Ma aide did meet an AIT official, but not at AIT, Ma's camp said. Hsieh's camp said the question was not where, but if, something happened
By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Mar 03, 2008, Page 3
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) camp yesterday said it would countersue the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rival Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) camp if the latter filed a lawsuit against it over the controversy surrounding Ma's US green card status.
Hsieh has alleged that Ma still holds a valid US green card because he never completed a I-407 form to relinquish his permanent residency in the US, nor has a US immigration court invalidated his card.
Hsieh spokesman Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said on Saturday that Ma had sent an aide, former diplomat John Feng (馮寄台), to the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), Taipei office, on Thursday to sort out the matter of his green card.
Ma denied the allegation and his campaign demanded on Saturday night that Chao apologize within 24 hours, adding that they did not rule out taking legal action.
Chao said yesterday that shortly after the Hsieh camp held a second press conference on Saturday and identified the aide as John Feng, the Ma camp held a press conference and admitted that Feng, who now serves as the Ma camp's director of the international affairs section, did meet AIT officials on Thursday.
Feng told the press conference that during the meeting, the election, rather than Ma's green card, was discussed.
While Feng told the press conference that the meeting had taken place at the Grand Hotel rather than at the AIT, Chao said it was akin to someone who did something wrong in Taichung arguing he did not do anything wrong because he was actually in Taipei.
"The key is not where he did the bad thing but whether he did it," he said.
At a separate event yesterday, Ma said it was normal that Feng would be in contact with foreign representatives in Taiwan, adding that Feng did not have to report everything to him because such contacts were part of Feng's job.
Asked if Ma was concerned that his campaign headquarters had been wiretapped, Ma said he was not sure, adding that his camp would use various measures to prevent wiretapping.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
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