Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus Secretary-General Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) yesterday urged former KMT legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) to make public any documentation she receives from the US that would clarify her citizenship status.
“Lee lost her legislative seat the moment she tendered her resignation,” Chang said when asked for comment. “The Legislative Yuan does not have the authority to ask her to make public [any further documentation from the US State Department]. We can only urge Lee to make the results public for the sake of her own reputation.”
Lee, who announced her resignation on Jan. 8, previously promised to show the legislature documentation proving she was no longer a US citizen by the end of last month. However, she failed to submit any document.
Lee had been at the center of a dual-citizenship controversy since last March.
Although she conceded that she became a citizen of the US 20 years ago, she said that her citizenship was automatically canceled when she took an oath as a public official in Taiwan.
Lee applied for a document from the US State Department to show she was no longer a US citizen, while the legislature asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to consult the State Department on whether any legislators were US citizens.
The ministry received an answer from the State Department that said Lee “has previously been documented as a US citizen with a US passport and ... no subsequent loss of US citizenship has been documented.”
Lee, however, said the response was not final because the State Department had not completed the review of a document that she said would prove she had lost her US citizenship. She vowed to make the document public by Saturday.
But on Saturday, her attorney, Lee Yung-ran (李永然), said his client was no longer obliged to make the document public because she was no longer a legislator.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday said it was up to Diane Lee to decide whether to come forward with the document.
“If she had remained a legislator, she would have been relieved of her position for failing to present [the document] by Jan. 31. But she is not a lawmaker anymore,” Wang said.
DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday that if Lee failed to prove her claim, the DPP caucus would propose a resolution asking the legislature to formally relieve her of her duties and recover all the salary she had received as a legislator.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY RICH CHANG
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