Janet Holds Presser On Red Allegations, Van Tran Attacks

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Janet Holds Presser On Red Allegations, Van Tran Attacks

By Matthew Cunningham | 06/02/08 | 11:59 AM EDT | 0 Comments

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Apparently, Supervisor Janet Nguyen held a press conference this morning to refute allegations she has ties to people who have ties to Communist Vietnam, and to push back against Assemblyman Van Tran.

I would have gone, but didn't know anything about it. Fortunately, Janet's campaign made sure to keep TheLIiberalOC.com's Chris Prevatt well-informed, so he posts a report here. There's even a photo of Janet's supervisorial staffer and political bag man, Nick Le Cong, being outraged about false allegations.

Nick Lecong, readers will recall, is the Janet aide-de-camp who gathered up the money (mostly his own) to fund a completely untrue "independent expenditure" against Carlos Bustamante very late in the 1st Supervisor District special election. I guess Mr. Lecong only objects to false allegations when they are directed at him.

Total Buzz gave a run-down last week on the controversy about Sup. Nguyen and this Eric Le fellow.

The claim gained momentum thanks to a letter that circulated on Vietnamese American listservs and then printed as an Op Ed in the Nguoi Viet Daily News last week. The letter was signed by Anh Son Tran, Tung Xuan Nguyen and Nhon Ky Phan, leaders of the protest of another paper, Viet Weekly.

The letter questions Supervisor Janet Nguyen's connection with a man called Eric Le, who is supposedly president of the Vietnam Business Association. The little-known VBA organized the controversial reception for Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet at the St. Regis Resort in Dana Point last June, where thousands of Vietnamese Americans gathered to protest the communist leader. Le is said to have connections with the communist government.

The letter further alleges that Janet Nguyen knew about the president's visit before the community did and that she hid the president's itinerary from the Little Saigon community. The letter also questions whether the supervisor is in some way connected to the Nguoi Viet protesters and whether Nguyen's advisor, Nick Le Cong, is related to Eric Le because their Vietnamese names share common last and middle names "Le Cong." The Register was not able to obtain a complete translation of the letter, only a summary.

You can read the whole thing here.

I don't believe the actual pictures causing so much fuss have appeared in the OC blogosphere yet, so let's post them so readers can factor them in to whatever conclusions they rech.

Here's Eric Le at Janet Nguyen's victory party (he's the guy to Janet's left):

Here are Janet Nguyen and Eric Le at a Vietnamese community event (which in and of itself doesn't mean anything):

Here's Eric Le's business card:

Kind of hard to miss the Commie motif, isn't it? If you don't want to be accused of being in cahoots with Hanoi, I'd suggest not converting the communist Vietnam flag into your corporate logo -- or inviting the President of Communist Vietnam to visit the U.S. as your guest:

That said, this is more of a reflection on Eric Le, not Janet Nguyen. It's his business, after all.

At the same time, it's not as if this controversy has erupted out of thin air.

Frankly, I'm terribly sympathetic to a lot of the expressions of outrage in this race. Neither side has a monopoly on low blows.