Liu Supporters Invoke the Holocaust and Nixon in Faulting an F.B.I. Inquiry

By DAVID W. CHEN

A former congressman on Monday called the federal investigation into the fund-raising practices of John C. Liu, the city comptroller, a “Nixonian” form of “harassment and persecution.”

Former Representative Major Owens was joined in his criticism by Virginia M. Kee, a founding member of the Chinese-American Planning Council and another prominent supporter of Mr. Liu's. Ms. Kee invoked Rosh Hashana and alluded to Nazi Germany, saying that the failure of New Yorkers to voice their outrage at Mr. Liu's treatment reminded her of the “many good Germans who allowed” the Holocaust to happen.

“Weren't there a lot of people who saw people being killed and sent to death chambers that didn't speak out?” Ms. Kee said. “Wasn't there a need for us to speak out and say, ‘This is wrong'? ”

Ms. Kee and Mr. Owens, both Democrats, were among a half-dozen people who held a news conference in Chinatown to defen d the embattled Mr. Liu. There was a bit of déjà vu to the proceedings, since another news conference in support of Mr. Liu had been held in December, in the same room at the Confucius Plaza in Chinatown. But while Mr. Liu attended the earlier event, he was not present Monday; nor was Jia Hou, his former treasurer, who was arrested in February.

The impetus for the latest rally was the revelation last week that investigators with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States attorney's office in Manhattan had received permission, in 2010, or even earlier, to listen in on Mr. Liu's phone calls.

“I am saying the comptroller - who has done nothing - how would any one of us like to undergo an investigation for 18 months and having a wiretap - isn't this outrageous?” Ms. Kee asked. “We're fed up. We don't believe any of this. There is no hard evidence. If you don't have any hard evidence, why do you keep digging?”

Mr. Owens repeated a popula r theory that an unnamed behind-the-scenes power broker was the true catalyst in an effort to derail Mr. Liu, who had been viewed, until the scandal broke, as a strong candidate for mayor in 2013. Mr. Owens added that federal investigators would be better off devoting their resources to, among other issues, the CityTime scandal (though Mr. Owens erroneously said that no one had been arrested in connection to the scandal, when in fact 11 people so far have been).

“Who is so powerful that they would force our law enforcement to target John Liu?” Mr. Owens asked. “John Liu has emerged as one of the people who we looked to as independent and in favor of community empowerment. And we think perhaps that's why he's been targeted. I am quite disturbed and baffled. I do not understand why the F.B.I. would spend time wiretapping John Liu.”

Asked about the news conference, Special Agent James M. Margolin, a spokesman for the New York office of the F.B.I., declined t o comment, other than to say that “the F.B.I.'s investigations are conducted without regard to politics.”

Paul L. Shechtman, a lawyer for Mr. Liu, said: “Almost any time someone compares something to the Holocaust, it's singularly inappropriate, and this was no exception. But it's understandable that some people are angered by an investigation that has cramped John Liu's efforts to run for office.”

Ms. Kee, a former Democratic district leader in Chinatown, warned of a chilling effect of the inquiry. “We should not condemn someone who has done nothing wrong except run for public office. If John Liu isn't able to do it, we will not have any Asians being able to stand up for a very long time, and maybe our young people will suffer further discrimination.”