The Economics Section - Page A4
Second in Series of Special Reports
October 22, 1996PRESIDENT CLINTON STONE-WALLING BRIBERY CHARGES!
by Howard Hobbs, Ph.D., Economics Editor
WASHINGTON DESK - The rising public outrage over president Clinton's involvement in political corruption and bribery is getting legs. Daaily Republican and Associated Press stories have been picked up by the major newspapers in the Nation and overseas.
The focus of all this media attention are the confirmed allegations that president Clinton and vice president Gore sold government favors to foreign agents for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
At the center of the storm of indignation, is a naturalized citizen, John Huang, a former Clinton administration Commerce Department official now on staff at the Clinton-Gore campaign.
President Clinton, on Tuesday, all but admitted the allegations were true when he refused to answer the allegations leveled by Bob Dole over the week-end.
Instead of a denial, the Clinton-Gore election team said, in a hurried television ad released on Tuesday that,'Republicans too, are raising money from overseas sources.'
The Clinton-Gore television ad tacitly acknowledges that both men may have actively sought and have obtained illegal political payments from foreign interests.
The theme of the Clinton-Gore ad is a weak admission in terms of a 'So what!' attitude toward bribery in the high office of the president.
Vice President Gore, admitted direct involvement in one such incident. Huang and Gore were both present at a Buddhist church in California. Buddhists are devout religious devotees who take a vow of poverty and give up all earthly possessions, including money.
Apparently vice president Gore was unaware of the poverty status of the Buddhists when he attempted to claim that these Buddhists had given the Clinton-Gore campaign generous cash contributions, last week.
Gore actually made an official explanation on Louisiana Radio station a few days later. He admitted being present at the gaffe and said: "The DNC set up the event. If there was anything untoward about the event, the DNC will find out and make it right."
The Los Angeles Times broke the new story that the Clinton-Gore campaign had sought and obtained an illegal $250,000 from an overseas Korean source. Following the Times coverage of the Buddhist church event the DNC was forced to return a $250,000 contribution.
The Clinton-Gore campaign said the Buddhist church fund-raiser was a "mistake" and today it sent to the U.S. Treasury $5,000 after media reports that one of those attending had received $5,000 cash from an unnamed woman and was asked to write a check to the DNC for that amount.
The Clinton-Gore campaign press secretary Amy Weiss Tobe said that the campaign decided to take the step only after Peter Kelly, the lawyer for the Buddhist church, confirmed the reports. Tobe made an incredibly shocking admission of the existence of the Clinton-Gore campaign fraud when she said 'The appropriate step for the campaign to take under those circumstances, since it didn't know to whom to return the contribution, was to give it to the federal government.'
The illegal conduct of the Clinton-Gore campaign has also arisen about the $450,000 given to the president by a non-resident alien Indonesian couple who are part of to the Lippo Group, an Indonesian banking conglomerate.
The context of the present discovery of illegal payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Clinton-Gore campaign by Lippo raised other concerns. There is the very serious question, now, about why the Lippo Group hired president Clinton's associate attorney general Webster L. Hubbel.
Hubbel worked for Lippo during the time period after he resigned under pressure from the Justice Department. This was just before Hubbel went to prison after pleading guilty to fraud while he was senior partner at the Rose Law Firm, and Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, during the White Water debacle.
Huang worked for the Lippo Group before taking a job with the Clinton administration as a top appointee with the Commerce Department. Clinton is friends with James Riady, a member of the family that controls the Lippo Group, and has met with him on at least three occasions in the Oval Office, and organized a reception for him with other Lippo Group leaders on a 1994 trip to Indonesia.
The Clinton-Gore campaign chair, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd(D) is protecting Huang from the media and he said he will not make Huang available to answer reporters' questions.
White House press secretary Michael McCurry said Tuesday that Huang is not being permitted to tell his side of the story because he is too busy preparing for the FEC inquiry. Reporters shouted off camera, 'Extremely cynical performance, Mr. McCurry.' McCurry retorted with a smile, 'I don't know about that. I've seen worse. I've done worse.'