ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN

 

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN Asia–Pacific Economic Co-operation organisation (APEC) leaders (from left) President Bill Clinton (US), Phan Van Khai (Vietnam), the Sultan of Brunei and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (deputy prime minister of Malaysia) watch a waiata being sung at the official welcome to APEC leaders at the Carlton Hotel in Auckland on 12 September 1999. It was the seventh summit of APEC, an organisation set up in 1989 to foster economic cooperation between the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and the rapidly developing economies of East and Southeast Asia.
A major weakness has been discovered in New Zealand’s foreign intelligence analysis: trade officials invited a rich Asian businessman to invest here and meet the Prime Minister and top business leaders - apparently unaware that he has been publicly named by US intelligence agencies as a Chinese spy with organised crime connections. Now a photo of him meeting President Clinton at the APEC conference in Auckland is causing uproar in the US. IAN WISHART reports on the so-called "Bamboo Network": It is a postage-stamp sized photo – a moment in time captured on videotape at the APEC conference in Auckland, beamed via satellite to the Fox TV news centre in Los Angeles, broadcast on Fox News across America, recorded on someone’s VCR, photographed off the screen, scanned into a computer and uploaded onto the Internet. What’s so special about the photo? Well, for a start it features Bill Clinton pressing the flesh of someone in the crowd at the APEC conference in Auckland last September, only this time it isn’t a cigar-lovin’ intern. Instead, the other face in the photo belongs to someone much more interesting: an Indonesian businessman with links to New Zealand, organised crime and Chinese Intelligence. Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas,right, and his wife Hillary Rodham Clinton, chat with Mochtar Riady, chairman of the Hong Kong Chinese Bank at a reception hosted by Riady, Oct. 7, 1985. Clinton is in Hong Kong for a three-day trade promotion tour.

What’s also special about the photo? Well, the same week that Investigate began making inquiries to locate the original APEC video footage taken in New Zealand, the raw footage disappeared from TVNZ’s tape library and has not been seen since.

But it’s the man in the photo that this story is about. His name is James Riady, and to those in the know he currently heads the list of America’s Most Wanted – an alleged criminal on the run from US Justice. And that’s why the photo is at the centre of a political furore in the United States: why is President Clinton exchanging pleasantries in Auckland with a wanted man?

Funnily enough, it’s the same question asked in New Zealand back in June 1999, when Riady first turned up for a special meeting with Prime Minister Jenny Shipley.

It should have been just another unnoticed thread in the rich tapestry of New Zealand politics, but the Indonesian’s fleeting appearance in our corridors of power had all the subtle discretion of a glow-in-the-dark cat collar.

Riady heads the Lippo Group, one of Indonesia’s largest companies - but a company with heavy organised crime connections.

The New Zealand Government agency Tradenz extended the invitation for the June visit with a little-publicised announcement that Riady would receive a "red carpet" welcome in New Zealand. That welcome included a special meeting with Prime Minister Shipley, and a series of meetings with leading New Zealand business executives.

What’s extremely significant is that Riady, and his company, are at the centre of a major spying and bribery scandal that’s blown up around US President Bill Clinton.

Amazingly, New Zealand’s intelligence agencies had failed to brief Prime Minister Shipley on this point, despite a claim by to the contrary in Parliament. The closest the intelligence briefings – released to Investigate under the Official Information Act - get to the real Riady is this:

"Most important of all to the Riady family in business are relationships and networks."

As you’re about see, that comment is a dramatic understatement, and we’ll examine shortly how Lippo Group’s incursions into New Zealand and Australia could have security implications.

The latest twist in the Riady scandal comes in a letter from US Congressional investigator Dan Burton to Beth Nolan, legal Counsel to the President.

"Upon President Clinton’s return from his trip to New Zealand for the annual meeting of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)," writes Congressman Burton, "I was dismayed to read the following report from the Wall Street Journal on September 24, 1999:

"TOGETHER AGAIN: James Riady, the Indonesian businessman central to Donorgate, used an economic summit in New Zealand last week to chat with Clinton. The White House won’t talk about it, but Indonesians say Riady didn’t discuss anything "sensitive" with the President."

"If the report is true," continues Burton, "I am concerned that the President would meet with an individual who has continued to evade questioning by the Congress and the Department of Justice about his pivotal role in the campaign finance scandal that came to light just prior to the President’s re-election in 1996.

"As you are aware, Mr Riady was recently named by John Huang as the architect of a massive scheme of illegal conduit political contributions in the United States.

"I cannot understand what purpose would be served by the President meeting with Mr Riady except to urge him to cooperate with Federal investigators.

"From his home in Indonesia, Mr Riady appears to have orchestrated a complex scheme to launder over $4 million (NZ$8 million) in illegal political contributions to Clinton/Gore ’92, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, state Democratic parties, individual candidates, and non-profit groups in 1992 and 1996."

We’ll return to Burton’s letter shortly, but first a little background context. Here’s the story the New Zealand press gallery didn’t tell you about Riady, and the story the Government didn’t know either.

To put what follows in its proper context, it pays to first examine James Riady, and his father Mochtar, the way New Zealand officials see them.

"The Lippo Group is one of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates in terms of market capitalisation with estimates of value putting it at having US$11 billion in assets.

"The vision of its founder Mochtar Riady is to transcend the institutional limitations placed upon organisations run in the traditional overseas Chinese pattern and adopt a modern publicly owned and professionally managed pattern of business.

"Mochtar has formed alliances and joint venture partnerships with world class multinational corporations and has high calibre professional management staff working for him.

"The Lippo empire rose out of the success of the Lippo Bank. Unlike just about all other banks in Indonesia its founder Mochtar Riady tended to shun the Suharto connections that for other conglomerates in Indonesia were the keys to success.

"He avoided lending to politically connected groups or to state enterprises and instead built his business on legitimate retail and trade finance."

Yes. Well.

The real story, shorn of its diplomatic awe, begins 22 years ago with a 1978 move by the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, BCCI, to become established in the United States.

BCCI subsequently crashed in 1991 when a multi-territorial investigation revealed its connections to organised crime, arms smugglers and intelligence agencies. Investigators have since dubbed it "the Bank of Cocaine and Conmen International".

Formed by a Pakistani businessman and marketed as "an Arab bank", BCCI used a group of American investors as a front to purchase two US banking institutions - the National Bank of Georgia, and Financial General Bank in Washington DC. Because of foreign ownership restrictions, BCCI could not appear to be the real owner of the banks.

Assisting BCCI in this subterfuge was Jackson Stephens, an Arkansas stockbroker based in Little Rock. Stephens brought in three lawyers from Little Rock’s Rose Lawfirm: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Vince Foster and Joseph Giroir.

The Clinton connection - as you’ll see - continued to grow, but in the meantime Hillary Clinton and her two law partners helped Stephens, via his company Systematics Inc, to transfer control of Financial General to BCCI.

Financial General’s Washington location meant many politicians and civil servants on Capitol Hill were account holders. The intelligence benefit to BCCI and those associated with the crime bank was enormous.

In 1983, Lippo Group began its own US invasion, choosing to do so in the apparent backwater of Little Rock, Arkansas, where Bill Clinton was Governor. Lippo Finance & Investment in Little Rock brought in a former aide to President Jimmy Carter, Vernon Weaver, to chair the company and Governor Clinton acted as a character reference for Lippo boss Mochtar Riady.

In 1984, Jackson Stephens joined forces with Lippo Group to purchase stock in Arkansas’ Worthen Bank, based in Little Rock. Their buy-in coincided with the establishment of a major cocaine importation operation at nearby Mena, Arkansas, and the laundering of US$100 million a month in drug money through the local banking system and ultimately BCCI.

BCCI investor Abdullah Taha Bakhish joined Riady as a co-owner of Worthen.

By 1985, things began to get hot for Bill Clinton, but Worthen Bank came to the rescue. Clinton had authorised Arkansas state pension funds to be deposited with Worthen by a brokerage firm, but the funds lost 15% of their value as a result of bad short-term investment decisions. Although Jack Stephens wrote out a $52 million Worthen cheque and saved Clinton’s hide, it paved the way for Lippo Group to take a larger role in Worthen. Over the next few months, the Riadys increased their holding to 40% of the bank.

James Riady was appointed to the board of directors, and helped engineer a buyout of the First National Bank of Mena, a town of 5,000 people whose only claim to fame was a secret CIA supply base for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels and the aforementioned cocaine-smuggling operation.

Worthen Bank became politically close to the future US President, and Hillary Clinton’s Rose Lawfirm. Bill Clinton banked with Worthen and steered much of Arkansas’ state business its way. Much of Mena’s billion-dollar-a-year drug money went through Worthen accounts, then on to BCCI branches in Florida and Washington DC as part of the money laundering loop.

It is around this time that another character becomes integral to the plot: Lippo Group executive John Huang. Huang travelled to Arkansas to take up a role as James Riady’s right-hand man in Little Rock.

Mochtar Riady, meanwhile, also formed a joint venture operation with Jack Stephens in Asia. Together, they purchased the Seng Heng Bank in Macau – the former Portuguese island colony close to Hong Kong that’s controlled by Triad organised crime syndicates. Macau is effectively an Oriental Las Vegas, and gambling is a primary source of government revenue. Even the recent Chinese takeover of the territory seems unlikely to dent the criminal power base.

Systematics Inc, the Stephens-owned software company, supplied software to Macau’s Banco Nacional Ultramarino - the state bank of the colony.

Over the next five years, the Riadys consolidated their empire. Selling out of Worthen Bank in 1987 they moved from Little Rock to Los Angeles to establish Lippo Bank LA.

The Worthen experience bit them hard: the bank had lent $80 million to entities associated with either the Riadys or Stephens. In the end, an investment firm collapsed owing Worthen $100 million, and a subsequent investigation criticised Worthen for all the inside loans to its owners.

Lippo LA came unstuck as well, and investigators there launched a criminal investigation in 1990 after discovering that a 21 year old teller had made more than 900 suspicious wire transfers to the Lippo-owned Hong Kong Chinese Bank. Each transaction totalled just under the magic US$10,000 limit which had to be reported to money-laundering investigators.

Nearly all the transfers involved false names, and were initialled by a supervisor. Despite that, investigators could find no documents indicating Lippo Bank LA’s top management knew of the practice.

US banking regulators issued three "cease and desist" orders against Lippo LA up until 1997, on the basis of sloppy management and suspicious funds transfers.

In another joint venture with Jack Stephens, the Riadys purchased the Hong Kong branch of BCCI, with James Riady and Johnny Huang relocating to run Lippo Bank Hong Kong. When Senator Al Gore visited Asia in 1989, accompanied by Huang, the trip was paid for by a Buddhist organisation, Fo Kwang Shan.

In 1991, an entity known as China Resources Company Limited began purchasing shares in Lippo’s Hong Kong Chinese Bank. The price paid for the shares was fifteen percent below the market value. US intelligence agencies have since claimed China Resources Co is a front for Chinese military intelligence.

During his relationship with Worthen bank, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton passed several pieces of legislation favourable to Lippo’s US interests. The payoff? In 1992, with the Clinton/Gore presidential campaign on the ropes over the Gennifer Flowers affair and donations drying up, Lippo Group organised for Worthen Bank to pay the Clinton campaign fund a massive US$3.5 million bailout.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

In addition to the money channelled via the bank, James Riady and the Lippo Group were personally funding Clinton’s presidential campaign – a move that’s illegal under US laws restricting foreigners from making political donations.

In August, 1992, James Riady flew from Indonesia to Los Angeles to take part in a fundraiser for Clinton. Federal investigators piecing the jigsaw together allege Riady took a limousine ride with Governor Clinton, handing over US$100,000 and promising a further US$1 million.

So far, it appears Riady and Huang funnelled US$700,000 in illegal donations to the Clinton campaign, via Lippo Group employees and subsidiaries. Most did not live in the US.

One of the questions posed by US congressional investigators is "Why?". What did the Riadys hope to gain by funding Bill Clinton? They now believe James Riady and the Lippo Group were engineering a major espionage operation on behalf of the Chinese government, a deliberate attempt to bribe an American President, compromise US security and steal US secrets.

The operation, involving more than a hundred people, many of them Chinese, has been dubbed "the Bamboo Network" by investigators.

By January of 1993, with Clinton now President-elect, Huang and Riady arranged for another $100,000 to drop into the President’s coffers and, in February, Huang organised a meeting between Mochtar Riady and the President.

The elder Riady, whose business philosophy is quoted in New Zealand Government briefing papers as "Every network has to have its foundation laid on special, personal, human connections…what I am looking for is what my partners can offer in personal contacts and business connections", urged the new US President to reinstate China’s "most favoured nation" status. He also told Clinton to relax economic sanctions against China, imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Clinton, whose election campaign was significantly funded by the Riadys, obeyed. In June of 1993, China was given "most favoured nation" status. A week or two later, purely coincidentally, the Riadys make US$163 million in profit when China Resources Company Ltd increases its share price offer for Lippo’s Hong Kong Chinese Bank to a figure 50% above market value.

James Riady’s influence with Clinton was so great that on April 19, 1993, at the very moment the FBI was raiding the Branch Davidian religious complex at Waco Texas, killing scores of men, women and children in the process, Bill Clinton was chatting with James Riady in the Oval Office while a TV set in the background was carrying footage of the tragedy.

Clinton even had time during this national disaster to give Riady a tour of "the Situation Room" - a kind of "Bill fiddled while Waco burned" scene.

It is the beginning of a scandal that is seeing President Clinton dubbed "China’s first US President" by some commentators.

And despite the briefing papers from New Zealand trade officials who told Prime Minister Shipley that James Riady and the Lippo group shunned the cronyism surrounding Indonesia’s President Suharto, a US Congressional Investigation paints a very different picture.

"The Riady family was able to show off its close ties to President Clinton during the 1993 APEC summit in Seattle, Washington. Lippo organised a group of Indonesian businessmen to visit Little Rock, Arkansas, before the summit.

"A sister-state agreement between Arkansas and Indonesia was to be signed at a ceremony during the APEC summit, and James Riady planned to have President Clinton and President Suharto attend."

Despite reservations from White House staff, who told Riady that "the human rights controversy surrounding East Temor (sic) may be an impediment," the Congressional report notes that "Ultimately, during the 1993 APEC, President Clinton did meet with President Suharto, along with James Riady, over the objections of his staff."

Clinton met Suharto again during the G-7 summit in Tokyo in July 1993, and then sent a handwritten note to James Riady saying he’d enjoyed his visit with Suharto.

The briefing to New Zealand’s then-Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley, says "The [Lippo] group is seen as not having ties with President Suharto’s family, hence it is regarded as clean and fits in with the spirit of reform."

At the full APEC summit in 1994, hosted by Indonesia, Clinton spent more time with the Riadys, stopping only to pose in a batik shirt alongside the New Zealand Prime Minister at the time, Jim Bolger.

In 1994, US Secretary for Commerce Ron Brown visited China carrying an "unprecedented" US$5.5 billion dollars worth of trade deals. Included in the package is a $1 billion deal for an Arkansas firm, politically linked to Clinton, to expand and manage Lippo’s 725 megawatt coal-burning power plant in China’s Fujian province.

In April 1994, Clinton’s appointee to the US Justice Department, Associate Attorney-General Web Hubbell, resigned from his post amid allegations of fraud relating to his involvement with the Rose Law firm and the Whitewater scandal.

After meeting Hillary Clinton in mid-June, Hubbell held further discussions with Indonesian businessmen James Riady and John Huang. White House records show the two Lippo executives visited the White House every day from June 21 to June 25, 1994.

Hubbell spent much of June 23 with Riady, and four days later the disgraced politician was paid US$100,000 by the Hong Kong Chinese Bank, ostensibly to put him on the Lippo Group payroll. The bank, as investigators now know, is majority-owned by Chinese military intelligence.

The payoff didn’t save Hubbell, who was subsequently jailed.

Asked at a news conference if it wasn’t more than a little suspicious that Hubbell ended up working for Lippo, President Clinton told reporters "To the best of my recollection, I didn’t know anything about his having that job until I read about it in the press. And I can’t imagine who could have ever arranged to do something improper like that and no one around here know about it."

But less than two weeks after Lippo’s payoff to Hubbell, the Clinton administration decided to appoint John Huang as the new Assistant Secretary of the US Commerce Department. Huang’s resignation from the official payroll of the Lippo Group was marked with a US$800,000 golden parachute.

Under US law it is illegal to export high-technology material from the US. This was to enable America to maintain a military and/or commercial edge over possibly hostile nations.

But armed with an interim top-secret security clearance, courtesy of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, Huang found himself suddenly in a position to authorise technology transfers to places like Indonesia and China. Incredibly, Huang’s security clearance was issued without the routine FBI and foreign security checks.

Investigators have discovered that, on 37 separate occasions, after attending CIA briefings on encryption technology, Johnny Huang left the building a short time later and went to Lippo’s offices, where he then made long distance phone and fax calls to overseas locations.

The New York Daily News has reported that US intelligence services subsequently determined that Huang was passing classified trade information to Lippo Group headquarters in Jakarta – his former bosses.

How did Huang end up as an Assistant Secretary with a top secret clearance in the US Commerce Department? The London Times quotes one source as saying it was Hillary Clinton’s idea.

"He was not Ron Brown’s guy, and his presence caused intense conflict. Huang was carrying water for the White House."

Huang made around 70 "water deliveries" to the White House. And all the time, China’s influence in Washington was growing too. During 1994 and 1995, the Clinton administration allowed AT&T to sell its secure communications system to the Chinese Army, in a deal known as "Hua Mei". In a dramatic backfire, the Chinese reconfigured the encryption technology and re-exported it to Iraq for use in air defence systems.

President Clinton also approved the sale of surveillance system technology to China, under the aegis of a cooperation agreement between Chinese police and the US Justice Department.

Which is where Congressman Dan Burton and his letter come in. Burton heads the powerful Committee on Government Reform in the US House of Representatives, and it’s his committee that’s investigating the Donorgate/Chinagate/Riady spying scandal.

Far bigger than Monica Lewinsky or other Clintonesque diversions, there is now real evidence that China, and subsequently Iraq, have gained access to US defence, industrial and commercial secrets as a result of Riady’s allegedly corrupting influence on Clinton.

"John Huang, Mr Riady’s political point-man in the US, kept in frequent contact with his former boss and his companies during his tenure at the Department of Commerce," writes Burton in his letter to the White House spelling out the evidence and demanding more answers.

"Mr Riady’s Oval Office meeting with President Clinton on September 13, 1995, led to Mr Huang’s hiring by the DNC where he promptly raised over US$3 million in illegal political contributions.

"After a week of meetings in the White House, James Riady paid former Justice Department official Webster Hubbell $100,000 at a time when Mr Hubbell’s cooperation in the Whitewater scandal was being sought by the Independent Counsel [Kenneth Starr]. Mr Hubbell has refused to reveal why Mr Riady paid him this money.

"Finally and most importantly, US intelligence agencies report that one of Mr Riady’s chief business partners, China Resources, is an intelligence gathering agency of the communist Chinese Government."

It is this revelation that poses a grave problem for the New Zealand Government. Intelligence briefings prepared for the then Prime Minister Jenny Shipley and released to Investigate do not reveal any link between China Resources and Chinese Intelligence. Indeed, the New Zealand briefing reads as though it could have been prepared by Chinese Intelligence, judging by its innocuous contents:

"The Lippo Group has a strategic position in China and Hong Kong with substantial investments and relationships with powerful business and government people and organisations.

"It owns 49% of the Hong Kong Chinese Bank with the remaining 51% held by China Resources (Holdings) which is a wholly-owned enterprise of China’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation."

Which raises the question: was the New Zealand Government sucked in to beginning a relationship with James Riady on the basis of flawed intelligence?

What is the ongoing implication of that if such flaws are not corrected?

And just how bad was the NZ intelligence?

While our Embassy in Jakarta waxed lyrical about the sound business base of Lippo Group and the Riadys, the Washington Post was more critical, pointing out that Lippo Group had to be bailed out of bankruptcy by Indonesia’s President Suharto in 1995 and there was a further $700 million restructuring in 1996.

The Post quotes an investment analyst at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell’s Jakarta branch, Lin Che Wei, as describing Lippo Group as a "carefully balanced house of cards, held up partly by the Riadys’ practice of gobbling up shares of Lippo stock to drive up the price."

"Riady is a master of this kind of game," says Lin, "He understands what investors want - a rising share price."

And what about the briefing given to Prime Minister Shipley which, if you missed it earlier, we’ll repeat:

"Mochtar has formed alliances and joint venture partnerships with world class multinational corporations and has high calibre professional management staff working for him.

"The Lippo empire rose out of the success of the Lippo Bank. Unlike just about all other banks in Indonesia its founder Mochtar Riady tended to shun the Suharto connections that for other conglomerates in Indonesia were the keys to success.

"He avoided lending to politically connected groups or to state enterprises and instead built his business on legitimate retail and trade finance."

Contrast that with these excerpts from the Washington Post investigation:

"Mochtar Riady sent the President a four page letter, urging him...to support Suharto..."

"Clinton recalls that James Riady also tried to persuade him to meet Suharto..."

"James Riady arranged for...a Little Rock lawyer and longtime friend of Clinton to spend one and a half hours with Suharto in Jakarta...An official with Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry said Riady insisted that [the lawyer] ‘had the ear of President Clinton. He said the meeting would give us special access to the White House’."

"The Riadys also promoted Hubbell at Suharto’s presidential palace as someone ‘influential with Bill Clinton’.

"After Hubbell resigned from the Justice Department amid allegations of fraud, James Riady arranged for him to tour Indonesia...Riady made sure that Hubbell, like [the lawyer] visited the former Portuguese colony of East Timor, where Indonesian security forces have been accused of widespread human rights abuses.

"Riady ‘said letting a friend of Clinton’s see Timor might help change US policy. So naturally we thought it was a good idea,’ the official said."

"In April 1993 James Riady escorted the Governor of Jakarta to the East Wing [of the White House] for a meeting on which the White House can provide no details..."

"And Riady accompanies...one of Suharto’s most influential advisers to the White House...joining them was John Huang...two months later the Indonesian Government arranged for a group of private companies to rescue Lippo during a financial crunch."

" ‘These trips helped Lippo improve their ties to the Suharto regime,’ said a former Lippo executive. ‘As a result, Suharto helped rescue them when they needed help’."

"In Jakarta, Lippo has approached the Suharto regime for almost everything from critical building permits to outright financial bailouts."

The Post reports that Riady is also involved in a string of joint ventures with Suharto’s half-brother.

We could go on, and on, about Riady’s close ties to the former Indonesian dictator, but you’ve probably absorbed the point that the message reaching our Government was a very different one from the reality.

Instead, Riady was welcomed to New Zealand with open arms by the National Government – a gesture in sharp contrast with the sentiments in the United States.

"From the above list of activities," writes Burton, " I find it inconceivable that the President of the United States would meet with James Riady for any reason. Mr Riady has thumbed his nose at the laws of the United States and Mr Clinton appears to have rewarded him.

"Doubtless, this meeting with the President will be used to personal advantage in Indonesia and China by Mr Riady. Therefore, I would like to request that the White House provide the following information and documents in regard to this matter:

A. Did President Clinton meet James Riady in New Zealand

B. Identify all individuals present during any contacts between President Clinton and James Riady in connection with the President’s travel to New Zealand.

C. Describe the substance of all contacts between President Clinton and James Riady in connection with the President’s travel to New Zealand.

D. Describe the substance of all contacts between White House officials and James Riady or his associates in connection with the President’s travel to New Zealand.

E. When did the White House first learn that James Riady would be in New Zealand during President Clinton’s trip for the APEC meeting?

1. How did the White House learn that James Riady would be in New Zealand during President Clinton’s travel there?

2. Identify all individuals involved in the request that President Clinton meet with James Riady during the President’s trip to New Zealand.

3. Was the fact that James Riady would be in New Zealand during President Clinton’s trip conveyed to the President? If so, when was this information conveyed to the President? Who conveyed this information to the President? Please describe the substance of all such communications.

4. Identify any White House officials who expressed concern over President Clinton meeting with James Riady. Please describe the substance of all such communications.

F. Provide all documents relating to James Riady, his companies, his employees, or his associates in connection with the President’s recent trip to New Zealand for the APEC meeting, including all documents relating to any meetings between President Clinton and James Riady.

G. Provide all recordings, either video or audio, of any contacts between President Clinton and James Riady, his associates, or his employees relating to the President’s trip to New Zealand for the APEC meeting.

"It is my sincere hope that if indeed President Clinton met with James Riady during his trip, that the President used the prestige of his office and his long term friendship with Mr Riady to convince Mr Riady to return to the United States and answer all of the questions posed by Congress and the Justice Department so the American public can finally learn the entire truth about Mr Riady’s role in tampering with our presidential elections.

"I am concerned, however, that the President would socialise with an individual who has mocked the laws of this country."

Intriguingly, the New Zealand media largely missed the unfolding scandal arising out of Clinton’s APEC visit. While local TV crews made much of Clinton’s meeting with the Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin, and the apparent thaw in the US/China relationship, few in the New Zealand press gallery had any idea of the real issues at the heart of the problem.

The scandal over China’s spying became so bad that some in the US publicly accused China of deliberately blowing up a rocket carrying two US commercial satellites, purely to get access to the technology.

And what of James Riady: what can he want in New Zealand? For a start, he owns property in Auckland, which TradeNZ identified as the Port Tower hotel. We can find no evidence of such a hotel, but there is a Park Tower Hotel which was owned by "Asian interests" up until December. But apart from his personal business interests, Riady is taking a regional political perspective as well. He was appointed as a "Roving Presidential Envoy for Australasia" by former Indonesian President Habibie, is a member of Parliament, and is a member of Indonesia’s APEC Business Advisory Council.

He also clearly knows of a number of influential New Zealand business leaders.

Government briefing documents obtained by Investigate paint a picture of what Riady wanted to achieve on his June 1999 NZ visit, prior to his later controversial appearance at APEC.

For a start, New Zealand trade officials were told to play down his connection to Lippo Group and boost his diplomatic status, despite the fact that most of his delegation were either Lippo staff or Lippo customers. Indeed, the briefing supplied by the New Zealand Embassy in Jakarta refers to Riady wanting to visit NZ "for private business purposes," and goes on to say:

"The headings to the [official] programme currently put at the forefront Riady’s position as Deputy Head of Lippo Group. We and Torry [Parantoro, Riady’s executive assistant] agreed that the emphasis should instead be given to his role as Special Envoy; this title should be transposed, upper-cased and put in bold to reflect that this is the primary hat under which he is visiting New Zealand.

"This is also the title that should be used in the first instance for formal introductions, except for his business meetings where he dons his Lippo Group hat.

"Parantoro showed us a fax he had received from the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington. This provided details of Sunday evening’s programme, including a list of journalists for the media interview and a guest list for the dinner hosted by the Indonesian Ambassador; we noted that [National MP] Pansy Wong was included, a pleasant surprise. Parantoro was pleased with the arrangements confirmed to date for the Monday [June 21], especially the call on the Prime Minister. We clarified that whereas Riady’s entourage would be able to participate in most of these calls, the meeting with the PM would be more restricted …Parantoro clearly expected this to be the case.

"We noted that we were waiting for confirmation for calls on Don McKinnon, Bill English, and Don Brash.

"Parantoro commented favourably on the agenda for Tuesday (we noted the likely addition of a call on Sir Selwyn Cushing, Brierley Investments.)

"We discussed with Parantoro opportunities to meet with the Business Roundtable and the ASEAN-NZ Business Council.

"Riady made a specific request that Doug Myers be informed of his visit and be included in his programme. However…Myers is currently in London and will not be returning to NZ until July."

The cost of Riady’s June visit was to have been met by New Zealand taxpayers, according to the documents.

"We suggested that it would be appropriate to fund all Riady’s expenses (including offering a first class airfare)."

Ultimately, however, the Indonesian businessman and alleged Chinese spy paid his own way.

The unanswered question remains open: are Riady’s activities in New Zealand and Australia purely commercial, or are they motivated also by espionage?

"In his role as the Special Presidential Envoy for Australasia," write NZ diplomats, "James Riady has been busy. On February 25 1999, Lippo Bank signed an MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] with the Australian Trade Commission to promote the economic development of eastern Indonesia.

"Under the MOU, cooperation programmes between Indonesian and Australian businessmen will be conducted using the Bank Lippo’s networks. Australia will provide training and guidance for Bank Lippo employees.

"In October 1998 James made a visit to Australia to promote relations and dialogue between the two nations. There he met with Victorian chief minister Jeff Kennett, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr and addressed an Austrade seminar. He was also scheduled to meet with the Prime Minister, John Howard."

Nowhere in the intelligence briefing for the New Zealand Prime Minister is James Riady’s relationship with Bill Clinton, or alleged activity as a Chinese spy, disclosed.

Nick Arathimos, the TradeNZ official who organised the June 1999 visit, told Investigate he was aware of Riady’s background. When questioned over his involvement with BCCI and with a bank that was laundering drug cartel money through Arkansas, however, Arathimos was clearly taken by surprise, saying he was not aware of these allegations.

Yet, in answer to a question in Parliament on July 21, Deputy Prime Minister Wyatt Creech said "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was fully aware of the issues surrounding his relationship with President Clinton. Furthermore the Ministry did not, and does not, consider that a visit by the President of Indonesia’s special envoy raised any issues of a security nature."

The then Opposition leader, Helen Clark, asked a follow-up question:

"Before the Prime Minister met Mr Riady, was she also aware of a draft report submitted by Republicans on a Senate committee in America that alleges Mr Riady and his father both have "a long term relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency". If so, would that have made a difference?"

"Obviously I do not know the answer to the detail in the question," replied Creech, "but what I can say is that this person visited New Zealand as a special envoy of the President of Indonesia, and it was in that capacity that the special envoy visited the Prime Minister."

"How big was the cheque?" interjected one Labour MP, implying Riady’s political donation largesse may have rubbed off on National prior to the election.

Is it possible that Lippo Group may be trying to place itself in a position to steal New Zealand trade secrets or technology on behalf of the Chinese or Indonesia? There is no evidence one way or the other, but given the company’s involvement with Chinese intelligence it would be naïve to assume Lippo would not be interested if an opportunity arose.

After news of Lippo’s Chinese espionage first broke in a Los Angeles Times story three years ago, ongoing investigations have revealed Chinese interests associated with the Riadys have allegedly stolen not only trade, but also critical defence information including nuclear secrets.

Chinese spies have also been uncovered in Canada.

Arrested and questioned by federal and congressional investigators, Riady’s right-hand-man Johnny Huang has coughed to his boss’ involvement, but pleaded the 5th Amendment – the right not to self-incriminate – nearly two thousand times since interrogation began.

Riady has refused to return to the US for questioning or to clear his name. Instead, he remains based at his Jakarta estate where he lives in a southern-US style plantation manor, three stories tall with massive "Greco-Roman columns", sited amidst a Lippo golf course. The home also has a helipad and a lake, and the entire property is ringed by a moat.

Is James Riady an appropriate person for the New Zealand Government to be promoting as someone to do business with? Despite the revelations, TradeNZ official Nick Arathimos claims yes, effectively saying he’s the best of a bad bunch in Indonesia.

"You can come up with a lot worse. His companies in Indonesia are among the better organised, relying less on cronyism with Suharto. James Riady will continue to be a key player in Indonesia because of his existing interests.

"If he were to invest in New Zealand, he would have to abide by our laws and regulations."

Which is just as well, because as many critics of our investment regime have pointed out, New Zealand is the laughing stock of the Western world for having some of the most lax controls on money-laundering and inside trading on the planet.

At the end of the day, however, one could question why we bothered to invite someone of Riady’s background to New Zealand in the first place. The argument that ‘he’s the best of a bad bunch’ could equally apply to one of the less violent members of Colombia’s Cali drug cartel.

If the intelligence briefing provided to Shipley was drawn only from trade diplomats, then somebody should probably be caned for not calling in the External Assessment Bureau, and if our foreign spy agency was consulted then the Government could probably save a few million dollars by sacking the spooks and simply purchasing a subscription to the Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times.

As for the Riadys, Indonesians wouldn’t be surprised if it was a quest for world domination that they were really undertaking. The Lippo logo is everywhere in the troubled Asian powerhouse, with its interests in banks, factories and shops, hospitals and housing developments.

"In Jakarta," wrote the Washington Post, "locals joke that Lippo stands for Lama-Lama Indonesia Pun Punya Oe, meaning: In the long run, even Indonesia will be mine."

.............................................................................................................................

90s Clinton Scandal Figure

Barred from U.S., Still 

Giving Money

 to  Clintons

DNC

*James Riady, pled guilty to making illegal donations to Bill Clinton’s political campaigns.

*https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-donor-pleads-guilty/

He was barred from entering the United States, in addition to paying the largest penalty in the history of campaign finance violations. An email disclosed by WikiLeaks demonstrates that Riady is still feeding money into the Clinton machine.

Riady, head of the Lippo banking conglomerate, entered a felony plea in 2001 stating that he “knowingly and willfully conspired and agreed to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing and defeating the lawful functions and duties of the FEC through deceitful and dishonest means.”

Riady’s lawyers played up his voluntary cooperation with the U.S. justice system, noting that he could have avoided prosecution as an Indonesian citizen, because there was no extradition treaty between Indonesia and the U.S. They pointed fingers of blame at a Lippo California official whose name is also well-known to veterans of the Nineties scandal wars, John Huang, and said Riady had merely reimbursed Huang for funds illegally pumped into Democratic political campaigns, prominently including Bill Clinton’s 1992 White House bid.

The L.A. Times summarized the relationship between the Riadys, Huang, the Lippo Group, and the Clintons in a January 2001 article about James Riady’s guilty plea:

Mochtar Riady, the family patriarch, and his son James have known Clinton for more than 20 years, since they were investors in a Little Rock, Ark., bank and Clinton was governor. During Clinton’s first term as president, James Riady visited the White House at least 20 times.

The Riadys helped place Huang at the Commerce Department in 1994 and then at the Democratic National Committee. As a DNC official, Huang helped raise $3.4 million from the Asian American community, more than half of which ultimately was returned because DNC officials could not verify that it came from legal, domestic donors.

The Riady family, its companies and their associates gave the Democratic Party more than $840,000 from 1992 through 1996.

Foreign corporations and non-citizens aren’t supposed to make those kinds of donations, which is one reason the Clintons developed their alternative funding system of giving ridiculously overpriced speeches to foreign entities, and using their enormous Clinton Foundation financial apparatus to digest overseas money.

Another legendary name from Nineties scandalmania was tangled up in the Riady scandal: Webb Hubbell. As the L.A. Times wrote:

The Riady family and its companies also were connected to Clinton friend and onetime Associate Atty. Gen. Webster L. Hubbell. One of the companies controlled by James Riady made a $100,000 payment to Hubbell, who after leaving the Justice Department under an ethics cloud served 18 months in federal prison for defrauding the Rose Law Firm of Little Rock when he and Hillary Rodham Clinton were partners there.

As a result of his plea agreement, James Riady was barred from traveling to the United States for at least two years, and agreed to perform 400 hours of community service, while the Lippo Group paid a groundbreaking $8.6 million fine.

There was more than just money involved in the Riady/Lippo debacle, as there have long been suspicions the Chinese government was involved, using Lippo’s donations to buy access to American missile technology. There’s no question China got the technology it wanted; in a phrase that will sound familiar after WikiLeaks documented the special treatment Clinton Foundation donors received from Hillary Clinton’s State Department, it was the “quid pro quo” that could never be proven.

Some believe Riady’s plea-bargain agreement was a successful effort to stonewall a more serious investigation. The deal was signed less than two weeks before George W. Bush became President.

Riady made it back onto American soil in 2009, with a visit to Arkansas that was kept quiet. As the Washington Post reported in 2010: “Riady’s return to the United States poses a prickly question for Hillary Clinton’s State Department: How and why did a foreign billionaire stained by Clinton-era scandals get a U.S. visa after being kept out for so long under the Bush administration?”

The short answer is that some career people at the State Department were very uncomfortable with Riady visiting the U.S. and refreshing his ties to the Clinton power structure, but apparently no one could come up with a solid reason to stop him, his travel ban having technically expired around 2004.

According to what Riady told the Washington Post, the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta recommended the Department of Homeland Security give him a waiver to obtain a six-month visitor’s visa in late 2008, nominally to attend “family graduation ceremonies,” and DHS “concurred.”

Interestingly, no one involved in this process seemed very eager to discuss their decision-making process. The State Department insisted that Secretary of State Clinton was unaware of his visits.

Riady’s second visit to the U.S. was hardly limited to “family graduation ceremonies.” Among other things, he registered for a New York meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, a meeting which both Hillary Clinton and President Obama attended. He told the Post he didn’t actually attend the meeting because he couldn’t fit it into his schedule.

He did, however, pay $20,000 to become a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. And now comes the WikiLeaks revelation that, according to a December 2012 email from the Clinton Foundation, Riady is funding a “retrofit program in Indonesia” with the Foundation’s Asia Climate Group. This information is part of a financial statement for Clinton Foundation board members attached to the email.

This email was sent to Clinton’s campaign CEO John Podesta and her chief of staff Cheryl Mills, among others, so it will be interesting to watch Hillary Clinton claim she was completely unaware of Riady’s involvement.

Incidentally, Riady, who is now about 58-years-old, is very outspokenly Christian. His response to the Washington Post’s 2010 questions about his under-the-radar visits to the United States included assurances that “the teachings of Christ inform all that I do.” He is noted for making sizable donations to the small Christian community in Muslim-majority Jakarta. He’s very particular about how his plea agreement did not include any confessions of deliberate immoral behavior. 

On the other hand, he has a long reputation as a very aggressive businessman, whose sense of Christian morality doesn’t seem to complicate his business practices much. He was described as “Jekyll and Hyde,” a “God-fearing Christian” in the robber-baron tradition of John D. Rockefeller, to the Washington Post by one of his friends.

There is an old saying that if you mix an ounce of sewage with a gallon of ice cream, the result is a gallon of sewage. The Clinton Foundation operates on the reverse of that principle, sanctifying all kinds of suspicious financial arrangements by inserting a little dash of charity. If you ask tough questions about what the Foundation does with most of its money, you must be a monster who hates the poor souls the Clinton Foundation is trying to help. It seems like the kind of operation that would have plenty of room for a 21st Century version of John D. Rockefeller.

ARKANSAS CONNECTIONS: A Time Line of the Clinton Years     Progressive Review(NewsMax.com)     Oct. 1998 Sam Smith,  http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/clinton/arkansas.htm https://www.the-catbird-seat.net/bcci/ .................................................................................................................................... Riady Connection Editor RUSMAN | DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY  March 24, 2014 The Dark Side of the Figure of James Riady Chinese Military Intelligence Agent This article tries to discuss the dangers of a James Riady, owner of the Lippo Group. Why is James Riady categorized as a very dangerous person for Indonesia? We will describe the basis and reasons. James Riady, son of Muchtar Riady, ex-CEO of Bank BCA owned by Liem Sioe Liong (Sudono Salim, the richest man in Indonesia), has a bad reputation. Just like his father, Mochtar Riady, who was coached by Liem Sioe Liong, James Riady was coached by Antony Salim (Liem Sioe Liong's eldest son). James Riady now manages his business empire Lippo Group, which was inherited by his father. Consists of various types of businesses: banks, property, media etc. Lippo Group was founded by Muctar Riady after Muchtar stopped as CEO of Bank BCA. The Lippo Group then grew to become a conglomerate. However, unlike his father, James Riady, in leading the famous Lippo Group, has a bad reputation. Criminal. Cheats. Violating the law. The violation of the law was carried out by James Riady in Indonesia and in the US. We have already discussed several violations of the law by James Riady. Among them: James Riady falsified Bank Lippo's financial statements which rocked the Indonesian capital market and caused a crisis of foreign investor confidence. Bank Lippo is involved in issuing double financial statements which violate the Law on Bank Indonesia Article 49 and is punishable by 10 years in prison. BI and the Bapepam of the Ministry of Finance are investigating the case of doubling the Ministry of Finance's financial statements to find out violations of laws and losses to state finances. According to the Finance Report per 30 September 2002 which was announced to the public on 28 November 2002, the total assets of Bank Lippo are Rp 24 trillion. Net profit of IDR 98 billion. However, in a report to the JSX on December 27 2002, total assets changed to Rp. 22.8 trillion (decreased by Rp. 1.2 trillion) and a loss of Rp. 1.3 trillion. Lippo Bank's Lapkeu difference caused quite a stir. It was found that there was a decrease in foreclosed assets (AYDA) of IDR 2.4 trillion. Decrease in foreclosed assets (AYDA) from IDR 2.4 trillion to IDR. 1.4 trillion. As a result, the Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) plummeted. Bank Lippo's CAR fell from 24.77% to 4.23%. The cause: Manipulation by Lippo Bank management. CAR fell because the collateral used as assets came from the Lippo group: PT Bukit Sentul Tbk, PT Lippo Karawaci Tbk, PT Lippo Cikarang Tbk, PT Lippo Securities Tbk, PT Hotel Prapatan Tbk, and PT Panin Insurance Tbk, and so on. BI's audit of Bank Lippo also violated the capital market in the form of insider trading. Bank Lippo also violated regulations/laws regarding the appointment of Independent commissioners which were not in accordance with the decisions of the JSE (Jakarta Stock Exchange). Bank Lippo was also declared to have violated the Company's AD/RT and the principles of Good Corporate Governance (GCG). Lippo Bank was robbed by its own owner. The behavior of robbing a bank itself is not the first time James Riady has done this. Previously, in 1990 it happened in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. The US Bank Examiner found 900 suspicious wire transfer transactions by Lippo Bank, Little Rock, Arkansas. Auditors found more than 900 wire transfers worth $7 million to accounts at Bank China HongKong, which is owned by Lippo & China Resources. All transfers are ordered under false names and approved by only one supervisor. No authorized bank officials claimed to know. US banking regulators have suggested that the bank be closed, but James Riady persisted by adding US$ 26 million in capital. Roy Tirtadji, managing director of the Lippo group said in an interview that Lippo Bank lost money because it ignored many principles. Later, congressional investigators found out that the Lippo Bank (formerly California Bank) was being maintained because of hidden purposes. The establishment of the bank was only James Riady's strategy to play on the US political scene. Sticking to Clinton who was elected president in 1992. Much earlier, Mochtar Riady decided to buy Bank Stephen Inc. in the 1970s, a residential banking based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Then Mochtar also bought ownership of Worthen Bank and made James Riady (28 years) Worthen's Co-President. James Riady has a special interest in important people among politicians. James was always looking for opportunities to meet Governor Clinton. Even When Clinton traveled to Hong Kong (1985) James Riady arranged a cruise from Hong Kong, dinner, shopping and cocktail parties. When Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992, James' father, Mochtar Riady flew to Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. Mochtar came especially to congratulate Hillary Clinton on receiving the "Arkansan of the Year" award. He donated $50,000 to Hilary. In early 1993 James Riady stuck closely to Grobmyer, Clinton's close friend. James also accompanied Grobmyer several times to the White House. Another official closely attached to James Riady is the Presidential Assistant, Middleton, who always invites him to meet President Clinton. In approaching and lobbying Clinton and high-ranking US officials, James Riady was assisted by John Huang, an executive of Lippo Bank. Then Huang was successfully placed by James Riady as the US high ranking official/Deputy Secretary of Commerce. In September 1995, after James Riady's special meeting with Clinton and James Riady in the Oval Office of the White House, Huang moved to the DNC. At the DNC or Democratic National Committee, Huang has a special task as a Fund Raiser, aka a collector of Democratic Party donations. In cultivating his influence on Clinton and the White House, James also took former assistant to President Jimmy Carter, Vernon Weaver. Meanwhile, John Huang, a former Lippo Group executive, continued to act as James Riady's right-hand man and was infiltrated into the White House. Meanwhile, when Senator Al Gore visited Asia in 1989, he was always accompanied by John Huang who was paid by a Buddhist organization, Fo Kwang Shan. And in 1991, an entity known to the CIA under the guise of Chinese military intelligence bought a stake in Lippo China Bank in Hong Kong. US intelligence agencies (NSA, CIA etc.) recognized China from the start Resources Co. is a Chinese military intelligence undercover entity. In August 1992, James Riady flew from Indonesia to Los Angeles to take part in a fundraising event for Clinton. FBI investigators proved that James Riady rented a limousine alone with Clinton, handed over US$100,000 and promised an additional US$1 million. However, FBI investigators could only prove Riady and Huang's illegal contribution to Clinton of US$ 700,000 for Clinton's campaign. The illegal contributions of James Riady and John Huang to Clinton were made through employees of the Lippo Group and its subsidiaries." The majority of illegal contributors do not live in the US. This case exploded. The people and the US Government are asking. What's the motive? One of the questions Congressional Investigators asked was “Why?”. What does James Riady hope to do with Bill Clinton's funding? The US Congress and the People believe James Riady/Lippo is the Chinese government's main espionage operation technique, which deliberately bribed the American President. Its goals are manifold for China's interests: trade, compromising US security and stealing US military secrets and technology. Moreover, US Congress Investigators succeeded in dismantling James Riady's network of operations which involved more than one hundred people, the majority of whom were Chinese. Investigators from the US Congress called them the “bamboo network” or “Operation Bamboo Network”. During his time as Clinton's close friend, James succeeded in urging the US President to return the status of "most favored by the nation" to China. James Riady also successfully persuaded Clinton to relax economic sanctions against China, imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre. Clinton, like Jokowi, his campaign was significantly funded by James Riady. Clinton obeyed James Riady. Fulfill many suggestions. In June 1993, two weeks after China was given the status of "most favored by the nation", Riady made a profit of US$ 163 million at China Resources (formerly Lippo Bank Hongkong). China Resources Ltd's profit raised its share price by > 50% above market value. Riady made a big profit for the second time / doubled. James, with his influence, managed to prevent Clinton from wanting to cancel the FBI's attack on the Christian fanatic congregation of David in Waco Texas, 19/4/93. As a result of the FBI attack dozens of men, women and children were killed and seriously injured. Clinton and James watched the tragedy in the Oval Office of the White House. Clinton even had time when the National Tragedy happened by giving Riady a bonus tour to see “the Situation Room” in the White House. It was a far cry from the Lippogate scandal that later earned President Clinton the nickname "China's First US President". James and the Riadys were able to show the world their special relationship with President Clinton during the 1993 APEC Summit in Seattle, Washington. Even the Lippo Group was given a special task to organize Indonesian businessmen when they visited Little Rock, Arkansas, before the APEC peak. There is a special agreement between the State of Arkansas and RI that must be signed during the APEC Summit by President Clinton and President Soeharto. And James Riady was in the midst of the two heads of state as a witness as well as the initiator and initiative of the Arkansas and RI agreement. During the 1993 APEC Summit, Clinton held a meeting with President Suharto, together with James Riady, despite protests from Clinton's staff. Clinton met Suharto again during the G-7 summit in Tokyo in July 1993, and later sent a handwritten note to James Riady. In that handwriting, President Clinton said he really enjoyed his meeting with President Suharto. At the APEC Summit in 1994, which Indonesia hosted, President Clinton spent more time with James Riady. Clinton and Riady's serious conversation stopped only to pose in a batik shirt with New Zealand PM Jim Bolger. Riady is amazing! In 1994, US Trade Minister Ron Brown visited China bringing in an “unprecedented” US$5.5 billion in trade deals. This includes a $1 billion package deal for an Arkansas company that manages the Lippo Business at a 725 MW PLTU in Fujian China. In April 1994, Clinton was forced to fire Deputy US Attorney General, Web Hubbell, due to fraud allegations related to the Rose Lawfirm & Whitewater Scandal. Hubbell was known to collude with James Riady and John Huang. White House records they met daily from 21 – 25 June 1994. Hubbell met Riady on 23 June 94 and 4 days later Hubbell received US$100,000 from Riady via HongKong China Bank. James Riady pretended to place him on the Payroll of the Lippo Bank Group, which US intelligence agencies suspected belonged to Chinese military intelligence. Hubbell was then jailed on charges of accepting bribes and allegedly collaborating with Lippo, who was suspected of being a cover for Chinese military intelligence. President Clinton said he did not know anything about the betrayal of his trusted official, until he found out from the press. Less than 2 weeks after the Hubbell Case, President Clinton appointed John Huang as assistant US Secretary of Commerce. John Huang officially withdrew from the Lippo group by receiving a bonus of US$ 800,000 from James Riady. The assistant to the Minister of Trade, J Huang, was later found to have issued a temporary security clearance permit for export sales of weapons technology to China. Congressional investigators later learned that Huang had attended 37 CIA briefings on encryption technology that Huang passed on to China. John Huang left the CIA building a short time later and went to the Lippo office, where he made phone calls and faxed them overseas locations. US intelligence later discovered that Huang had transferred classified trade information to the Lippo Group headquarters in Jakarta. Huang is known to have made 70 deliveries and during that time, China's influence in Washington grew exponentially. During 1994 and 1995, the Clinton administration allowed AT&T to sell secure communications systems to the Chinese army. In a deal known as “Hua Mei” that backfired dramatically for the US. China is repeating the encryption technology. And re-exported to Iraq for use in Iraqi air defense systems. President Clinton was involved in the sale approval. In short, John Huang and James Riady are strongly suspected of being Chinese military intelligence agents who infiltrated the US government through Clinton. (TGR)