The Riady's Influenced The Clintons
[67 recorded Visits To The White House]
Reno's John Huang
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Published: October 08, 1998
Remember John Huang?
He's the banker who was placed by Indonesia's Riady family in the corrupted Clinton Commerce Department. For 18 months he read top-secret cable traffic, was briefed 37 times by the C.I.A., viewed 500 pieces of raw intelligence -- and made 261 calls to the Lippo banks. He frequently slipped across the street to a Riady banker's ''drop'' to send and receive faxes and packages that did not appear on Commerce records.
Mr. Huang also paid 67 recorded visits to the White House complex. After deceptively signing in as a visitor to the President's secretary, he met in the Oval Office with his new and old bosses, Bill Clinton and James Riady. Clinton had Bruce Lindsey arrange with Harold Ickes to reassign Huang to the D.N.C., where he raised $2 million from illegal Asian sources.
That fund-raising scandal was first noted in this space two years ago yesterday. The Clinton Department of Justice botched the investigation. When F.B.I. Director Louis Freeh complained in a 27-page legal memo about the need for independent counsel to replace the fumbling ''Public Integrity'' time-server, Lee Radek, Attorney General Janet Reno refused and instead brought in Charles La Bella, a San Diego prosecutor.
La Bella determined in a 100-page report that the law called for an independent counsel. When Reno refused to honor a lawful Congressional subpoena to examine policy recommendations in the Freeh and La Bella reports, the Government Oversight Committee voted her in contempt. To palliate Senate and House leaders, she read selections from the reports taking issue with her judgment, but would not hand them over.
Then this: According to ''a senior Justice official,'' reported Roberto Suro of The Washington Post, ''some investigators have concluded that Huang does not have information that would support the prosecution of the Democratic officials who received and spent the funds he raised or the White House officials who promoted his career in Washington.''
Huang home free? But nobody at Justice has interrogated him in these two years. Although he has taken the Fifth Amendment to duck Congress, he has never had to exercise his rights against self-incrimination to Reno's parade of hamstrung prosecutors.Ty Cobb, tells me, ''John Huang has not had the occasion to take the Fifth.''
Reno's John Huang
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Published: October 08, 1998
Remember John Huang?
He's the banker who was placed by Indonesia's Riady family in the corrupted Clinton Commerce Department. For 18 months he read top-secret cable traffic, was briefed 37 times by the C.I.A., viewed 500 pieces of raw intelligence -- and made 261 calls to the Lippo banks. He frequently slipped across the street to a Riady banker's ''drop'' to send and receive faxes and packages that did not appear on Commerce records.
Mr. Huang also paid 67 recorded visits to the White House complex. After deceptively signing in as a visitor to the President's secretary, he met in the Oval Office with his new and old bosses, Bill Clinton and James Riady. Clinton had Bruce Lindsey arrange with Harold Ickes to reassign Huang to the D.N.C., where he raised $2 million from illegal Asian sources.
That fund-raising scandal was first noted in this space two years ago yesterday. The Clinton Department of Justice botched the investigation. When F.B.I. Director Louis Freeh complained in a 27-page legal memo about the need for independent counsel to replace the fumbling ''Public Integrity'' time-server, Lee Radek, Attorney General Janet Reno refused and instead brought in Charles La Bella, a San Diego prosecutor.
La Bella determined in a 100-page report that the law called for an independent counsel. When Reno refused to honor a lawful Congressional subpoena to examine policy recommendations in the Freeh and La Bella reports, the Government Oversight Committee voted her in contempt. To palliate Senate and House leaders, she read selections from the reports taking issue with her judgment, but would not hand them over.
Then this: According to ''a senior Justice official,'' reported Roberto Suro of The Washington Post, ''some investigators have concluded that Huang does not have information that would support the prosecution of the Democratic officials who received and spent the funds he raised or the White House officials who promoted his career in Washington.''
Huang home free? But nobody at Justice has interrogated him in these two years. Although he has taken the Fifth Amendment to duck Congress, he has never had to exercise his rights against self-incrimination to Reno's parade of hamstrung prosecutors.Ty Cobb, tells me, ''John Huang has not had the occasion to take the Fifth.''
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