The Riady Connection
The Asian Wall Street Journal
One month before the 1996 U.S. presidential election, Washington
reporters for this newspaper broke the story of Asian commercial
interests -- notably Indonesia's Lippo Group, controlled by the
Riady family -- contributing millions to the Clinton-Gore
re-election effort. With less than four months to go to the 2000
elections, the Riady connection and questions of corrupt
influence still resonate.
Attorney General Janet Reno has vehemently opposed an independent
inquiry into White House fund-raising ever since 1996 -- this is
clearly shown in the voluminous Justice Department memoranda
painstakingly unearthed by Representative Dan Burton's
investigative committee.
In four years of detailed memos to Ms. Reno, FBI Director Louis
Freeh repeatedly argued for an independent counsel to probe a
"core group," including President Bill Clinton, aided by a
floating cast of "opportunists." Charles La Bella, the campaign
task force head at Justice, observed that the scheme had all the
markings of a "loose enterprise conspiracy." He joined Mr.
Freeh in calling for Ms. Reno to appoint an outside special
prosecutor. Mr. La Bella later left the embattled post, his
career at Justice in ruins.
Yet Robert Conrad, the new task force head brought on to replace
Mr. La Bella, last month recommended that a special prosecutor
investigate Vice President Al Gore for possible crimes related to
fund-raising, and is studying whether to indict Lippo head James
Riady on campaign-finance violations. In March, Mr. Conrad led
a team to Jakarta to request Indonesian Attorney General Marzuki
Darusman's assistance in investigating the Riady-Clinton
connections. Mr. Darusman told The Journal the investigators
were "very anxious" to get to the bottom of it all.
Campaign-finance investigators have focused on a key White House
meeting on September 13, 1995, when the loose enterprise likely
was set in motion. At the meeting was President Clinton,
then-Commerce Department official John Huang, Mr. Riady, senior
Clinton aide Bruce Lindsey, and Arkansas businessman Joseph
Giroir. Now some of these figures, as well as key players from
other sectors of the Whitewater scandal, are turning up in
Indonesia in a new Riady-financed venture.
To many, perhaps most, it seems as if the Clinton cover-up has
succeeded. But Mr. Riady and some of his associates are still
open to prosecution. Nor should silence fall over the court of
public opinion. Somebody should be asking Mr. Riady some tough
questions. To wit, is this the loose enterprise rewarding its
own for keeping quiet about Bill Clinton?
The new venture is AcrossAsia, a holding group for the multimedia
arm of the Lippo Group. AcrossAsia debuted last week on Hong
Kong's recently organized Growth Enterprise Market stock
exchange. As our Jay Solomon reported from Indonesia, among
those holding a significant share of its stock are former
Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, convicted in the Whitewater
scandal; Mr. Giroir, a longtime Arkansas wheeler-dealer who once
headed Hillary Clinton's Rose Law Firm; and Dwight Harlan, a
Tucker associate implicated in Whitewater schemes.
In 1996, Mr. Tucker, then the sitting Governor of Arkansas, was
convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges in a prosecution that
also saw the conviction of the Clintons' former Whitewater
Development Co. partners, James and Susan McDougal. In a second
fraud case, Mr. Tucker pleaded guilty to fraud in arranging a
sham bankruptcy in a cable-television deal. Mr. Tucker later
was hired as a consultant for a Lippo affiliate and with his wife
was an investor in K@belvision, a fiber-optic network trying to
bring the Internet to Indonesia. K@belvision is controlled by
the Riadys through AcrossAsia. Mr. Tucker has a 1.5% stake in
the holding group, worth about $40 million at Friday's stock
market debut.
Mr. Giroir is one of the most interesting figures in the
background of the Clinton scandals. A longtime Arkansas-based
associate of the Riadys, he also holds a 1.5% stake in
AcrossAsia. Mr. Giroir was a former managing partner of the
Rose Law Firm, working with the young Hillary Rodham and Webster
Hubbell, among others. According to congressional testimony, Mr.
Giroir was at the center of efforts to move former Lippo employee
John Huang from the Commerce Department to the Democratic
National Committee. Mr. Huang later pleaded guilty to campaign
finance violations and received a wrist-slap one year of
probation from Justice. Mr. Giroir's employee, Mr. Harlan, also
given an equity stake in AcrossAsia, was the figurehead president
back in Arkansas of Castle Sewer & Water, one of the central
scams in Kenneth Starr's successful prosecution of Mr. Tucker
and the McDougals; Mr. Harlan was not charged with any crimes
and testified for the prosecution, identifying documents.
Mr. Riady also raised suspicions in Washington of a possible
hush-money payment after reporters ferreted out news that he had
provided a $100,000 payment to Mr. Hubbell, the disgraced former
associate attorney general, when Mr. Hubbell was under pressure
to cooperate with Mr. Starr. Mr. Hubbell pleaded guilty in
1994 to fraud and went to prison for 18 months. The $100,000
payment came after Mr. Riady and Mr. Huang attended meetings at
the White House and also met with Mr. Hubbell.
Finally, in 1997, Senator Fred Thompson's investigative committee
voted out a report identifying Mr. Riady and Mr. Huang as among
those involved in the campaign finance scandal having ties to the
Communist regime in China. The principals have denied the charge
and Democrats on the Thompson committee contended the evidence
was inconclusive.
Perhaps it is all a great big coincidence, but we doubt it.
It's time someone took a much closer look at Mr. Riady and
AcrossAsia, both here in Asia and in the States.
-- From The Asian Wall Street Journal
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day.
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