John McCain

This is one in a series examining where the leading contenders vying for the Republican and Democratic parties' presidential nominations stand on the major issues. The series will run through early January when the state party caucuses and primaries begin. If presidential candidates were evaluated solely on the strength of their resumes or the quality of their character, it is likely that John McCain would be leading this year's pack of presidential hopefuls.

He is the only major candidate to have served in the military and one of the few candidates in recent history with firsthand experience of the horrors of war. Beyond his military record, he has 25 years of combined government service in the U.S. House of Representatives (1982-86) and the U.S. Senate (1986-present), and is currently the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He has proven his ability to reach across the partisan divide and achieve significant legislative accomplishments.

As for character, John McCain is in a league of his own. His legendary character was formed within the walls of Bancroft Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy and forged by his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, where he was held captive for 5-and-a-half years and tortured at the hands of the North Vietnamese.

At a recent GOP debate, McCain made light of his ordeal by comparing his experience to Sen. Hillary Clinton's support for a publicly financed museum to commemorate the 1969 Woodstock Concert. McCain joked that he had heard about the concert but did not attend, as he was “tied up at the time,” to which the Republican candidates burst into laughter. While Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the others enjoyed the levity of the moment, McCain looked directly into the camera and with complete conviction declared that no one who supports such projects should be president of the United States. In an instant, the laughter melted into a standing ovation.

With McCain as the GOP candidate, there would be no accusations of an inflated military record, no hints of corruption, no innuendos of infidelity, no rumors of drug use or drunk driving, no questions of his work ethic and no assertions of flip-flopping on key issues. In many ways, McCain appears to be the ideal candidate for a nation involved in a global military conflict and hungry for effective, bipartisan leadership. His trouble gaining momentum in the Republican nominating contest has nothing to do with a lack of character or with inexperience. If nothing else, recent presidents of both parties have established that character issues and inexperience are not necessarily fatal flaws for presidential candidates. McCain's political sin has been his abundance of character and wealth of experience, not his lack of these most important attributes.

His commitment to core issues (what his detractors refer to as his stubbornness) has gained him the reputation as the “maverick of the Senate.” Without question, Sen. McCain has taken positions that are out of step with the current president and a certain wing of the Republican Party.

Most famously, McCain championed the Bi-Partisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, better known as the McCain-Feingold reforms, which attempted to close loopholes in the outdated campaign finance system. The reform package was initially resisted by President Bush and immediately challenged by the leadership of the Republican Party. Mitch McConnell, then the Republican majority whip in the Senate, unsuccessfully challenged the law in the Supreme Court. While candidates for federal office have found gaping new holes in the reformed system, the most lasting impact of the reform package was to put pro-Bush Republicans on notice, the party was not theirs alone.

Immigration reform is another area in which McCain found himself at odds with the majority sentiment of his party. In 2006, he was a key supporter of a comprehensive immigration plan in the Senate that would have extended guest-worker passes to immigrants and established a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who have worked in the U.S. for five years. The Senate bill that McCain favored was opposed by a majority of Republicans in the Senate, while the House version, which focused on border security and offered no mechanism for citizenship, received strong support from Republicans in the House. The House and Senate were unable to overcome their differences and comprehensive immigration reform was set aside. McCain went back to his legislative work, minus a few Republican friends.

No issue reveals McCain's willingness to buck party pressures and public opinion more than his stance against Islamic extremists. While his strong support for the initial use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq might be expected from a Republican in the post-9/11 world, his actions after the initial stage of the conflict were anything but typical. When many on both sides of the aisle grew wary of the conflict and were looking for ways to distance themselves from “President Bush's war,” McCain was the first and most vocal supporter of sending additional troops to the region. Even with support for the war sharply declining in the American public, or perhaps because of the sharp decline, McCain saw little choice but to intensify his support.

One could almost hear the helicopters buzzing in his head, buzzing over the U.S. embassy in Saigon in 1975. For McCain, Iraq is the continuation of a war he has been fighting his entire life, a war to defend the United States against enemies foreign and domestic. To abandon the mission now might be politically expedient, but it is not an option for McCain.

The memory of Vietnam, scarred into his memory by the ropes of his North Vietnamese interrogators, was most certainly on his mind in 2005 when he opposed President Bush and fought for a ban on U.S. interrogation methods that he considers torture. He certainly did not launch his anti-torture crusade due to the support of Vice President Cheney, who lobbied against the measure, or due to the support from the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Republican Duncan Hunter, who also opposed the bill, or due to the support of President Bush, who threatened to veto the legislation. Faced with the full wrath of McCain and growing public pressure from within the United States and from U.S. allies abroad, President Bush reluctantly signed the bill. Defiant to the end, Bush issued his now famous signing statement in which he reserved the right to waive the restrictions on torture, should they interfere with his broader constitutional powers. Once again McCain had defied his party leaders and landed a less than complete victory.

While he has never shied away from a just fight, it would be a mistake to assert that Sen. John S. McCain III, the son and grandson of admirals in the U.S. Navy, is something akin to a loose cannon. McCain is a conservative Republican, occupying the Arizona Senate seat once held by the father of modern conservatism, Barry Goldwater. Sen. McCain has an 82 percent lifetime rating by the American Conservative Union, suggesting that he has voted in favor of key conservative issues 82 percent of the time. McCain has a consistent pro-life voting record and regularly supports free trade, nuclear power, private Social Security savings accounts, school vouchers, the death penalty and controlling government spending.

McCain is a conservative, but not a Christian conservative in the Southern mold of George W. Bush. McCain has never enjoyed the support of the Republican Party's Christian base and in fact was burned by the Christian Right in his 2000 presidential bid, when a smear campaign caused him to lose the all-important South Carolina primary and eventually the nomination to the evangelical candidate of choice, his rival George W. Bush.

His position on social issues, in particular his position on gay rights, reveals the difference between McCain and the Christian right. In 2004, he broke with the president and leading Republicans by opposing a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, a position that did not sit well with the party faithful. While he continues to oppose the constitutional amendment, he supports restrictions against gay marriage at the state level. Moreover, while he does not doubt that gay men and women have served the nation with honor in the military, he holds that open homosexuality in the military could weaken the armed forces and the country. Instead, he supports Bill Clinton's “don't ask/don't tell policy.”

These positions, based more on pragmatism than moral certainty, might very well reflect the majority position in America, but they do little to appease self-righteous interest groups on the right or left of the political spectrum.

A willful moderate in a world of political extremes, McCain is a lonely man these days. Gone is the “straight-talk express” of the 2000 campaign and the glowing media attention that came with his unconventional approach. Gone is the excitement of a candidate who successfully reached across party lines by appealing to moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats. Gone also are the supporters with deep pockets who funded his earlier campaign. What is left is a candidate who defined himself by resisting the policies of George W. Bush, only to be tainted by the one Bush policy he so outspokenly supported and Bush so fantastically blundered – Iraq. What is left is a man of unquestionable character and experience, and the realization that had McCain won in 2000, had his supporters in South Carolina been a little less principled, or had Bush's supporters been a little more honest; McCain would have done a better job.

>>>So McCain’s had some strike outs

Some? SOME?

May 3, 1992

Memorandum for: Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Prisoners of War and Missing in Action

From: John F. McCreary

Subject: Possible Violations of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 2071, by the Select Committee and Possible Ethical Misconduct by Staff Attorneys.

1. Continuing analysis of relevant laws and further review of the events between 8 April and 16 April 1992 connected with the destruction of the Investigators' Intelligence Briefing Text strongly indicate that the order to destroy all copies of that briefing text on 9 April and the actual destruction of copies of the briefing texts plus the purging of computer files might constitute violations of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 2071, which imposes criminal penalties for unlawful document destruction. Even absent a finding of criminal misconduct, statements, actions, and failures to act by the senior Staff attorneys following the 9 April briefing might constitute serious breaches of ethical standards of conduct for attorneys, in addition to violations of Senate and Select Committee rules. The potential consequences of these possible misdeeds are such that they should be brought to the attention of all members of the Select Committee, plus all Designees and Staff members who were present at the 9 April briefing.

2. The relevant section of Title 18, U.S.C., states in pertinent part: Section 2071. Concealment, removal, or mutilation generally (a) Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys, or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public officer of the United States, shall be fined not more than $2,000 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 795)

3. The facts as the undersigned and others present at the briefing recall them are presented in the attached Memorandum for the Record. A summary of those facts - and others that have been established since that Memorandum was written - follows.

a. On 8 April 1992, the Investigators' Intelligence Briefing Text was presented to Senior Staff members and Designees for whom copies were available prior to beginning the briefing. Objections to the text by the Designees prompted the Staff Director to order all persons present to leave their copies of the briefing text in Room SRB078. Subsequent events indicated that two copies had been removed without authorization.

b. On 9 April 1992, at the beginning of the meeting of the Select Committee and prior to the scheduled investigators' briefing, Senator McCain produced a copy of the intelligence briefing text, with whose contents he strongly disagreed. He charged that the briefing text had already been leaked to a POW/MIA activist, but was reassured by the Chairman that such was not the case. He replied that he was certain it would be leaked. Whereupon, the Chairman assured Senator McCain that there would be no leaks because all copies would be gathered and destroyed, and he gave orders to that effect. No senior staff member or attorney present cautioned against a possible violation of Title 18, U.S.C., Section 2071, or of Senate or Select Committee Rules.

c. Following the briefing on 9 April, the Staff Director, Ms. Frances Zwenig, restated to the intelligence investigators the order to destroy the intelligence briefing text and took measures to ensure execution of the destruction order. (See paragraph 3 of the attachment.) During one telephone conversation with the undersigned, she stated that she was "acting under orders."

d. The undersigned also was instructed to delete all computer files, which Mr. Barry Valentine witnessed on 9 April.

e. In a meeting on 15 April 1992, the Staff's Chief Counsel, J. William Codinha, was advised by intelligence investigators of their concerns about the possibility that they had committed a crime by participating in the destruction of the briefing text. Mr. Codinha minimized the significance of the documents and of their destruction. He admonished the investigators for "making a mountain out of a molehill."

f. When investigators repeated their concern that the order to destroy the documents might lead to criminal charges, Mr. Codinha replied "Who's the injured party." He was told, "The 2,494 families of the unaccounted for US Servicemen, among others." Mr. Codinha then said, "Who's gonna tell them. It's classified." At that point the meeting erupted. The undersigned stated that the measure of merit was the law and what's right, not avoidance of getting caught. To which Mr. Codinha made no reply. At no time during the meeting did Mr. Codinha give any indication that any copies of the intelligence briefing text existed.

g. Investigators, thereupon, repeatedly requested actions by the Committee to clear them of any wrongdoing, such as provision of legal counsel. Mr. Codinha admitted that he was not familiar with the law and promised to look into it. He invited a memorandum from the investigators stating what they wanted. Given Mr. Codinha's statements and reactions to the possibility of criminal liability, the investigators concluded they must request appointment of an independent counsel. A memorandum making such a request and signed by all six intelligence investigators was delivered to Mr. Codinha on 16 April.

h. At 2130 on 16 April, the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee, convened a meeting with the intelligence investigators, who told him personally of their concern that they might have committed a crime by participating in the destruction of the briefing texts at the order of the Staff Director. Senator Kerry stated that he gave the order to destroy the documents, not the Staff Director, and that none of the Senators present at the meeting had objected. He also stated that the issue of document destruction was "moot" because the original briefing text had been deposited with the Office of Senate Security "all along." Both the Staff Director and the Chief Counsel supported this assertion by the Chairman.

i. Senator Kerry's remarks prompted follow-up investigations (See paragraphs 4 through 9 of the attachment) and inquiries that established that a copy of the text was not deposited in the Office of Senate Security until the afternoon of 16 April. The Staff Director has admitted that on the afternoon of 16 April, after receiving a copy of a memorandum from Senator Bob Smith to Senator Kerry in which Senator Smith outlined his concerns about the destruction of documents, she obtained a copy of the intelligence briefing text from the office of Senator McCain and took it to the Office of Senate Security. Office of Senate Security personnel confirmed that the Staff Director gave them an envelope, marked "Eyes Only," to be placed in her personal file. The Staff Director has admitted that the envelope contained the copy of the intelligence briefing text that she obtained from the office of Senator McCain.

3. The facts of the destruction of the intelligence briefing text would seem to fall inside the prescriptions of the Statute, Title 18, U.S.C., Section 2071, so as to justify their referral for investigation to a competent law enforcement authority. The applicability of that Statute was debated in United States v. Poindexter, D.D.C. 1989, 725 F. Supp. 13, in connection with the Iran Contra investigation. The District Court ruled, inter alia, that the National Security Council is a public office within the meaning of the Statute and, thus, that its records and documents fell within the protection of the Statute. In light of that ruling, the Statute would seem to apply to this Senate Select Committee and its Staff. The continued existence of a "bootleg" copy of the intelligence briefing text - i.e., a copy that is not one of those made by the investigators for the purpose of briefing the Select Committee - would seem to be irrelevant to the issues of intent to destroy and willfulness; as well as to the issue of responsibility for the order to destroy all copies of the briefing text, for the attempt to carry out that order, and for the destruction that actually was accomplished in execution of that order.

4. As for the issue of misconduct by Staff attorneys, all member of the Bar swear to uphold the law. That oath may be violated by acts of omission and commission. Even without a violation of the Federal criminal statute, the actions and failures to act by senior Staff attorneys in the sequence of events connected with the destruction of the briefing text might constitute violations

of ethical standards for members of the Bar and of both Senate and Select Committee rules. The statements, actions and failures to act during and after the meeting on 15 April, when the investigators gave notice of their concern about possible criminal liability for document destruction, would seem to reflect disregard for the law and for the rules of the United States Senate.

John F. McCreary

Couldn't continue to have that embargo lifted with new business to profit from!

In October 1990 John McCain said on the floor of the Senate: “Mr. President, I am anxious to construct a new relationship with our old adversary (Vietnam)”. He, who was in a Vietnamese prison camps for five and a half years, was pushing hard for normalized relations with Hanoi long before anyone else was.

Between when Clinton said that he would not normalize relations with Vietnam until there was a full accounting and the time he lifted the Trade Embargo only two Americans had been accounted for in Vietnam.

Lifting the embargo opened the door for the multi-billion dollar corporation, Lippo Group with American business partners, such as Stephens Investment of Little Rock, AR to conduct business in Vietnam. Mr A. Vernon Weaver, at that time the Vice-President for Operations in the Pacific Rim of Stephens Investment and a member of the Board of Visitors at the U.S. Naval Academy was instrumental in arranging an upgrade of the position of Commandant of the U.S. Naval Academy from two stars to four stars.

Former U.S. Navy officers, Senators John Kerry and John McCain supported this reorganization.

http://www.usvetdsp.com/billbell.htm

An indication of just how deep and subtle Red Chinese roots run in U.S. business and government affairs deals with McCain and Kerry. Both McCain and Kerry fought long and hard to provide the political cover Clinton needed when he made the controversial decision to normalize relations with Vietnam. McCain’s wife, Cindy, is the daughter of James Hensley, who is the second largest Anheuser-Busch distributor in the United States. McCain is an officer in Hensley & Co. and Cindy is a vice president. The McCain family owns several million dollars in Anheuser-Busch stock. As a part of an aggressive campaign to enhance its international standing in the beer market, Anheuser-Busch has had signned contracts and invested hundreds of millions building brewery operations in China and Vietnam. I can’t link any of those contracts involve Lippo. Some docs retrieved from the net revealed that Riady’s Lippo is the holder of a license for Sea World in Indonesia and that Anheuser-Busch owns all the Sea World themeparks in the United States as well as some overseas. Is there a connection between Anheuser-Busch and Lippo?

http://www.usvetdsp.com/billbell.htm

SeaWorld/Lippo Connection:

Old URL: http://www.lippo.co.id/Main.htm Internet Cache: http://web.archive.org/web/19980530014836/http://www.lippo.co.id/Main.htm

Net cache shows Lippo holds/held the license on Sea World in Indonesia.

“Today I am lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam because I am absolutely convinced it offers us the best way to resolve the fate of those who remain missing and about whom we are not sure.” Two things happened between November 1992 and February 1994 which bear on this issue. One was that Senators John Kerry and John McCain lobbied the president to drop the embargo. The second thing was that in September 1993 the head of the Lippo Group, Mochtar Riady, led a trade mission of Asian bankers on a trip to Vietnam to (in his words) “size up business opportunities there.” Lippo helps, among other things, to finance trade deals. It therefore stood to benefit enormously from expanded trade between Vietnam and the United States;

Old URL: http://www.empower.org/html/policy/misc/roadmap3.htm See Internet Cache: http://web.archive.org/web/20000816001233/http://www.empower.org/html/policy/misc/roadmap3.htm

Every time I’ve seen McCain’s name in reference to legislation, Kerry’s name pops up as well. It is like they are two peas in a pod. So I checked out Kerry to see what his connections were:

KGB-ASSOCIATED SPY PAID DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Military secrets on infrared detectors, drawings of rotors for Sikorsky attack helicopters and documents on stealth technology. Subrahmanyam M. Kota was a spy that delivered to the KGB. He sold U.S. military secrets to the former Soviet Union. Yet he paid some of the proceeds, $5250, to the Democratic Party and to Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. When he was finally brought to justice in Massachusetts, he was allowed to plea bargain his charges down to mere tax evasion on his espionage windfall.

Old URL: http://www.federal.com/jun16-97/Cash See Internet Cache: http://web.archive.org/web/19990209005109/http://www.federal.com/jun16-97/Cash

Frances Zwenig, John Kerry’s (D-MA) chief of Staff for the now defunct Senate Select Committee on POW/MIAs, was given a position at Commerce in the Vietnam Interests Section until some genius decided it may be a conflict of interest. Ms. Zwenig coached the Vietnamese on how to testify before the SSC in order to show that Hanoi was cooperating; an obstacle in the way of lifting the embargo or normalizing. . . Zwenig had headed a US based organization that lobbied American business to invest on Vietnam.

In order to follow the money trail, involves the various business and 527s of Senators:

John Forbes Kerry (D-MA)
John Sydney McCain III (R-AZ)
Jesse Helms (R-NC)
Frank Murkowski (R-AK)

This involves the political contributions and the relationships connected to the companies that made the contributions. This involves searching the 527s relationships that these guys are into. Then the links to Riady/Lippo. It gets messy on a home computer. But the involvements show in Google searches.

http://www.ojc.org/powforum/editor/lippo.htm

Kerry’s cousin, C. Stewart Forbes, is CEO of Colliers International, real estate.

In Dec. 1992, Vietnam granted Colliers a contract designating Colliers the “exclusive real estate agent representing Vietnam.” Colliers has since written contracts in Vietnam worth billions, upgrading Vietnam’s ports, railroads, highways and government buildings.

Colliers is involved with Lippo in multimillion contracts in Indonesia. Kerry, who has a blind trust run by members of his family, claims he knows nothing about his cousin’s business deals or affiliations.

http://www.ojc.org/powforum/editor/lippo2.htm

And history was made!

October 12, 2000 Riady Invites Clinton to Lippo Board Indonesian tycoon James Riady has invited U.S. President Bill Clinton to join the board of Lippo Group when he steps down from office early next year, according to business people who have met Riady in Jakarta recently. Riady has been telling business contacts in Jakarta that he expects Clinton to accept, even though the U.S. president has been dogged by allegations that Riady funnelled illegal foreign donations to Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 election campaigns. A former Lippo Group employee reports that as far back as the mid-1990’s Riady was said to be trying to recruit Clinton to the board as soon as he left office. Jakarta police are currently helping the U.S. Justice Department in its investigation of the alleged campaign contributions.

Lippo Group

* A 12 billion dollar Indonesian financial conglomerate.(1)
* Lippo has a business partnership with China Resources Holding Company, which is owned by China’s government and staffed with Chinese military intelligence officers.(2)

James Riady

* Indonesian billionaire.(3)
* He and his family run the Lippo Group.(4)
* An acquaintance of Bill Clinton since the 1980’s.(3)
* Former permanent green card holder who worked in Arkansas.(3)

Soraya & Arief Wiriadinata

* Daughter and son-in-law of a Lippo partner.(4)
* As of 1996, Arief worked as a gardener in Virginia. (4)

John Huang

* “Long time” friend of Bill Clinton.(4)
* Former director of Lippo Group USA.(4)
* Former Commerce Department employee.(4)
* Former DNC Vice Chairman of Finance.(4)

Laws:

* 2 U.S.C. 441(e) It is against the law for foreign nationals to directly or indirectly contribute, solicit, or receive campaign contributions.(9)

* 18 U.S.C. 1956 It is against the law to solicit or receive campaign contributions that have been laundered in an effort to conceal the actual source of the money. (9)

* 18 U.S.C. 600 It is against the law for a government official to reward or provide a benefit to someone based on their political activity.(9)

* 18 U.S.C. 595 It is against the law for government employees to use their office in any way to affect federal elections.(9)

* It is legal for foreigners who are permanent residents and for individuals who work for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations to donate to political campaigns, but the money must be generated inside the U.S.(3)

What They Gave:

Lippo Group

* The Lippo Group made consulting payments to Webb Hubbell totaling between $100,000 and $250,000 after Hubbell had promised to cooperate with Whitewater investigators. Hubbell did not cooperate and no recommendation for leniency was made at his sentencing. (5)

James Riady

* Riady has donated over $475,000 to the DNC, Clinton Inaugural Fund, and related Democratic candidates. An August 1992 memo to Bill Clinton says Riady “will be giving $100,000 to this event and has the potential to give much more.”(3)

* Bank statements, memos, and checks show that one of Riady’s 1992 donations was directly covered by foreign funds and the rest came from a personal bank account that appears to have received foreign money before and after donations were made.(3)

Sonaya & Arief Wiriadinata

* Illegally contributed $450,000 to the DNC.(8)

* Arief is heard on videotape (at a White House coffee) telling Bill Clinton, “James Riady sent me.”(4)

John Huang

* Has raised over $3.4 million for the DNC, approximately half of which, has been returned.(4)

* At a 1996 Los Angeles fund raiser, Bill Clinton said, “I’d like to thank my long time friend, John Huang, for being so effective. Frankly, he’s been so effective, I was amazed that you were all cheering for him tonight after he’s been around in his aggressive efforts to help our cause.”(4)

What They Got:

Lippo Group

* The Lippo Group has investments in the coal mining industry in Indonesia. The leading export of Indonesia is a new form of clean burning, low sulfur coal. This is the only type of coal that meets the U.S. Clean Air Standards Act.(6)

* The largest known deposit in the world of this coal is located in Southern Utah.(6)

* The coal in Utah was slated to be mined when Bill Clinton declared 1.7 million acres in Southern Utah as the “Grand Escalante National Momument.” This declaration made the coal mining project infeasible and locked up over a trillion dollars worth of this coal. (6)

* Bill Clinton never discussed his decision with Congress , Utah officials, or the Democratic Congressman who represented this district until the midnight before the declaration was made.(7)

* The head of the Council of Environmental Quality (Kathleen McGinty) stated in an email that the lands were “not really endangered.” The associate director (Linda Lance) stated in an email that the lands were “not threatened.”(6)

* The surrounding 29 Utah counties have filed suit to overturn Clinton’s declaration.(6)

James Riady

* James Riady was an occasional visitor to the White House and had direct access to Bill Clinton.(3)

* Clinton spokes people told reporters that visits with James Riady were “social visits.” A videotape of a July 1996 dinner for James Riady shows Bill Clinton discussing the deployment of U.S. aircraft carriers to the Taiwan Strait.(4)

John Huang

* Huang was hired at the Commerce Dept. in 1994. His supervisor (Jeff Garten) testified, “He was totally unqualified.”(1)

* When Huang left the Lippo Group for the Commerce Department, he was paid a $780,000 bonus by Lippo.(1)

* Huang received Top Secret Security Clearance before, during, and after his tenure at Commerce.(1)

* According to a memo dated January 31, 1994, the chief of security at Commerce (Paul Buskirk) granted Huang “a waiver of background investigation.”(2)

* While at the Commerce Dept. Huang received intelligence briefings from the CIA, had access to top secret reports, visited the White House at least 67 times, and met with Bill Clinton at least 15 times.(2)

* According to telephone records, Huang made at least 261 phone calls to Lippo Group offices during his tenure at Commerce.(2)

* Huang received 37 classified briefings on China and Vietnam from the CIA. According to the testimony of a CIA officer John Dickerson, Huang had access to “extremely sensitive sources.”(1)

Obstruction / Cover Up:

* In March of 1997, the House Resources Committee requested documents detailing President Clinton’s decision to designate the 1.7 million acres in southern Utah as the Grand Escalante National Monument. The White House supplied over 100 documents and withheld 27. The House Committee subpoenaed the 27 withheld documents and they were produced on October 22, 1997. (7)

* James Riady has left the country.(4)

* Sonaya & Arief Wiriadinata have left the country.(4)

* John Huang is pleading the Fifth Ammendment.(4)

* Attorney General Janet Reno (Clinton appointee) heads the Justice Department, which is responsible for investigating campaign finance violations. The head of the FBI, (Louis Freeh, Clinton appointee) and the lead investigator (Charles LaBella) have recommended the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate this matter. As of July 1998, Janet Reno refuses to appoint an independent counsel.(10)

Sources:

1) “John Huang: In His Own Words.” Fox News, October 24, 1997.
2) Judicial Watch Newsletter, 1998.
3) Associated Press. “Memo shows Riady got ride with Clinton.” Washington Times National Weekly Edition, June 15-21, 1998.
4) Editorial: “Those many former FOB’s.” Washington Times National Weekly Edition, October 28-November 2, 1997.
5) Seper, Jerry. “Hubbell, wife indicted on tax evasion.” Washington Times National Weekly Edition, May 4-10, 1998.
6) The Citizens Presidential Impeachment Indictment, Citizens for Honest Government, 1998. Source cited: Washington Times
7) Larson, Ruth. “Panel gets papers on Utah land decision.” Washington Times National Weekly Edition, October 28-November 2, 1997.
8) Editorial: “Dealing with the Suharto crisis.” Washington Times National Weekly Edition, March 31- April 5, 1998.
9) Levin, Mark R. “Commentary: Want reform? Make politicians obey the law.” Washington Times National Weekly Edition, November 8-14, 1997.
10) Seper, Jerry. “Reno refuses to turn over memos to Burton committee.” Washington Times National Weekly Edition, August 10-16, 1998.

Sources:
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy
* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/campfin/players/huang.htm
* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/campfin/players/riady.htm
* http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/campfin/players/lippo.htm

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