One of the things that I attempt to do is make the complex understandable. In the effort to do that there are some facts that are undisputed in this whole Lippo controversy -- the Indonesian campaign contribution scandal at the White House -- which I call Lippo-Suction. Because the Lippo Group has actually suctioned a lot out of the United States in terms of benefits and favors in exchange for their contributions to Bill Clinton which date all the way back to his period as governor of Arkansas. Some of the stuff is literally incredible! And so much of what you are going to hear is tied to many of the Arkansas scandals that you have heard either directly or peripherally about over the past four years. Much of this stuff is truly eye opening.
Now, I stress that what I am about to share with you constitute undisputed facts.
You should also know this. I think that this is an interesting thing to point out: the White House already is spinning this in campaign commercials; they're already blaming this on Bob Dole. They are saying that because Bob Dole opposed campaign finance reform for four years; that this sort of stuff continued to happen. It's like: yeah, we did it but we wouldn't have been able to do it if Bob Dole had gone ahead and sponsored and voted for campaign finance reform! It's just -- it's so typical, it's like the four-year old that Clinton is. It's not my fault -- he did it, he did it. It's like when Janet Reno invaded Waco Clinton said "I didn't know a thing about it. You've better talk to my Attorney General, hyul, I didn't know a thing about that, hyu." Pshew, it's just a child, we've got a child here, dangerous child running this country.
Here are the undisputed facts:
Mochtar Riady is an ethnic Chinese banker in Jakarta, Indonesia. He started his financial empire with gun and drug running in the East Indies before World War II. Mochtar Riady later formed the $6 billion Lippo Group headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia.
John Huang, a top employee of Lippo Group, was named Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Economic Policy by Bill Clinton. John Huang last year left the Commerce Department to become vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee's Finance Committee -- fund raising is what he went to, after being given access to all sorts of United States secrets. Now to show you that John Huang and Bill Clinton are very close; this is cut three again Mr. Booty -- I want you to listen, this is Bill Clinton earlier this summer, talking at a Democratic fund raiser about his friend John Huang, go ahead and run it, it's very short... [following quote is the voice of Bill Clinton]: QUOTE and I'd like to thank my long-time friend John Huang for being so effective UNQUOTE. He's talking about fund raising. So I just used the President's own words to show you that he and Huang are buddies. Now Huang can't be found. It's been two weeks since this broke and nobody knows where John Huang is.
Christopher Dodd, Sunday on Face the Nation, promised to make Huang available to the press to answer questions. Immediately after the show was over, Face the Nation, he reneged on the promise and said no (after telling the people of America on television one thing) in private, reneged, said no, Democratic National Committee staff people never talk to the press.
The Wall Street Journal today quotes a Los Angeles Times, or cites a Los Angeles Times story which says that a current Commerce Department official said yesterday that Mr. John Huang was in a perfect position to influence US/Indonesian policy; he had all the information; he had access to CIA information; he was in a position to influence the State Department. Good friend of Bill Clinton's, so -- he's an employee of the Lippo Group.
Now you've gotta keep this in mind as you hear these undisputed facts -- to find out what the Lippo Group is and how long they've been entwined with Clinton. So an employee of the Lippo Group ends up as a Ron Brown assistant at the Commerce Department with access to State Department and CIA information -- later becomes a fund raiser at the Democratic National Committee -- now, can't be found.
Last month, the Democratic National Committee returned an illegal $250,000 contribution handled by John Huang after the press revealed that it came from a South Korean company: Chung Im.
Republicans are also calling on the Democratic Party to return $425,000, nearly half a million dollars, in contributions from an Indonesian couple, with ties to the Lippo Group.
A total of $140,00 was raised in a Buddhist temple in California by John Huang and Vice President Al Gore. A woman named Men-yazhi, associated with the Buddhist Temple, has told the Wall Street Journal that she was given $5000 in cash by a Democratic activist and asked to immediately write a check for that same amount to the Democratic National Committee. This is money laundering. Al Gore has said he didn't know that this was a fund raiser when he went there -- that no fund raising occurred when he was there, it was just a community outreach program and after he left all these people sent in all this money; gee, isn't that wonderful of them! This is a Buddhist Temple, where they swear vows of poverty. Al Gore shows up with John Huang, chief fund raiser for the Democratic National Committee, and Al Gore says we didn't know it was a fund raiser? Cause we didn't get any money while we were there? It came in after we left? And then he says we did err in this, there's no question about it -- but they don't intend to give the money back.
The president of Lippo Securities, which is a subsidiary of the Lippo Group, was appointed in December of 1994 by former U. S. trade representative Mickey Kantor to the Investment and Services Policy Advisory Committee. (Mickey Kantor was one of Bill Clinton's chief campaign architects in 1992.) In February of 1994 Mickey Kantor suspended a review of Indonesian human-rights violations allowing Indonesia to keep its trade privileges with the United States worth over $600 million in sales to Indonesian companies.
So the Lippo Group contributes big to Bill Clinton from his days in Arkansas all the way to Washington and, in exchange, they get a total suspension of U. S. policy -- that being: we're not going to give anybody any aid that's involved in human-rights violations. The Indonesians are engaging in human-rights violations and so we suspend our regulations, we suspend our policy on the basis of Mickey Kantor's decision; this allows Indonesia to keep violating human rights and, at the same time, keep its trade privileges with the United States which translates to over $600 million in sales every year to Indonesian companies.
This is why this is Lippo-Suction -- what they're contributing and what they're suctioning out, or getting back, in return.
Now, what are these human-rights violations? Well, the Indonesian government has led a war on East Timor, that has cost the lives of an estimated 200,000 East Timorese. It's been so bad that two East Timor dissidents won the Nobel Peace Prize not long ago. The Clinton administration though, nevertheless, has just approved the sale of F-16 fighter jets to the Indonesian government, presumably so they can continue to violate human rights.
The Import-Export Bank has issued letters of credit for $900,000 to James Riady (now he's the son of Mochtar Riady, the founder of this whole thing) -- $900,000 to James Riady's Lippo Bank. The president of the Import-Export Bank (which is financed by you and me, it's financed by taxpayers; the Import-Export Bank is your money!) the president of this bank is a Clinton appointee: Maria Louisa Haley.
James Riady has also pushed the Import-Export Bank for U. S. Government financing of a $1 billion project by Lippo to build a power plant in northern China. The builder of the plant is a Little Rock unit of Entergy Corporation.
Maria Louisa Haley, the president of the taxpayer-financed Import-Export Bank, subsidizing Lippo activities, is the ex-husband (sic) of John Haley - who is a co-defendant of former governor Jim Guy Tucker -- in a case that involves a cable television franchise in Jakarta, Indonesia set up by Rose Law Firm lawyer Joe Giroir and the Lippo Group.
Mochtar Riady, together with Jackson Stevens, once owned Worthen Bank in Little Rock. Mochtar's son James Riady was the president of Worthen Bank. The Worthen Bank financed Bill Clinton's election campaigns and bailed out his 1992 presidential campaign with a $3 million loan at a crucial juncture.
So the Riadys and Lippo go all the way back four years ago to running a bank that bailed Clinton's campaign out of some financial trouble. Worthen Bank, run by James Riady, invested in the Little-Rock-based World Wide Travel that handled Clinton's campaign travel and was selected to take over all White House travel. This is the Travelgate scheme, so the Riadys and Lippo have connections to Travelgate! We wondered why these poor, innocent Travelgate people were canned and then why Mrs. Clinton tried to trump up some charges that they were all exonerated of, money laundering or financial abuse, or whatever it was, embezzlement; these people were not just fired, they were then set up and falsely charged so that a Riady-based concern could end up running White House travel.
Again, just to repeat the last two, so that you can keep the context. Mochtar Riady, together with Jackson Stevens, once owned Worthen Bank in Little Rock, Arkansas. Mochtar's son, James Riady, was the president of Worthen Bank. That bank financed Bill Clinton's election campaigns and bailed out the 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton with a $3 million loan at a crucial juncture. Worthen Bank invested in the Little Rock-based World Wide Travel that handled all Clinton campaign travel and was selected to take over all White House travel. That led to TravelGate.
Mack McClarty once worked at Worthen Bank (later worked for Entergy Corp. -- that's the outfit that's going to build the power plant in northern China.) He now works in the White House where he has been chief of staff (he was originally put in there to handle coverups.)
Joe Giroir-- I'm sorry, let me back up. A co-owner of Worthen Bank, at that time, was Joe Giroir: managing partner of the Rose Law Firm. The primary counsel for Worthen Bank was Rose Law Firm where Hillary Clinton, Webster Hubbell and Vince Foster all worked. Joe Giroir, Hillary Clinton and Vincent Foster defended Stevens Inc. in a case that stemmed from a failed takeover effort involving the BCCI. Joe Giroir still represents Lippo and has brokered ventures between Lippo and Tyson Foods to improve sales of Tyson chicken in the far east. This would include Indonesia. The Clinton administration has provided $21 millon in funding for a new, giant airport in a remote, unpopulated area in northern Arkansas to be used to ship the Tyson-Lippo chicken.
Between the time that Web Hubbell resigned as deputy attorney general and the time he was sent to jail, he was paid over, uhh, exactly a quarter of a million dollars by the Lippo Group; and during that same time frame he was cooperating with Kenneth Starr who hoped that Web Hubbell would implicate Clinton in Whitewater-related crimes. (Hubbell, of course, never did. Why should he -- when he's being paid off by the Lippo Group?)
Mochtar Riady created Lippo Finance & Investment Inc. a Small Business Administration-backed lending company in Little Rock with Vernon Weaver as chairman. Vernon Weaver is now Bill Clinton's U. S. representative to the European Union. The Riadys owned First National Bank in Mena, a bank that was used by drug smugglers to launder money. The Los-Angeles-based Lippo Bank has twice received cease-and-desist orders from the FDIC for money-laundering schemes.
Those are the undisputed facts in all this.
Including the money laundering at this Buddhist Temple where Al Gore and the missing John Huang attended and which Al Gore now says he that didn't know was a fund raiser. Yet he's out there with the chief fund raiser of the Democratic National Committee John Huang who used to work for Lippo and went from Lippo to the Commerce Department of the United States where he had access to CIA and State Department's files and information -- that, according to the Los Angeles Times.
So that's a quick summation of it folks and it's there for you to do with what you want. This information is available in many different places if you care to take the time to sift through it and boil it down to its essence here.
Now, the fact of the matter is that most of this stuff has been dredged up by the print press. Most of this stuff's been dredged up by investigative reporters, not by the Republican National Committee or the Bob Dole campaign or Newt Gingrich or associated people. There you have it by popular demand.