Hubbell, Huang Will Take The Fifth Won’t Turn Over Documents To Congressional Panel

Former Clinton administration official Webster Hubbell and Democratic fund-raiser John Huang told Congress Thursday they will claim a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and refuse to turn over subpoenaed documents, a House counsel confirmed.

Two of the key figures in the Democratic fund-raising controversy, Hubbell and Huang informed the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee by letter, said Barbara Comstock, the panel’s chief investigative counsel.

The two had been ordered in the subpoenas to produce the documents by Thursday.

Two other figures in the fundraising controversy, presidential friend Charles Yah Lin Trie and Thai businesswoman Pauline Kanchanalak, have instructed their lawyer not to accept service of Senate subpoenas for business records, Senate sources said Thursday.

Hubbell refused to produce any documents, Comstock said. Huang produced some documents and declined to turn over others on the advice of his attorney. Huang’s letter, however, suggested he would consider turning over more documents if he were given limited immunity for the document production, she said.

Comstock declined to say how the panel will respond to the refusal to produce documents.

But Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, said the Fifth Amendment claim would not hold up in court and appeared to be made simply to delay the panel’s investigation.

“Generally speaking, there is no (Fifth Amendment) privilege for financial records, records kept in the ordinary course of business, daybooks, even diaries,” diGenova said.

“What they are trying to do is lead the way for congressional immunity” for testimony that Huang and Hubbell might be ordered to give at hearings, diGenova said. For consistency’s sake, “they are trying to link the documents to testimony,” he said.

Hubbell, a long-time friend of President Clinton and a central player in the Whitewater criminal probe, had been ordered to produce documents about payments he received from Clinton allies while he was under criminal investigation in 1994.

After resigning from the Justice Department three years ago, Hubbell received money from a company owned by the family of Indonesian billionaire Mochtar Riady, a longtime friend and political supporter of Clinton.

Huang, a former Commerce Department aide and former vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, once headed the U.S. operations of Lippo, one of the Riady family’s businesses.

Hubbell, a former law partner of Hillary Rodham Clinton, pleaded guilty to tax evasion and mail fraud in the Whitewater investigation and agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors. But his memory lapses - he says he’s unable to recall Whitewater events of a decade ago - have frustrated investigators’ efforts to get to the bottom of Whitewater.