Declare White House A Freeh Fire Zone

There he was at last, the little Indonesian gardener who started it all, his image preserved on long-concealed White House videotape shaking the hand of Bill Clinton.

“James Riady sent me,” explained Arief Wiriadinata, an alien who with his wife had been used to illegally steer more than $400,000 of mysterious Asian money to the corrupt presidential campaign. Riady sent his man to the White House coffee to make certain Clinton knew that the Riady family, so interested in ending China’s trade restraints, had delivered for him.

A year ago, “press accounts,” as Janet Reno sniffily calls them, wondered how an Indonesian couple in modest circumstances could top the list of Democratic contributors. The publicity forced the admission that the Wiriadinatas had filed no U.S. income tax returns and were a flawed conduit.

The DNC hastily returned the money. The Justice Department did not investigate.

But then journalists began piecing together the Asian money connection of the Clinton campaign. The Riady family, in collaboration with the Stephens bankers in Little Rock, had bought a piece of the Clintons before 1992. In 1993 they put the family’s local banker, John Huang, into a top secret post in the Clinton Commerce Department, where he also had the run of the White House.

And on Sept. 13, 1995 - low point of the Clinton presidency - Riady and his lawyer met with Clinton and his most tight-lipped aide in the Oval Office to reassign Huang to Democratic fund raising, where reasonable people suspect he could collect for past Clinton favors.

When the press brought this to light, James Riady made himself scarce; the Riadys spirited the Wiriadinatas out of the country, beyond the reach of investigators, if there had been any. The Riadys’ John Huang, a U.S. citizen, was told not to cooperate and he took the Fifth. Justice, inexplicably, took no testimony from any of the participants about the September 13 low point.

What connection was there to tie Riady, Huang and Clinton personally to the raising of illegal Asian money? There was this little piece of videotape of a shy gardener shaking the hand of the president of the United States, showing by his presence in the room that his boss had found a channel for the money promised, and making sure Clinton got one message: “James Riady sent me.”

Whatever that tape is - let partisans derogate it as inconclusive - it is indisputably a piece of evidence in an investigation of a criminal conspiracy. Specifically subpoenaed for six months, with the president himself fully aware of the taping, it remained “unfound.”

White House Counsel Charles Ruff, who as a former Watergate special prosecutor knows what federal officials must do when evidence is discovered, supposedly did not learn of this until last Wednesday.

He knew the attorney general would announce her response to Congress’s call for independent counsel on Friday. He knew this would affect her decision to close off investigation. But he did not notify her until Saturday.

The incredible cover story being peddled by Clinton spinners conjures an image of Messrs. Clinton, Gore and Ruff, in skullcaps and prayer shawls, unable to use the phones to reach Reno on Rosh Hashana. When Ruff supposedly called Friday, nobody called back from an equally reverent Justice. Lucky it wasn’t the month of Ramadan.

Reno seems willing to submit her department to the most humiliating treatment rather than to call a real cop. Hers is a unique combination of managerial incompetence and stubborn pride, and that - as much as any corruption she refuses to pursue - is destroying public confidence in law enforcement.

Who at Justice can break the impasse?

Answer: the FBI director, who has seen his agents abused by partisan officials, his inquiries stymied by criminal division bureaucrats, his bureau repeatedly demeaned and shamed as it is forced to take the fall for a cover-up.

To salvage public trust in the FBI, Louis Freeh should testify that he cannot protect national security if his misled superior continues to shut down this case - that unless independent counsel is appointed, he will resign.

That would crack the stonewall. One honorable law officer.

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