What To Call This Scandal? Bribery

The “high crime” of Watergate was Nixon’s abuse of his White House power to affect his 1972 re-election. That same offense - the Clinton-Gore White House’s abusing presidential power to unfairly influence their 1996 re-election - is at the heart of today’s campaign scandal.

In a democracy, no official may use government power for the political purpose of staying in power. That bedrock principle was subverted in the Oval Office on Sept. 13, 1995.

The Indonesian head of the Lippo Group, James Riady, was present, as was the employee he had placed in the key trade post in Commerce, John Huang. Joseph Giroir Jr. was there, the lawyer who had hired then-Governor Clinton’s wife, Hillary, at the Rose Law Firm, who is now doing Riady business in China. A Clinton confidant, Bruce Lindsey, sat in to carry out any decision made in that meeting by the president of the U.S.

Under Washington’s portrait, on federal property, one participant recommended that Clinton reassign Huang from his government job to a political fund-raising job, where he could extract contributions for favors done and favors yet to come.

The president chose to place his administration in the occasion of political sin - namely, bribery. Two weeks later, according to the notes of Harold Ickes forced into public view by Congress, the White House deputy chief of staff was on the phone to “Johnnie Huang.”

In his crabbed writing, Ickes noted that Huang had told him “55 million overseas Chinese live outside China.” That included “Silicon Valley - 1/2 of the companies are (illegible) by Chinese and Indians … 12 percent of population in California is Asian Pacific. …”

Having evoked this horde of potential contributors, Huang set out his job requirements to Ickes: “Willing to move out of DNC, but needs a wearable (?) title. … How to leave Commerce … perhaps retain as an unpaid consultant. … He met with (DNC finance chairman) Marvin Rosen.”

The deed was done. The Riadys’ man was made vice chairman of DNC finance. The prospect of remaining a government consultant was the device by which Huang retained his top-secret security clearance. He was the only DNC operative with such access to U.S. intelligence, which was surely impressive to Lippo in Indonesia and the Chinese Embassy in Washington, with which he never lost contact.

Huang then used Clinton’s governmental power to extract more than $3 million in illegal political largess from Asian sources - at Clinton’s direction, with Clinton’s active White House cooperation and effusive praise.

One year later, Ickes noted on his yellow pad: “Safire - 10/4/96 - called J. Huang. Doesn’t return call. Safire won’t take a (unfinished thought).” Hmm. On that day, one month before election, I did call the little-known John Huang at the DNC, and would not accept as a substitute a call from Marvin Rosen, the finance chairman, who wanted only to blame the DNC’s Don Fowler for Huang’s doings. Evidently the DNC immediately called its de facto boss, Ickes at the White House, to warn of interest at The New York Times about the Commerce official whom Clinton put at the DNC to milk Asia.

On Oct. 7, “The Asian Connection” appeared in this space, soon followed by a reminder of the Criminal Code 607a about fund-raising on federal property and its section 441e against soliciting from foreign nationals.

Doing justice will now compete with exposing the truth. This week, Al Gore all but invited a legal test of his fund-raising calls from the White House, while Sen. Fred Thompson pressed the Senate Rules Committee to let him hire the staff needed for public hearings.

Obfuscating Democrats pretend that the crime is what is legal, as if that excuses the commission of the most egregiously illegal. Such sophistry both obstructs the truth and perverts justice. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott should force a floor vote to fund Thompson’s committee without further delay. Let’s see how many senators want to go on record favoring a cover-up.

Although independent counsel is in the wings, that does not absolve Congress from its duty to expose Watergate II to public view. Then, as before, Congress will dutifully pass and the president will solemnly sign laws for officials with a lust for re-election in the next generation to ignore.

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