[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 66 (Thursday, May 21, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H3646-H3666]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CALLING UPON PRESIDENT TO URGE FULL COOPERATION WITH CONGRESSIONAL 
                             INVESTIGATIONS

  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 436, I call up 
the resolution (H. Res. 433) calling upon the President of the United 
States to urge full cooperation by his former political appointees and 
friends and their associates with congressional investigations, and ask 
for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
  The text of House Resolution 433 is as follows:

       Whereas approximately 90 witnesses in the campaign finance 
     investigation have either asserted a fifth amendment 
     privilege or fled the country to avoid testifying in 
     congressional investigations;
       Whereas prominent among those who have asserted the fifth 
     amendment privilege or fled the country to avoid testifying 
     are former political appointees and friends of the President 
     of the United States, such as former Associate Attorney 
     General Webster Hubbell; former Department of Commerce 
     political appointee John Huang; former Presidential trade 
     commission appointee Charlie Trie; former senior Presidential 
     aide Mark Middleton; longtime Presidential friends James and 
     Mochtar Riady, as well as family, friends, and associates of 
     some of these individuals;
       Whereas when the Director of the Federal Bureau of 
     Investigation Louis Freeh testified before the House 
     Government Reform and Oversight Committee on December 9, 
     1997, he had the following exchange with the Chairman of the 
     Committee:
       Mr. Burton: Mr. Freeh, over 65 (at that time) people have 
     invoked the Fifth Amendment or fled the country in the course 
     of the committee's investigation. Have you ever experienced 
     so many unavailable witnesses in any matter in which you have 
     prosecuted or in which you have been involved?
       Mr. Freeh: Actually, I have.
       Mr. Burton: You have. Give me a run-down on that real 
     quickly.
       Mr. Freeh: I spent about 16 years doing organized crime 
     cases in New York City, and many people were frequently 
     unavailable.
       Whereas never in the recent history of congressional 
     investigations has Congress been faced with so many witnesses 
     who have asserted fifth amendment privileges or fled the 
     country to avoid testifying in a congressional investigation; 
     and
       Whereas the unavailability of witnesses has severely 
     limited the public's right to know about campaign finance 
     violations which occurred over the past several years and 
     related matters: Now, therefore, be it

[[Page H3647]]

       Resolved, That--
       (1) the House of Representatives urges the President of the 
     United States to immediately call upon his friends, former 
     associates and appointees, and the associates of those 
     individuals, who have asserted fifth amendment privileges or 
     fled the country to avoid testifying in congressional 
     investigations, to come forward and testify fully and 
     truthfully before the relevant committees of Congress; and
       (2) that the President of the United States should use all 
     legal means at his disposal to compel people who have left 
     the country to return and cooperate with the investigation.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). Pursuant to House 
Resolution 436, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey) and a Member 
opposed, each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey).
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  This is just a simple and sincere resolution to resolve that the 
President of the United States should use all legal means at his 
disposal to compel people who have left the country or taken the Fifth 
Amendment to return and cooperate with the investigation.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to indulge myself in a quick reminiscence 
about one of my favorite situation comedies I saw on TV. Some of my 
colleagues may remember Archie Bunker. Archie Bunker was a 
conservative. He had a son-in-law that he affectionately called the 
``meathead'' that was a liberal.
  I remember in one of my favorite episodes of the show, Archie 
Bunker's son-in-law discovered that he had sneaked a few parts, spare 
parts home from work in his lunch box. And the son-in-law gave him a 
stern lecture on integrity and honesty and personal standards of 
conduct, and how he had to in fact rue and regret and apologize and 
atone for this grievous affront to all the principles we hold sacred.
  And then just a few minutes later, Archie's daughter came in and 
exposed that the son-in-law had taken materials home from his office. 
The son-in-law, when confronted with this by Archie, responded with 
horror that even he, with all his virtue, could be corrupted by the 
institution.
  It was, in fact, one of the greatest laugh lines of the evening, 
precisely because we all sat there and thought, pity the poor liberal, 
the more they feign moral outrage, the more they set themselves up to 
get stuck on their own stick.
  Well, last year we were entertained all year long with all kind of 
expressions of piety and fidelity to the principles of individual 
integrity, openness, honesty, as the liberals in this body railed 
against the Speaker that he must step forward, reveal all documents, 
answer all questions and, in a word, come clean, because the Speaker of 
the House must be, beyond all shadow of doubt, a man of integrity.
  Today, when we say to the President of the United States and all with 
whom he associates, come forward, come clean, present yourself, tell 
the truth, be open, release the documents, their response is, the 
system is corrupt. And before we ask any of these questions regarding 
who in the White House may or may not have violated the laws of the 
United States in their own shortsighted self-interest, what we hear 
from the other side is that it is we who are being irresponsible 
because we are not changing the system.
  Let me say once more, the Nation will not forgive a Congress that 
believes that it is correct to change the rules and laws of finance, 
campaign finance, rather than to first discern who is or who is not 
obeying the law and bring to account those who do not obey the law. It 
does not take a great deal of understanding to know that matters of 
personal compliance, personal integrity, honesty and respect for the 
law are, in the longer run, more important than the law itself.
  Mr. Speaker, again we must come to the floor of the House of 
Representatives with a resolution that simply says, let us get 
everybody together, present yourself and tell the truth. Certainly it 
is not beyond the normal expectation that we should expect the 
President of the United States to encourage by all means possible any 
persons with whom he has an association to do just that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Solomon), and I ask unanimous consent that he be able to 
yield the time as he sees fit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, since October 2 years ago I have been extremely 
concerned with allegations swirling around the White House, and I am 
not talking about personal or domestic scandals. Rather, I am talking 
about the compromising of America's national security and potential 
economic espionage.
  Both of us on both sides of this aisle should be concerned about 
political/economic espionage because it costs thousands and thousands, 
if not hundreds of thousands of jobs in Members' districts and mine and 
all across America, political/economic espionage and national security 
breaches.
  That is why I have brought this bill to the floor. If Members do not 
understand that, I would ask them to get a Central Intelligence Agency 
document which is unclassified, which states, ``Applicability of Space 
Launch Vehicle Technology to Ballistic Missiles.'' Take a look at it, 
because the technology we have been giving to China today can be so 
easily converted to intercontinental ballistic missiles. That is not me 
saying it; is our Central Intelligence Agency. Read it. That is how 
important this debate is on this issue right here today.
  Dating back to my first letter trying to find out about John Huang, 
and Members all know who he is, and his connections to the President 
and senior members of his administration, we have faced nothing but 
contempt for legitimate congressional oversight which is our 
constitutional authority, duty in this Congress.
  All told, I have written over 50 letters and made dozens of inquiries 
to over 8 departments, as chairman of the Committee on Rules that has 
legislation pending before it on this matter, and agencies of the 
Clinton administration, including the President himself numerous times, 
trying to get the truth out.

                              {time}  1330

  For just one example, in my very first letter, on October 21, 1996, 
coming up to 2 years now, I asked for all information from Secretary 
Kantor, do my colleagues remember him, Secretary Kantor at the Commerce 
Department, concerning his department's connection with John Huang to 
the Riady and the Lippo Group.
  Do those names ring a bell, my colleagues? It took numerous letters 
and words like ``obstruction of justice'' to acquire the briefing book 
of the late Commerce Secretary Ron Brown that identified his early 
connections with John Huang, which dated all the way back to April of 
1993.
  The consistent pressure was also necessary to force Secretary Kantor 
to begin to come clean on John Huang's access, and my colleagues should 
listen to this because this is so important, on John Huang's access to 
highly classified briefings from a CIA official in the government 
regarding Communist China, an area of the world that this same John 
Huang was prohibited from having anything to do with.
  But lo and behold, and this is a matter now of public record because 
we have been able to obtain this information and make it public, lo and 
behold, the information was still dribbled out over a period of not 
just months, but months and months and months, which ultimately showed 
that it was not just 12 or 37 or even 109 classified briefings or 
meetings, but it was more like 150. And who knows if even that is 
accurate. It could have been a lot more that this man John Huang was 
receiving classified information that could deal with national security 
breaches and political espionage. In addition, over 400 to 500 pieces 
of classified information were passed on to this particular man. Five 
hundred.
  My colleagues, today, despite all of this and more, John Huang 
remains silent and untouched by justice. He refuses to come forward. In 
other words, and this is what my colleagues should pay attention to, in 
other words, a friend of President Clinton, a frequent White House 
guest, a senior political appointee of the President, one of his chief 
fund-raisers and vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is 
still hiding behind the Fifth Amendment.

[[Page H3648]]

  The American people want to know why. What is he hiding; who is he 
protecting? Congress wants to find the truth and so do the American 
people. Why can President Clinton not help us with his friend?
  And that is really what this resolution is all about. And again I 
will just read the last section of the resolve clause.

       We resolve that the President of the United States should 
     use all legal means at his disposal to compel people who have 
     left the country, taken the Fifth Amendment, to return and 
     cooperate with this investigation.

  It ties in with the President's statement back on January of 1998, 
which said, ``The American people have a right to get the answers.'' 
That is what the President said and that is what we are urging in this 
resolution.
  My colleagues, today, despite all of this and more, John Huang 
remains silent and untouched by this justice. But perhaps even more 
dangerous are 20 witnesses that have fled the country and 17 other 
foreign nationals who have refused to testify. Foreign nationals, my 
colleagues, who were in this country.
  For example, one of those is a man named Ted Sieong. Do my colleagues 
remember that name? Have any of my colleagues read the papers in their 
districts back home? Mr. Sieong, now, listen to this, reportedly an 
agent for the PRC, that is the People's Republic of China, and a guest 
of both the President and Vice President, has recently been spotted in 
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with his business partner Thung Bun Ma, who has 
been identified as the leading heroin smuggler in Cambodia, heroin that 
is reaching into this country and being shot into the arms of our 
children.
  Imagine that, Mr. Speaker, a potential spy and drug kingpin sitting 
down with the leaders of the free world. What in the world have we come 
to?
  I wrote to Secretary Albright in the beginning of this year, almost 5 
months ago now, to find out more about Mr. Sieong and Mr. Bun Ma's 
visit to America. I have yet to hear back from the State Department. Do 
they not take this seriously? Why are they stonewalling? Is this 
obstruction of justice or what? We need to know these answers.
  This delay is running to ground individuals who have compromised our 
national security, and I am sorry to say is not uncommon in this 
administration, and is entirely unacceptable.
  Mr. Speaker, I could go on and on talking about the Riadys, who 
refuse to cooperate, the largest donors to President Clinton's 1992 
campaign and close friends and guests of his. This is one of the 
largest international conglomerates in the world, my colleagues. Sure, 
they are rich and, sure, they have all the money to continue hiding, 
but why can the President not urge them to come forward and tell the 
truth?
  Or what about Wang Jun, who, while having coffee with the President, 
was the chairman of an outfit preparing to smuggle automatic weapons 
into America and lobbying to reverse protection on the transfer of 
American satellite technology to China. In other words, my colleagues, 
and this is not just me standing up here and saying this, according to 
recent New York Times reports, this Chinese government arms dealer, 
sitting for coffee with the President of the United States, made 
billions of dollars for China upon reversal of those protections while 
we Americans pay the consequences in potentially deadly breaches of our 
national security.
  Again, get the CIA report, unclassified, and see what I am talking 
about here today. Mr. Speaker, it is that serious. The stability of the 
world is in serious jeopardy for the first time since the Cold War.
  The President's moral and ethical obligation as Commander-in-Chief, 
my colleagues, is to insist with the full power, with the full majesty 
of his office that information is made available, and individuals are 
compelled to come forward to tell the truth. He ought to be using the 
power of that office to get them to come forward, to let the American 
people know the truth and to judge for themselves the damage done to 
our national security and, consequently, to the future of this great 
democracy of ours.
  Are we going to have these ballistic missiles once again pointed at 
the United States of America? The immense powers and reach of his 
executive branch should be commissioned to tell the American people the 
truth and to identify just how serious our security and foreign policy 
has been compromised.
  I fought for a long time frustrating battles trying to impress upon 
the administration the severity of this matter, and I have done it in a 
nonpolitical way, because we were out after the national security 
breaches and out after the economic espionage, not about this sex 
scandal. We want to know the truth about how this country has been 
jeopardized.
  Despite all these frustrations, not all was for naught. We found out 
some information, but more often than not that information was even 
more disturbing and begged additional questions. Through all of this, I 
found some good people in the administration, some very good people, 
willing to help get to the bottom of these breaches of our security. 
And make no mistake, our national security has been compromised.
  But what we need and what the American people deserve, my colleagues, 
is cooperation from the very top, from the President of the United 
States himself, in answering our questions and bringing his associates 
to justice. That is all that we are asking for, is the truth, the 
truth, the truth.
  This resolution stands for all of those things and will put the 
Congress on record strongly behind the effort to get to the truth and 
let the American public find out just what has happened to our national 
security because of many of these shady associations. And I will talk a 
little bit later about some of those shady associations to try to 
dramatize just what we are talking about here.
  I hope my colleagues across the aisle will join us in a bipartisan 
appeal to the President. National security is too important for 
partisan politics. It should stop at the water's edge. We should rally 
together. We should rally together with the President of this country 
to try to get to the bottom of this so that we do not have this 
situation facing the future of our country.
  So please vote for this resolution. It is reasonable and deserves my 
colleagues' support.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). Does the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Conyers) claim the time in opposition to the resolution?
  Mr. CONYERS. I do, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is 
recognized for 30 minutes.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), a senior member of the 
Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the gap between reality and 
the description we have just heard is very, very wide. The suggestion 
that the national security of this country has been endangered or is in 
danger because of the People's Republic of China, with its relatively 
weak military capacity, is an absolutely unjustified denigration of the 
military strength of this country. But it also raises an important 
question in my mind.
  Now, the gentleman from New York was complaining of the President's 
failure to listen to him regarding apparently the terrible menace of 
the People's Republic of China. But the President is not the only one 
to whom he should be addressing his words. It was the leadership of his 
party that brought forward recently a bill to grant the People's 
Republic of China Most Favored Nation treatment.
  Indeed, Mr. Speaker, I had to check the record. I heard a lot of this 
denunciation of the threat that China poses to the United States, and I 
had this vague recollection that the Republican leadership had given 
the Chinese the single thing they most wanted from this government: 
Most Favored Nation treatment. Indeed, if we look at the trade 
practices, if there could be one thing the American government could do 
that would make the People's Republic of China happier than anything 
else, it would be to give them Most Favored Nation treatment.
  Now I know my friend from New York was against it, and so was I, but 
it was the Speaker of the House, of his

[[Page H3649]]

party, who put it through. Has the gentleman been so focused on the 
President that he has forgotten to share his wisdom with the Speaker? 
The staffer who sits next to him, who so carefully hands him that paper 
every 4 minutes when he forgets where he put it, can the gentleman not 
have him with him the next time he meets with the Speaker? The 
gentleman should bring that staffer along, because the gentleman will 
have to show that paper to the Speaker.
  If the gentleman asked the Chinese what they wanted, some missile 
technology or the right to sell us $50 billion a year worth of goods, I 
think the $50 billion would come first.
  Now, I disapprove strenuously of the way in which the Chinese 
government runs its people. I think they are oppressing Tibet. I think 
they are a threat to some of their neighbors. I was supportive of our 
going to the defense of Taiwan. I do not believe they are a threat to 
this great strong country. But if I thought they were trying to become 
a threat to this country, the last thing I would begin to do is to fund 
them, and that is what Most Favored Nation treatment does.
  The Chinese government makes far more money because of Most Favored 
Nation treatment than anything else. And the gentleman's party put the 
bill through. The gentleman's party controls the House.
  Now, on the other hand, maybe there is good news, Mr. Speaker. Maybe 
the Speaker has seen the light. Because my understanding, until 
recently, was that the Republican Party, the leadership of the House, 
planned once again to bring a Most Favored Nation bill for the People's 
Republic of China before us. Now, I know I would vote against it and my 
friend from New York would vote against it, but given the 
organizational power of that coalition of President Clinton and Speaker 
Gingrich, the People's Republic of China would probably get it.
  And, apparently, there is a breach in the coalition, because I 
certainly would find it hard to believe that the Republican leadership, 
who so excoriated China and so warned us of the danger China presents 
to our very national security, surely they are not prepared to give the 
Chinese Most Favored Nation treatment.
  The gentleman said it is the Cold War again. During the height of the 
Cold War, in fact, during the low parts of the Cold War and the medium 
parts of the Cold War we never gave Russia Most Favored Nation 
treatment. So I guess those of us who voted against Most Favored Nation 
treatment for China should take heart: Allies are apparently coming. 
Because I am sure that the passionate nonpartisan eloquence of the 
gentleman from New York will not spare his Speaker if he were to err 
and provide Most Favored Nation treatment for that threatening nation 
of China.
  The other thing I wanted to talk about briefly was the resolution. 
The facts on this are that the President has, I think, been doing 
everything he can. I hope no one is suggesting the President has the 
right to order people not to plead their constitutional rights. But, in 
fact, the suggestion that the President is not doing what he can is 
clearly contradicted by the facts.
  One of the things the gentleman mentioned were the people who have 
fled the country. They fled the country because the Justice Department 
is after them. But the Justice Department works, of course, under 
President Clinton. We have heard these arguments that said, oh, we must 
have an independent counsel. And what is the basis recently for 
demanding an independent counsel? Well, the Justice Department cannot 
investigate that. How do we know that? Well, we just got facts that 
show the Justice Department cannot investigate it. Where did we get the 
facts? From the Justice Department's investigation.
  The latest revelations which came from Johnny Chung came from the 
Justice Department's investigation. The people that have fled the 
country, in all honesty, I do not think they fear the gentleman from 
Indiana, who chairs the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 
as much as they fear the Attorney General and her prosecutors.

                              {time}  1345

  They are the ones who are threatening them. So what we have here are 
people have fled the country because the Justice Department is engaging 
in a tough, honest investigation. And so, what do we say? We say, ``Mr. 
President, bring them back.'' The only way the President could bring 
them back would be to order the Attorney General to stop the 
investigation. It is the Justice Department that is involving them in 
this investigation.
  The gentleman says he wants to pursue this in a nonpartisan way, and 
I am glad to hear. I look forward to being here the day he chooses to 
do that. Apparently, today was not the day. Because this is a 
resolution that is accompanied by rhetoric denouncing the President for 
following a policy towards the People's Republic of China, which in 
substantial ways is the same as the Speaker of the House and the people 
in the other body, because both Houses passed Most Favored Nation.
  It is the Administration through the Justice Department which is 
investigating these people. And that is what they are taking the fifth 
amendment from. They are refusing to testify before the Justice 
Department, they are fleeing the Justice Department, and they are 
saying, well, what are you doing about it? Well, the President is in 
fact, by the toughness of the investigation under the Attorney General, 
ultimately the cause of precisely these things.
  Now, of course, we want an investigation. And there do appear to be 
people who abuse the campaign finance system on both parties. We had 
high-ranking fund-raisers in both the Clinton and Dole campaign in 1996 
who behaved badly, who appeared to have violated the law. They should 
be prosecuted, and we should do it in a nonpartisan way.
  But just in summary, first of all, let us not grossly exaggerate the 
physical threat that the People's Republic of China poses to the United 
States. Yes, they threatened Taiwan. And when the United States sent 
military force, they backed down. There is a disparity, fortunately, 
between the United States and the People's Republic of China military 
that means we are not in any danger from them. Others might be.
  Secondly, if they do believe that the People's Republic of China is 
such a threat, then how do they put through the House a bill that 
continues their Most Favored Nation treatment which does as much to 
fuel their economy as any other single thing, is something they greatly 
want?
  The gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) is not guilty of 
inconsistency here. Because he and I agree; we voted against Most 
Favored Nation treatment. What happened was, and I know the gentleman 
is very busy, he is busy keeping amendments off the floor, the defense 
bill, and doing other things, he forgot that the Speaker was for Most 
Favored Nation treatment. I understand that. He cannot always remember 
everything.
  But now that I have reminded the gentleman that it is his Speaker who 
was bringing forward Most Favored Nation treatment, I will be glad to 
go with him, I will even hand him the document and show him if he 
misplaces it to remind him how terrible it is and how he should not 
even have it.
  Finally, let us note that the investigation from which these people 
are hiding, in which they are pleading the fifth amendment, is the 
investigation being conducted by the Attorney General and her aides. 
And that is, of course, proof that these allegations of cover-up are 
pretty silly.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Well, as Ronald Reagan used to say, we could go to vote right now. 
Because the gentleman has made my case, and we won, and we could just 
go to vote. But let me comment a little bit.
  I do not know how we got into the Most Favored Nation debate here. 
The gentleman and I happen to agree with it. But we are talking about 
bringing fugitives back to the United States.
  The gentleman has tried to make the point that maybe it was the 
Republicans that initiated Most Favored Nation treatment. Everybody 
knows if they have been here for a while, and the gentleman has been 
here for a while, same as I have, I see my colleagues all smiling, but 
it has to be the President of the United States that has to initiate a 
request for Most Favored Nation. Congress cannot do it. I cannot do it. 
In other words, it is the President.

[[Page H3650]]

  The President initiates, and then the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Solomon) the day after, which I will do on June 3, the day we get back 
here, because that is probably the day my spies over at the White House 
tell me the President is going to ask for Most Favored Nation treatment 
for China again. Although he may not have the nerve to do it after all 
of the votes that we have had here just in the recent couple of days.
  But let me just say to him that he wonders had I not been talking to 
the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrich). Oh, I have been talking to 
the gentleman from Georgia for many, many years about this issue. I 
have been talking to Trent Lott, who is the Majority Leader, the leader 
of the Senate. Guess what? I made a lot of inroads with the Majority 
Leader of the Senate. He is now on our side. And now I have got to work 
on the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrich) a little more. We might 
get there.
  The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) also was being a little 
miscourteous I believe, I do not know whether it was intentional or 
not, when he was referring to the gentleman sitting next to me handing 
me papers. It ought to be, for the Record, that the gentleman sitting 
next to me is a former Marine fighter pilot in Vietnam. Everybody ought 
to know that. That is the kind of people I associate with.
  I associate with someone just as important in the next speaker. He is 
a former fighter pilot in Vietnam as well, one of the most decorated 
heroes of our country. He is the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Cunningham). I will let him respond to what I would call an outrageous 
statement, without being disrespectful, about the weaknesses of the 
People's Republic of China military. What?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Cunningham).
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, most of the time the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) is very eloquent. People listen to him. He 
has got a lot to say. But I would say that the gentleman is grasping at 
straws and his last comments are unbelievable, that I do not believe in 
my lifetime there will be peace in the Middle East or in Bosnia, not 
even northern Ireland. And I strongly believe that China and Russia 
today are our biggest enemies today.
  The gentleman would like to say the Cold War is over so he can cut 
defense more, but that is just not the fact. And to engage in trade 
with Bosnia, with China, with the Middle East, we need to engage not 
only in dialogue, diplomatic relations, but also trade.
  If we look at China, it is a lot different than it was 20 years ago 
because we have had an influence in there. But to suggest that trade 
equates to giving away military and technological secrets that would 
benefit a country in striking other countries and this one is 
ludicrous, and that is why I say the gentleman is grasping at straws.
  Another thing is that the threat is very evident from China and 
Russia today. I have gone through that several times on the floor of 
what their threats actually are. And for someone to propose himself as 
an expert of military strategy and technology that has never dealt with 
it, never donned a uniform, never planned strategic strikes is amazing, 
a self-proclaimed expert.
  They are a threat, Mr. Speaker. China is a very serious threat. And 
to give them the technology that could destroy this country is very, 
very serious.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  My thanks to the Majority Leader for his fond recollections of the 
television production ``All In The Family.'' It was produced by none 
other than Norman Lear, with whom I am sure the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Armey) shares many common interests and beliefs.
  The President is now being asked in this resolution that everyone who 
may have invoked the fifth amendment consider abandoning it. Well, why? 
Well, because, as the Chairman of the Committee on Rules said, why are 
they hiding behind the fifth amendment? This is technical 
constitutional lawyer stuff, but the fifth amendment is for all people. 
The fifth amendment is not used for people to necessarily hide behind 
it and then have to explain why they invoke the fifth amendment.
  I do not think we did that when Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, 
during his crisis, invoked the fifth amendment. People use the fifth 
amendment who are totally innocent and have reasons for not wanting to 
bring forward information. So I do not think that the test of whether 
someone is telling the truth or not or is guilty or innocent can be 
arrived at by whether or not they invoke the fifth amendment. I hope 
everybody in the Congress will agree on this elementary point of 
constitutional understanding.
  Now, there have been a lot of names of people who are involved, and 
we said over 90 in the resolution. But may I remind my colleagues that 
the Senate Banking Committee held exhaustive hearings on some of these 
subjects, the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services held 
exhaustive hearings on other parts of the people referred to and the 
incidents referred to, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee held 
incredibly lengthy hearings. And the House Committee on Government 
Reform and Oversight not only has held lengthy committee hearings but 
are continuing to hold committee hearings.
  So what are we asking the President to do? We are asking him to state 
that he hopes everyone will cooperate with the investigators and tell 
the truth. Does anybody on the other side recognize that the President 
of the United States, Bill Clinton, has already publicly stated that he 
hopes everyone will cooperate with investigators and tell the truth?
  Now, it is both bizarre and unprecedented for us to request one party 
in an investigation to advise the other party as to how they should 
conduct themselves and whether they should, in effect, ignore the 
advice of their lawyers.
  Again, as raised in the other resolution, do my colleagues on the 
other side really mean that that is what they want the President to 
tell other people that are being investigated? Again, on their behalf, 
I do not think so.
  So I will ask the Members considering this resolution, for what it is 
worth, I can tell them that I am not favorably disposed toward it and I 
feel that it is a totally frivolous amendment that is consuming a lot 
of important time.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The Chair would advise that 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) has 17 minutes remaining, and 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) has 8\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), my colleague on the Committee on the 
Judiciary.
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for yielding me the time.
  I think it is important that as we finish this discussion that we try 
to step away from the allegations that would create hysteria that 
caused my telephone to ring feverishly last night when Americans from 
around the Nation considered that we were under immediate attack by 
Chinese missiles.
  I think the important point is what are we discussing here on the 
floor of the House. I take great aversion to anyone being challenged 
who has taken an oath of office that they are un-American, that they 
would do something to endanger the lives of so many millions of 
Americans. I believe this Nation will not forgive a Congress that 
itself violates the law.

                              {time}  1400

  We need to have the facts why H.R. 433 and 432 have even been brought 
to the floor of the House. I will tell you why they are on the floor of 
the House today. One, asking the President to give up his rights to 
executive privilege, and, two, asking him gratuitously to tell people 
to testify.
  The reason, because Democrats thought that someone presiding over an 
oversight committee that would call publicly the President a scumbag 
and then offer to distort tapes and present them to the American public 
as truth needed to step aside from that investigation.

[[Page H3651]]

  Our position was not that he needed to step aside from being 
chairperson of that committee, but during the time of this 
investigation, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight needed 
someone else who would not have characterized his bias such that he 
would have called the highest officer of this Nation a scumbag.
  We always ask for a certain decorum. So the reason why we are on the 
floor today is because this is a punitive measure against Democrats and 
a punitive measure against the President of the United States.
  Members brought a resolution. We will bring a resolution. 
Interestingly enough, the resolution that had facts attributable to it 
was tabled. Yet, many Democrats voted just last week or this week to 
direct that committee to immunize witnesses so that we could get to the 
facts.
  Democrats are not afraid of an investigation. Democrats are not 
afraid of campaign finance reform. We have been arguing for such reform 
time after time after time.
  These resolutions are what they are. They are political. They are 
partisan. Why do I say that? As a Member of the House Committee on the 
Judiciary, neither one of these resolutions found their way to the 
committee of jurisdiction.
  The Committee on Rules, which is the gatekeeper for this particular 
body in order to create orderliness, did not get notice of these 
resolutions but for 5 minutes before they had to review them.
  In fact, the law is clear. Someone taking the Fifth Amendment cannot, 
if they were to testify, attribute their allegations and Fifth 
Amendment rights to someone who is outside of the realm. So, in fact, 
why would the President be fearful of someone coming to testify or why 
would the President in any way be impacted by someone taking advantage 
of their constitutional rights, the Fifth Amendment?
  Why would the President of the United States or anyone other than 
your religious leader, your spouse, your family member have any 
authority to tell someone that is not part of his immediate family, to 
engage them in any discussion about what they do with their 
constitutional rights? I ask every American to consider moving aside 
the fairness of what we are asking here.
  Then the last resolution that passed was about executive privilege. 
Executive privilege has been characterized as a sinister tool. Let me 
tell you that President Reagan claimed it. President Bush claimed it a 
number of times.
  Executive privilege is what it is. It is a recognition of a 
distinction of three branches of government, the Executive, the 
Judiciary, and the Legislative Branch. In fact, John Dean, the counsel 
to Nixon, someone who well knew what executive privilege can bring 
about, declared just a couple of weeks ago that the President should 
appeal determinations made on his use of executive privilege.
  If you want to talk about national security, the tampering with 
executive privilege will truly tamper with our national security.
  What is this about China? I want the facts about China. I absolutely 
do not want to see our people in jeopardy. But I would say to the men 
and women of this country, I believe you are a fair and honest people. 
If you come to the table making allegations of treason, which one of 
the Members of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle has 
already done, then how can you have a fair and unbiased process when 
the Members who are asking for such resolutions have already committed 
themselves that the President of the United States has committed 
treason? We do ourselves an international disservice.
  If we are to presume that we want a fair and unbiased hearing on what 
has happened in China, do we need to then make representations, before 
we have even heard a single fact, that the President is guilty of 
treason?
  These resolutions are not what they seem to be. I want those who have 
absconded from the law to return and to acknowledge their 
constitutional rights, if that is what they so choose, but to respond 
to the laws of this land. All of us do.
  If the executive privilege is used improperly or illegally, then we 
must address that question. But it is an executive privilege that is a 
constitutional or a legal provision.
  I think we are well to recognize that all is not right just because 
it happens to be the law of the land, for the Independent Counsel 
statute has already showed us the abuse that can occur, the millions of 
dollars that can be spent.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that if these resolutions had come 
through the legitimate processes of this House, if they had been 
debated in committee, if they had been fairly brought, I would say that 
we should go forward. Otherwise, I think these are partisan and unfair, 
and I ask for their defeat.
  Mr. Speaker, this Nation will not forgive a Congress that violates 
the law of equity and the rule of fairness. I must rise today in 
opposition to H. Res. 433, a resolution which urges the President to 
compel his associates to cooperate with any and all pending 
Congressional investigations, for several key reasons. First of all, 
this issue is moot. The President has consistently asked all of his 
associates and/or friends involved with any investigation pending in 
this Congress or elsewhere, to cooperate to the fullest extent of the 
law. So with that in mind, what unique kind of petition do the authors 
of this resolution honestly expect the President to make, that he has 
not made already?
  Secondly, the language of this resolution notes that approximately 
ninety (90) witnesses connected to the campaign finance investigation 
in the House Governmental Affairs Committee have asserted a Fifth 
Amendment privilege or have left the country. Do the authors of this 
resolution actually intend to imply that the President is somehow 
responsible for the actions of these ninety (90) individuals in 
choosing to leave the country and/or exert their Constitutionally-
protected rights? As we all know, the Fifth Amendment privilege exists 
only for those individuals that may incriminate themselves with their 
testimony, not those that may incriminate an outside party like the 
President. So what possible relationship does the exercise of this 
individualized Constitutional liberty by the President's so-called 
``associates'' have to do with the conduct of the President himself?
  And finally, I must take exception with the implicit presumption of 
Presidential guilt carefully weaved into the language of this 
resolution. Why is it necessary to include a statement from a December 
hearing with the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that 
seems to imply that the President is a part of a grand conspiracy to 
conceal evidence from this body? If our intentions truly are to simply 
compel the President to continue to encourage his friends, colleagues 
and associates to cooperate with this investigation, so be it. But I do 
not see what the kind of inference made by the FBI Director (that the 
only other time he has ever seen such an unavailability of witnesses 
was in a organized crime case he handled over 16 years ago) has to do 
with the effort to achieve full cooperation by all parties involved in 
this campaign finance investigation?
  In any investigatory proceeding, the key is always process. If we are 
after the truth, why does the language of this resolution imply 
Presidential complicity? I need not remind this body that the 
cornerstone of the American democratic process is the presumption of 
innocence, yet somehow, the United States Congress seems unwilling to 
extend that same presumption to the President. I sincerely hope that we 
can get to the bottom of the campaign finance investigation in the 
Governmental Affairs Committee, but I just do not see how this 
resolution is helping to serve that purpose. For all of these reasons, 
I urge all of my colleagues to ignore partisan differences and please 
vote down H. Res. 433.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). The Chair will advise that 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) has 11 minutes remaining and 
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) has 8\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Skaggs) who heads up the Constitutional 
Caucus in the House.
  Mr. SKAGGS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time. I 
understand there is some frustration on the other side about all of 
this. This resolution has been cleverly drafted to appear, at first 
reading, perhaps, even to be innocuous.
  But let me just suggest to my colleagues that we ought not to rush to 
judgment in this matter. It has much larger constitutional consequences 
then may be first apparent.
  The gist of the resolution is to exert the power and the authority of 
this House to have people waive their constitutional rights, and we 
need to examine the significance of that proposition very carefully.

[[Page H3652]]

  First, let us acknowledge that confrontations and disputes in which 
the Bill of Rights are invoked often come up under difficult and 
unseemly circumstances. That is simply because the Bill of Rights was 
designed to protect minority and unsavory points of view, the less 
powerful, those out of step with the majority, to protect such people 
from the potentially overzealous power of government.
  When a criminal asserts a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-
incrimination, it is easy to condemn it and even easier to forget that 
that privilege exists to protect us all from an overzealous government. 
Is that not what this recent to-do over IRS reform is all about, for 
example?
  When a miscreant like Khalid Muhammed gives a vitriolic antisemitic 
hate speech, it is easy to condemn it and finesse its protection under 
the First Amendment, as this House, unfortunately, did a few years ago. 
And easier still to forget the First Amendment's guarantee of free 
speech exists to protect all of us against government-imposed 
orthodoxy, even those, especially those, with views offensive to the 
majority.
  When a drug dealer asserts a Fourth Amendment privilege against 
unreasonable search and seizure, it is easy to speak grandly about 
people who hide behind technicalities, and still easier to forget that 
those Fourth Amendment protections exist to protect all innocent 
Americans against abuse by government power.
  So while, as here, these issues typically come up in a way that 
appears to work to the benefit of some questionable behavior, the 
intended and enduring beneficiaries of the Bill of Rights are all of 
us. We forget that at our great peril.
  But this resolution, boiled down to its essence, is an effort to 
force Americans to waive their rights. In this case, it happens to be 
the Fifth Amendment that would be waived. The point resolution, and the 
danger in this is that its reach is much broader, and the precedent is 
chilling. If it is the Fifth Amendment today, why not the Fourth 
Amendment protection against unfounded searches tomorrow, and the Sixth 
Amendment's guarantee of a speedy and public trial the day after.
  If it is the Fifth Amendment today, what about the First Amendment 
protection against peaceable assembly, or the Fifth Amendment's 
guarantee against double jeopardy?
  We can all think of many cases in which we wish these protections did 
not apply. They are inconvenient. But that is not the issue.
  The point is that in order to have these protections for the vast 
majority of innocent American citizens, we must also extend those 
protections to bad actors.
  As a matter of simple logic, if we are willing to compromise those 
fundamental principles as they apply to those whom we hold in low 
regard, as in this resolution, then we compromise the same principles 
as they apply to everyone.
  That is a danger and a cost that far exceeds whatever satisfaction we 
may derive from this resolution's attack on the rights of individuals 
subjected to the delicate and tender ministrations of the investigation 
by the gentleman from Indiana.
  Some will attempt to characterize a ``no'' vote on this resolution as 
if it were endorsing stonewalling. That is just plain silly.
  Unfortunately, in order to support the Bill of Rights and its 
protections, we have to endorse it, as here, even for cases of people 
whose behavior we do not and cannot defend, but whose rights are held 
in common with our own.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) 
has 6 minutes remaining, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) 
has 8\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 5 minutes to the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for 
yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, the House is currently debating a series of three 
nonbinding resolutions that are heavy in their political content and 
very light in their substantive content. They also contain within them 
a very substantial degree of vindictiveness.
  The resolutions in themselves probably would not be harmful except 
that they are in their intention and in their wording and, also, 
secondly, because they take away from the House valuable time which it 
would be better advised dealing with more substantive issues.
  This resolution, first of all, suggests that the Congress urge the 
President of the United States to urge other people to waive their 
constitutional rights. It says, in effect, that the President of the 
United States should behave as some kind of a sultan or dictator and 
have people dragged before a congressional committee and submit to that 
congressional committee, ignoring completely their rights under the 
Constitution and ignoring completely the separation of powers which is 
the hallmark of this government.
  This resolution in that regard is enormously dangerous. This comes 
from the party that asserts itself as being the party of small 
government, the party of a weaker, less intrusive government. Yet, in 
this very resolution, all of that is denied. All of that is put aside.
  This resolution says that this particular party that advocates this 
resolution is the party of strong dictatorial government that would 
force people to behave in ways that are contrary to their own best 
interests and contrary to the basic protections of the Constitution.
  It is very difficult to understand the reasoning behind this 
resolution, very difficult to understand the reasoning behind its 
author who stands for different kinds of things, or at least gives 
voice to different perspectives and different viewpoints than are 
expressed in this particular resolution.
  This resolution says that people should be forced before a particular 
congressional committee, even though they do not want to appear before 
that congressional committee.
  Why might people be reluctant to appear before this particular 
committee headed by this particular chairman, the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Burton)? It is quite clear. In doing so, they are simply 
being sensible. They are using good common sense.
  They have seen the way that this particular chairman behaves. They 
have seen that this particular chairman falsifies evidence and 
information that comes to his attention and is in his hands. They have 
seen that this particular Chairman will take a person's statements and 
falsify those statements. He will falsify those statements by 
extracting from them words, whole sentences, and whole paragraphs.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a point of order. When 
someone is on the floor and makes a statement against another Member by 
saying ``falsifying evidence,'' whether those words would really be in 
order on the House floor when, in fact, they are not even proven?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer) 
requesting that the words of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) 
be taken down?
  Mr. BUYER. I so request. Actually, I ask it by my parliamentary 
inquiry, when he makes such allegation that a Member is actually 
falsifying evidence, whether those such words would be insulting to the 
House?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In response to the gentleman's parliamentary 
inquiry, Members are reminded to not make personal observations about 
other Members of the House.
  The gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) may proceed.

                              {time}  1415

  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I would direct the attention of the House 
to the recorded dialogues and the way in which those dialogues were 
handled by this particular committee, and ask the Members of the House 
to make judgments for themselves with regard to the way that those 
conversations were transcribed, and observe that in those 
transcriptions, certain words and sentences were omitted and observe in 
those transcriptions that words in fact were inserted into those 
transcriptions, which gave entirely different meanings to the sentence 
and paragraphs allegedly therein transcribed. I think if people will 
look at that, they will be able to judge for themselves exactly what 
was taking place there.
  Now, with regard to these three nonbinding resolutions and all the 
time

[[Page H3653]]

that these three nonbinding resolutions have taken from the House, it 
would be one thing if we had all the time in the world to dwell on 
these political issues. But the fact of the matter is that languishing 
in committees in this House are important measures that are critical to 
the health, safety and well-being of millions of Americans.
  Languishing in committees in this House is are legislation dealing 
with the safety of patients in hospitals; languishing in committees in 
this House is legislation dealing with the regulation of HMOs. 
Languishing in committees in this House is legislation dealing with the 
reauthorization of the Federal Superfund. We need to bring that 
legislation to the floor and have it voted on.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman 
from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a very great American from Monticello, 
Indiana, and a chairman of the Subcommittee on Personnel of the 
Committee on National Security.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, one of my former Democrat colleagues came to the floor 
and said he recognizes that there a general level of frustration in the 
House, and I think he is accurate and correct. The level of frustration 
is there because I believe that the correct body to conduct such a vast 
investigation should be an independent counsel.
  We have asked for an independent counsel for a very long time from 
the Justice Department, and that is who I think the proper body is. 
Even the Speaker of the House has an idea to have a select committee, 
and different people are trying to grope with it. My preference is to 
have the Attorney General appoint the Independent Counsel, and the 
momentum of the evidence is building.
  I can recall how disturbed I was when I learned that the Attorney 
General in the fall of 1995 had been warned by our security sources 
that China was attempting to influence our elections, and then that she 
thought enough about that concern to pick up the phone and call the 
National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, but he was not in and she 
never bothered to call back personally again.
  That really bothered me. I asked her if she ever had a peculiar 
feeling about not having exercised her due diligence, and she said no, 
it did not bother her at all. See, that kind of bothers me. It bothers 
me because if I had a friend whom I knew was about to be shot or 
killed, I would want to warn them. When the Attorney General finds 
themselves in that position of having such information, they should 
have in fact warned the President that there are individuals who were 
going to seek to have monies come into this country to influence the 
process.
  We find out now it was influenced from so many different angles, 
there are different allegations. Whether the debates are in this House 
with Loral and whether or not they have transferred, whether it is 
satellite, to dual use technologies in the ballistic missile category, 
it is very, very concerning.
  Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to come to the House just to share this. I 
am very bothered that over 90 witnesses would come forward and take the 
Fifth Amendment. That is their Constitution right. The gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Conyers) is absolutely correct, and so is the gentleman 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank). That is their constitutional right. But 
how do you get around that Fifth Amendment? You have the Independent 
Counsel, or Justice, you take them before the grand jury. Then they 
give them that immunity, and if they do not testify, then they end up 
going to jail. But there is a proper mechanism for us to get here. I 
understand the general level of frustration by the chairman of the 
Committee on Rules.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to a very distinguished 
gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Everett).
  (Mr. EVERETT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. EVERETT. Mr. Speaker, as part of the discussion on this 
administration's lack of cooperation with the Congressional 
investigations, as well as the continuous assertion of executive 
privilege, I thought my colleagues would be interested and surprised to 
learn of another stonewalling situation and another assertion of 
executive privilege by President Clinton's White House. It involves the 
waiver granted by this administration for the burial of Ambassador 
Larry Lawrence at Arlington National Cemetery.
  I would ask, why on the Earth would the President of the United 
States not want to reveal to the Congress what happened in the White 
House in decisions involving matters not even remotely connected to 
national security? It is stonewalling, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, as part of this discussion on this Administration's lack 
of cooperation with Congressional investigations, as well as on 
assertions of executive privilege, I thought my colleagues would be 
interested and perhaps quite surprised to learn of another stonewalling 
situation and another assertion of executive privilege by President 
Clinton's White House counsel. It involves the waiver granted by 
President Clinton to the former surgeon general, Dr. C. Everett Koop, 
for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, and the waiver granted by 
the Secretary of Army for the burial of Ambassador Larry Lawrence at 
Arlington.
  As Chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and 
Investigations, I asked the White House for information and documents 
regarding the White House role in the waivers for Dr. Koop and 
Ambassador Lawrence. My colleagues will certainly recall the 
Subcommittee's discoveries that Dr. Koop is the only living person with 
a waiver, a violation of Arlington's regulations and that Ambassador 
Lawrence had falsely claimed heroic wartime service in the U.S. 
Merchant Marine.
  The White House has declined to provide responsive answers to the 
Subcommittee's questions about Dr. Koop's waiver, which was 
subsequently withdrawn after its existence became public knowledge. 
That's the long and the short of it.
  And, Mr. Speaker, I was totally surprised and amazed, when the 
President's counsel, Mr. Charles F.C. Ruff, not only did not provide 
responsive answers to the Subcommittee's questions about Ambassador 
Lawrence, he asserted executive privilege with respect to certain 
documents that the privilege log enclosed with his letter of January 
23, 1998, described as a ``Memorandum to President from Deputy Counsel 
to the President and Deputy Assistant for Intergovernmental Affairs 
regarding Ambassador Lawrence's burial at Arlington Cemetery'' and 
``Cover memorandum to President from Assistant to the President and 
Staff Secretary attaching a copy of document ANC 0000018 described 
above and a list of persons buried at Arlington Cemetery.''
  Mr. Speaker, I ask, why on earth would the President of the United 
States not want to reveal to Congress what happened at the White House 
in decisions involving matters not even remotely related to national 
security. I don't have the answer to my question, and I don't know if 
the White House is hiding anything, but I am going to keep on trying to 
find out.
  I do believe this is the first time the Veterans Affairs Committee 
has ever been confronted with an assertion of executive privilege as it 
attempts to fulfill its constitutional oversight responsibilities, and 
I want America's veterans to know what the White House is doing, 
because I think it is the wrong way to conduct the people's business, 
particularly when it comes to veterans. I hope veterans will let the 
President know how they feel about it. I can't imagine any good public 
policy reason to be hiding away information and documents under these 
circumstances, and I hope the White House will reconsider its position.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield one minute the to the gentleman 
from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman 
from Alabama helping draw it all together in a logical way.
  Mr. Speaker, I would first say to the gentleman from Indiana, the 
Justice Department is doing the investigation. He said the way to get 
around their invocation of the Fifth Amendment is to get them before a 
grand jury. It is the fact that the Justice Department, or Attorney 
General Reno, is trying to bring them before the grand jury, that has 
led them to do this. That investigation is going on.
  Finally, I do want to say apparently something I said was 
misinterpreted as in some way reflecting on the very able staff, and I 
regret that, because we are very well served here by our staff.
  I did mean to call attention to what I thought was the 
uncharacteristically repetitive argument of my good friend from New 
York. In no way did I mean to reflect on the first-rate staff work he 
depends on. This was between Members, and I apologize, because 
apparently something I said may have had that inference.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I just have to call attention to the fact that no one 
has

[[Page H3654]]

criticized a particular sentence or particular paragraph in my bill.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary 
inquiry. I thought the time had expired.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Solomon) yield for a parliamentary inquiry?
  Mr. SOLOMON. No, we have 5 minutes to close.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thought the gentleman was yielding to 
me to close.
  Mr. SOLOMON. To close for your time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) 
controls the time, and has 5\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, may I please start over again.
  Mr. Speaker, I just have to call attention that no one has criticized 
a particular sentence or paragraph in the bill. Let me just again refer 
to the very last section, paragraph in the bill. It says that the 
President of the United States should use all legal means.
  Now, you have heard the lawyers on that side stand up and say oh, 
they are infringing on the Constitution. But all I am saying is to use 
all legal means at his disposal to compel people who left the country 
to return and cooperate with the investigation.
  Who are those people, Mr. Speaker? If you look at this fellow with 
the mutton chops right here, I do not know if you can see it from here, 
but his name is Ted Sieong. The media has identified him as a PRC, 
People's Republic of China, communist agent. He gave hundreds of 
thousands of dollars to the Clinton-Gore campaign and the Democratic 
National Committee. He had dinner with the President. He appeared at 
the temple, the famous temple with Al Gore.
  Ted Sieong, whose business is cigarettes, and you have heard that 
referred to here, bought and then changed a Chinese newspaper in Los 
Angeles to support the People's Republic of China communist viewpoint 
against Taiwan. Even worse, this Ted Sieong guy you are looking at 
right here, is in business with Thung Bun Ma, the other man identified 
in the picture, over here, people who have been at the White House.
  Thung Bun Ma is the leading Cambodian heroin kingpin that is 
exporting heroin into this country, into the arms of our children. He 
sponsored the coup, and I want you to listen to this now, these are the 
people we are trying to get to come here and testify, he sponsored the 
coup in Phnom Penh in Cambodia that brought Hun Sen, you know who he 
is, they brought him to power, reinstating the deadly Khmer Rouge 
influence. Do you remember the Killing Fields? Have any of you seen 
that? That murdered over 2 million people.
  These are the kind of thugs we are talking about, trying to get the 
President to cooperate with you and I to bring here. I wrote to 
Secretary Albright in January, 5 months ago, to learn more about these 
thugs. I requested again in February, asking the Secretary of State to 
accelerate the process, and my committee has yet to hear back one word.
  Mr. Speaker, here are about 50 news accounts. This is not just me 
saying it. It is not just people on our side of the aisle. This is the 
news media from across the country and the world that speaks to the 
proxy have just mentioned. These are the people we want to come back 
here and to testify. I will include these articles for the Record.
  Mr. Speaker, let me say just one more time, on a bipartisan basis, we 
are urging, we are pleading with the President of the United States to 
use his legal means, legal means, to get these people to come forward 
and tell the truth about the national security breaches and the 
economic espionage that is costing thousands of Johns in this country, 
but, more than that, is jeopardizing the future of this democracy. Let 
that is all we are asking for.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the articles referred to earlier for the 
Record.

              [From the Los Angeles Times, Oct. 30, 1996]

                 Fund-Raiser Huang Surfaces, Testifies

                         (By Robert L. Jackson)

       Washington.--Democratic fund-raiser John Huang emerged from 
     hiding Tuesday and insisted that his evasion of a subpoena in 
     recent days did not mean he wanted ``to run away from the 
     issue'' of his past activities as a Commerce Department 
     official or a Democratic Party fund-raiser.
       Huang, who is at the center of a controversy over illegal 
     campaign contributions, testified for more than four hours 
     behind closed doors in a freedom-of-information civil suit 
     brought by a conservative legal organization seeking to show 
     that Commerce Department trade missions overseas solicited 
     money for the Democrats.
       A videotape of his testimony released later showed he took 
     the position that he never acted illegally or improperly. He 
     denied that there were any fund-raising aspects to overseas 
     trade missions in which he participated.
       Even as Huang surfaced for questioning. Republicans stepped 
     up their assault on the issue of Democratic fund-raising. 
     Sen. John McCain of Arizona and four Republican House 
     committee chairmen asked Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to apply for 
     the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate not 
     only Huang's activities, but also a variety of other alleged 
     improprieties by Democrats in raising funds from foreign 
     sources.
       The Republicans accused Huang of ``the apparent deliberate 
     flaunting of federal election law . . . with the apparent 
     cooperation of President Clinton and Vice President [Al] Gore 
     and the Democratic National Committee.''
       McCain and the four House chairmen--Bill Thomas of 
     Bakersfield, William F. Clinger Jr. of Pennsylvania, Benjamin 
     A. Gilman of New York and Gerald B.H. Solomon of New York--
     told Reno that the Justice Department could not be counted on 
     to carry out an inquiry that will be considered fair and free 
     of outside influence.
       For that reason, they called on Reno to ask a special 
     federal court to name an independent counsel. Reno gave no 
     immediate reply.
       Huang, of Los Angeles, resigned from the Commerce 
     Department in December to join the staff of the Democratic 
     National Committee--where his fund-raising activities led to 
     questions that forced him into hiding earlier this month. At 
     the DNC. Huang solicited more than $800,000 from Asian 
     interests that violated or may have skirted the prohibition 
     on foreign contributions to American political campaigns.
       He was not asked about his DNC Activities Tuesday because 
     the Judicial Watch civil suit is limited to Huang's work at 
     Commerce, and his lawyers raised objections to questions they 
     felt went beyond that.
       On the subject of his work at Commerce, Huang said he had 
     ``played a very passive role'' in the trade missions at issue 
     in the law-suit. ``The whole Commerce Department objective 
     was to try to help American business overseas.''

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Judicial Watch attorney Larry Klayman said he may have more 
     questions today if a federal judge permits them.
       Huang said he never traveled on any of the foreign trade 
     missions, which were led by the late Commerce Secretary 
     Ronald H. Brown. And described his only role as participating 
     in ``preparation meetings'' at the department before some 
     overseas trips.
       While at Commerce. Huang said, he also never had sought to 
     advance the interests of the world-wide Lippo Group, in which 
     he had been an executive before joining the government. Lippo 
     Group is an Indonesian conglomerate founded by the wealthy 
     Riady family, who have been longtime Clinton supporters.
       Huang did acknowledge that over the years he had met 
     ``quite a few times'' at the White House with the president 
     and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and members of the 
     Riady family. He did not describe the purpose of those 
     meetings or say what had been discussed.
       While hiding from public view. Huang said, he felt 
     encouraged when Asian American friends told him that Mrs. 
     Clinton had said: ``John's a friend of mine. We all support 
     him.''
       Huang insisted that he had not been dodging federal 
     marshals who last week tried to serve him with a subpoena in 
     the Judicial Watch suit, but rather was avoiding 
     ``harassment'' by news media representation seeking to 
     question him about his fund-raising.
       ``I didn't think it was the proper time to show up,'' he 
     said, adding that he spoke by phone from time to time with 
     Democratic committee officials who did not press him as to 
     his whereabouts.
       Huang, who was a high-ranking official with Lippo Group 
     banking enterprises for nine years, said he accepted the 
     Commerce Department position in 1994 because ``as a member of 
     the Asian American community, we have so few working for the 
     government.''
       He charged that press reports about his fund-raising ``have 
     tainted the reputation of anyone in our Asian American 
     community.''
       In calling for the appointment of an independent counsel, 
     the Republicans cited a number of questionable contributions, 
     including:
       $450,000 from Arief and Soroya Wiriadinata, an Indonesian 
     couple who lived in Washington's Virginia suburbs before 
     returning to Indonesia at the end of last year.
       $325,000 from Yogesh Gandhi, a great-grandnephew of Mahatma 
     Gandhi.
       $250,000 from a South Korean company called Cheong Am 
     America.
       $140,000 from individuals at a fund-raiser in April at a 
     Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights.
       In a related development, the Democratic committee 
     continued to delay filing a preelection report that would 
     disclose contributions or expenditures made during the first 
     * * *.

[[Page H3655]]

       However, the DNC did file with the Federal Election 
     Commission what party representatives said was a comparable 
     set of ``raw data.'' Ann McBride, president of Common Cause, 
     the nonpartisan citizens lobby, termed illegal and 
     ``outrageous'' the Democrats failure to file a formal 
     preelection disclosure report.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Times, Oct. 30, 1996]

         5 GOP Lawmakers Ask Reno for Outside Probe of Funding

                            (By Jerry Seper)

       The chairmen of four House committees and a senator 
     yesterday formally called on Attorney General Janet Reno to 
     seek the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate 
     suspected illegal campaign activities by the Clinton 
     administration and the Democratic National Committee.
       In a letter prompted by ongoing probes into the campaign 
     activities of the Lippo Group, a $6 billion Indonesian real 
     estate and investment conglomerate, the Republican lawmakers 
     cited ``eight specific instances'' in which the 
     administration and the DNC may have violated federal campaign 
     laws.
       They asked that a decision in the request be made by Miss 
     Reno no later than Friday. Justice Department officials had 
     no comment yesterday.
       ``The magnitude of the funds involved, the high rank of the 
     officials involved and the potential knowing and willful 
     violations committed make it impossible for any officials of 
     this administration's Justice Department to carry out an 
     investigation that will be considered fair and free of 
     outside influence,'' they said.
       * * * Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the House 
     Oversight Committee; William F. Clinger of Pennsylvania, 
     chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight 
     Committee; Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, chairman of the 
     House International Relations Committee; Gerald B.H. Solomon 
     of New York, chairman of the House Rules Committee; and Sen. 
     John McCain of Arizona.
       Mr. McCain, who has questioned whether ``foreign 
     influence'' altered U.S. foreign policy on Indonesia, was the 
     first to ask Miss Reno to appoint an independent counsel. He 
     has said Congress needs to know whether President Clinton 
     arranged a ``quid pro quo'' to soften human rights policy on 
     Indonesia in exchange for the contributions.
       The eight areas cited were:
       The involvement of Mr. Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and 
     the DNC in questionable campaign contributions from Cheong Am 
     America, a South Korean electronics firm whose illegal 
     $250,000 donation was returned, and Arief and Soraya 
     Wiriadinata, Indonesian landscapers who gave $452,000 to the 
     DNC while living in Arlington.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       The acceptance of questionable contributions from Yogesh 
     Gandhi, from individuals at the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in 
     Los Angeles, from individuals at the Hay-Adams Hotel in 
     Washington and from the Wiriadinatas.
       The fund-raising activities of DNC executive and former 
     Commerce Department official John Huang.
       The possible improper influence of official government 
     decisions as a result of campaign contributions to the DNC by 
     associates and allies of Mochtar Riady, who controlled Lippo.
       The DNC's use of tax-exempt facilities at the Hsi Lai 
     Temple for fund-raising purposes.
       The possible attempt by Mr. Huang, with either the 
     knowledge or approval of the DNC, to obstruct an 
     investigation of his activities by evading a subpoena.
       The DNC's September FEC report listing the DNC's address as 
     the home address of at least 31 contributors.
       At the center of GOP concerns are the millions of dollars 
     in contributions to the DNC solicited by Mr. Huang, the 
     group's vice chairman for finance.
                                  ____


                 [From the Washington Times, Nov. 1996]

      Foreign-Money Scandal Grows as $15 Million Offer is Revealed

                            (By Jerry Seper)

       A local businessman told two of Taiwan's leading newspapers 
     this week he was present when the chief financial manager of 
     the ruling Nationalist Party offered to donate $15 million to 
     President Clinton's re-election campaign.
       The businessman said the offer was made to Mark E. 
     Middleton, an Arkansas lawyer and former top aide to White 
     House senior adviser Thomas F. ``Mack'' McLarty. Federal 
     election laws forbid such a contribution from foreign 
     residents, and there is no record the donation was ever made.
       News of the offer capped a day in which:
       The White House said there are two John Huangs--one a fund-
     raiser embroiled in a scandal over contributions to the 
     Democratic National Committee, the other, a former IRS 
     employee working on Vice President Al Gore's ``reinventing 
     government'' initiative. A John Huang visited the White House 
     78 times in the last 15 months. The White House says the 
     visits weren't all by the DNC fund-raiser--but it doesn't 
     know how many were.
       The DNC filed its overdue financial report, which revealed 
     it returned a $10,000 contribution on Oct. 16 to Kyung Hoon 
     Lee, chairman of Cheong Am America Inc., the South Korean 
     electronics company that illegally donated $250,000 to the 
     Democrats earlier this year.
       In the Taiwanese connection, Mr. Middleton, who left the 
     White House in February 1995 to work in Washington as an 
     international business consultant, arranged a controversial 
     meeting in September 1995 between Mr. Clinton and the 
     Nationalist Party financial officer, Liu Tai-ying, during a 
     critical moment in U.S.-Taiwan relations, said businessman 
     Chen Chao-ping.
       The Los Angeles Times said Mr. Middleton escorted Mr. Liu 
     to the Clinton meeting after telling the Taiwanese party 
     chief he had ``a direct channel'' to the White House.
       At the time, relations with China had plummeted to the 
     lowest point in years after Mr. Clinton allowed Taiwan's 
     president, Lee Teng-hui, to visit Cornell University in June 
     1995, breaking a pattern of barring Taiwan's leaders from 
     U.S. visits. China responded with missile tests at sea near 
     Taiwan, causing Taiwan's stock market to plunge and 
     international airlines to reroute flights.
       Mr. Middleton denied, in a statement, ever soliciting funds 
     for the DNC or Mr. Clinton during several business trips to 
     Taiwan, or arranging for ``any contributions to the DNC or 
     any candidate from any foreign source.'' He said, ``Any 
     statements to the contrary are completely false.''
       Congressional investigators are looking into Mr. 
     Middleton's Taiwanese contacts, along with those of James C. 
     Wood, another Arkansas lawyer and friend of Democratic fund-
     raiser John Huang, to determine if they used their White 
     House ties to solicit contributions from Taiwanese 
     businessmen and government officials.
       Both Mr. Middleton and Mr. Wood are friends and confidants 
     of Mr. McLarty's.
       Meanwhile, the Justice Department is reviewing accusations 
     of illegal campaign activities by the White House and the 
     Democratic National Committee to determined if calls by 
     Republican lawmakers for the appointment of an independent 
     counsel is warranted.
       The review, required under the Independent Counsel Statute, 
     will include a 30-day preliminary inquiry to determine if 
     suspicions that campaign funds were illegally sought and 
     delivered to the DNC and the Clinton administration are 
     credible and if a formal, 90-day criminal probe is warranted.
       That criminal probe would determine whether Attorney 
     General Janet Reno should ask a federal appeals court panel 
     to appoint an independent counsel.
       Earlier this week, the chairmen of four House committees 
     and a senator called on Miss Reno to seek the appointment of 
     an outside counsel to investigate suspected illegal campaign 
     activities. Targeting the Lippo Group, a $6 billion 
     Indonesian real estate and investment conglomerate, the 
     lawmakers cites ``eight specific instances'' in which the 
     White House and the DNC may have violated federal campaign 
     laws.
       They said the ``magnitude of the funds involved, the high 
     rank of the officials involved and the potential knowing and 
     willful violations committed'' made it impossible for the 
     Clinton Justice Department to carry out an investigation 
     ``that will be considered fair and free of outside 
     influence.''
       The letter was signed by Reps. Bill Thomas of California, 
     chairman of the House Oversight Committee; William F. Clinger 
     of Pennsylvania, chairman of the House Government Reform and 
     Oversight Committee; Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, chairman 
     of the House International Relations Committee; Gerald B.H. 
     Solomon of New York, chairman of the House Rules Committee; 
     and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
       Mr. McCain has questioned whether ``foreign influence'' 
     altered U.S. foreign policy on Indonesia and has said 
     Congress needs to know if Mr. Clinton arranged a ``quid pro 
     quo'' to soften human rights policy on Indonesia in exchange 
     for the contributions.
       During a press briefing on Thursday, Miss Reno acknowledged 
     she had received the request, saying, ``We are looking at it 
     in the context of the Independent Counsel Statute.'' She said 
     the act ``prescribes certain deadlines, and we will operate 
     under that and do everything we can based on the evidence and 
     the law.''
       Miss Reno said the matter had been referred to the 
     department's public integrity section, which is staffed by 
     career lawyers who investigate and prosecute corruption cases 
     involving public officials and the electoral system.
       Mr. Wood, who has been unavailable for comment, was named 
     in 1995 to head the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), a 
     private foundation on contract to the State Department to 
     maintain unofficial ties with Taiwan. As head of the AIT, he 
     effectively served as U.S. ambassador to Taiwan.
       Published reports said senior officials in Taiwan 
     complained that Mr. Wood pressured businessmen for donations, 
     suggesting Mr. Clinton should be rewarded for his pro-Taiwan 
     policies. On a visit to Taiwan this year, Mr. Wood was 
     accompanied by Mr. Huang in what the DNC said was a fund-
     raising trip.
       Mr. Wood practices international-trade law in Washington 
     and has clients with economic interests in China and Taiwan.
       Mr. Middleton helped raise $4 million in the 1992 Clinton 
     presidential campaign.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Times, Nov. 27, 1996]

            Commerce Dept. Queried on Lippo, Vietnam Policy

                            (By Jerry Seper)

       The chairman of a House committee probing foreign-linked 
     campaign gifts to the

[[Page H3656]]

     Democratic Party asked Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor 
     yesterday to explain the role three Lippo executives played 
     in President Clinton's 1994 decision to end a 30-year trade 
     embargo with Vietnam.
       Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon, the chairman of the House 
     International Relations Committee, demanded ``all 
     information'' concerning contacts, agreements or ``other 
     dealings'' involving the Lippo Group; Mochtar Riady, the 
     company's founder; his son. James, a Lippo executive; and 
     John Huang, a former Lippo and Commerce Department official, 
     in ``any influence of U.S. policy and the normalization of 
     relations with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.''
       In a letter, the New York Republican said he wants 
     clarification on Vietnam policy meetings called and attended 
     by Mr. Huang while he was deputy assistant secretary of 
     international economic policy at Commerce and on efforts by 
     Lippo to end the Vietnam embargo.
       In a handwritten note on the bottom of the two-page letter. 
     Mr. Solomon said: ``This is important, I ask you.''
       Mr. Huang is at the center of a controversy over foreign-
     linked campaign donations to Mr. Clinton and the Democratic 
     National Committee.
       After the embargo was lifted, talks began within the 
     administration on formulating trade policies toward Vietnam. 
     Mr. Huang moved from Lippo to the Commerce Department during 
     this process and began a vigorous campaign to open Vietnam to 
     U.S. trade.
       Mr. Solomon wants to know whether Lippo sought to influence 
     U.S. policy toward Vietnam while the company was making trade 
     overtures to that country. He asked Mr. Kantor for similar 
     documents in October. Mr. Kantor responded with some but did 
     not include Vietnam-related files.
       Commerce spokeswoman Maria Cardona said yesterday Mr. 
     Kantor had not seen the letter and therefore had no comment.
       The panel's interest in Lippo's role in the end of the 
     embargo surfaced in October When it got Mr. Huang's 
     appointment calendars and found that he began an aggressive 
     campaign for a new trade policy toward Vietnam a day after 
     his July 1994 appointment. He pushed that policy for the next 
     17 months while Lippo, his former employer, sought to expand 
     its investment empire into Vietnam.
       Mr. Huang's Commerce Department calendars show that 
     immediately after he left Lippo with a $780,000 bonus, he 
     began a series of meetings with White House officials, key 
     associates, international bankers and corporate executives to 
     discuss an expansion of trade with Vietnam.
       Republicans have suggested his activities on Vietnam 
     represented a conflict of interest, and they have called for 
     congressional hearings and the appointment of an independent 
     counsel to investigate the matter.
       The Justice Department is reviewing a request by Mr. 
     Solomon and the chairmen of three other House committees for 
     the appointment of an independent counsel. Assistant Attorney 
     General Andrew Fois has said the case is being examined by 
     the department's public integrity section.
       Mr. Huang's first involvement in Vietnam policy as a deputy 
     assistant secretary came on his first day on the job, July 
     19, 1994, when he scheduled a 9 a.m. meeting on ``U.S.-
     Vietnam policy.''
       Mr. Clinton lifted the Vietnam embargo on Feb. 4, 1994, 
     reneging on a 1992 campaign pledge to first get a ``full 
     accounting'' of Americans missing from the Vietnam War.
       Mr. Solomon, in his letter, asked Mr. Kantor to explain 
     meetings Mr. Huang had in July and October 1994 and in 
     January, February and August 1995 that are listed as Vietnam-
     related.
       Mr. Solomon also asked for information on an April 1993 
     meeting involving Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown and 40 
     Asian community leaders in Los Angeles to discuss most-
     favored-nation trade status for China and the normalization 
     of relations with Vietnam.
       Mr. Huang, then an official at Lippo Bank in Los Angeles, 
     attended that session, congressional investigators said.
       At least 11 House panels, including Mr. Solomon's, are 
     probing foreign contributions to the DNC, looking at Mr. 
     Huang's ties to Vietnam policy, and examining his appointment 
     calendars to determine with whom he met, what was said and 
     what agreements were reached, particularly those that could 
     directly benefit Lippo.
       While Mr. Huang was at the Commerce Department, the Lippo 
     Group, based in Indonesia, sought to expand its $6.9 billion 
     investment empire into Vietnam.
       Mochtar Riady led a trade mission of Asian bankers to 
     Vietnam in September 1993. Lippo opened trade offices in Ho 
     Chi Minh City and Hanoi after Mr. Riady's visit.
       James Riady, Lippo's deputy chairman, has said Mr. Huang 
     was ``my man in the American government.''
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Dec. 3, 1996]

        Letters Show How Indonesian Donor Family Lobbied Clinton

                          (By Alison Mitchell)

       Washington, Dec. 2.--Mochtar Riady, an Indonesian 
     businessman with longstanding ties to President Clinton, 
     recommends to the President that the United States normalize 
     ties to Vietnam and pursue economic engagement with China.
       Mark Grobmyer, an Arkansas businessman, lets Mr. Clinton 
     know that Indonesia's President Suharto would like to address 
     the Group of Seven industrial nations.
       And an Alabama insurance executive asks Vice President Al 
     Gore for a letter congratulating his company for a venture 
     with a Riady company.
       These letters--details of which were made available today 
     by White House officials--are among more than a dozen pieces 
     of correspondence to and from the White House concerning the 
     Riady family. White House officials are preparing to turn 
     over the documents to Congressional committees looking into 
     questionable fund-raising practices by the Democratic 
     National Committee.
       White House officials said they were still culling records 
     and could not yet say whether more letters would be found or 
     when the materials would be delivered to Congress.
       Representative Gerald B. Solomon, the chairman of the House 
     Rules Committee, wrote a letter to the White House asking why 
     he had not been told of the correspondence in October when he 
     asked for information about the Riadys from Commerce 
     Secretary Mickey Kantor.
       ``I would appreciate convincing assurances that it was not 
     an attempt to cover up embarrassing information before the 
     election,'' Mr. Solomon, Republican of New York, said.
       As described by White House officials, the letters cast 
     little light on the questions Republicans are most interested 
     in: whether the Riady and their associates affected American 
     policy toward Asia or benefited from helping raise millions 
     in donations for the Democratic committee.
       Replies to the Riadys and their associates from the 
     President and Vice President, also described by the White 
     House, often seemed little more than form letters. Some of 
     the correspondence was social. Mr. Clinton sent a brief 
     birthday note to Mr. Riady on May 7, 1993, for instance.
       But the letters do help paint a fuller picture of the 
     relationship between the Clinton White House and the Riady 
     family, which became a focus of Republican attacks after the 
     Democratic National Committee suspended John Huang, a fund-
     raiser who had been a top executive in the United States for 
     the American interests of the Riady family.
       In a four-page letter to Mr. Clinton on March 9, 1993, 
     Mochtar Riady thanked the President for seeing him briefly 
     during Inaugural festivities and then offered detailed advice 
     about how the United States should approach trade relations 
     with Asia.
       He argued that the Administration should normalize 
     relations with Vietnam, saying in passing that he had two 
     managers there looking for investment opportunities. Mr. 
     Riady said Suharto, the Indonesian ruler, wanted to attend 
     the G-7 summit. And he urged that the Administration allow 
     economic engagement with China as the best way to bring about 
     reform. Mr. Clinton in 1992 had assailed President George 
     Bush for seeking to use economic engagement to change China. 
     But once in office, he followed essentially the same policy.
       Mr. Clinton has acknowledged discussing policy with Mr. 
     Riady's son James, once an Arkansas businessman, but said Mr. 
     Riady never influenced policy decisions. Speaking to 
     reporters today, Mr. Clinton the March 1993 letter was ``a 
     letter like tens of thousands of other letters I get.'' He 
     called it ``a straightforward policy letter, the kind of 
     thing that I think people ought to feel free to write the 
     President about.''
       Michael D. McCurry, the White House press secretary, said 
     that the President had been interested in input from business 
     executives regarding economic policy in Asia. And while the 
     Administration decided in 1994 to lift the United States 
     embargo against Vietnam, Mr. McCurry said that ``to suggest 
     that any particular individual's views, whether it be a 
     financial contributor or not, would have a disproportionate 
     thinking on the work of the Administration is a little bit 
     less than credible.''
       In another letter to Mr. Clinton in March 1993, Mr. 
     Grobmyer a Little Rock lawyer who has been active with the 
     Riadys and others in Asian business dealings, wrote to Mr. 
     Clinton about a recent trip he took to Asia. He too said that 
     Mr. Suharto wanted to address a meeting of the Group of Seven 
     in Tokyo.
       Mr. Grobmyer said he had already spoken to Thomas F. 
     McLarty 3d, then the White House chief of staff, and Nancy 
     Soderberg, an official at the National Security Council, 
     about his trip. He said the Riadys had helped him in his 
     travels and attached a draft thank you note that he said the 
     President might consider sending to them, with suggestions on 
     increasing American competitiveness in Asia. There is no sign 
     among the correspondence that Mr. Clinton sent such a letter 
     to the Riadys and the United States did not back Mr. 
     Suharto's attendance at the meeting. Instead, Mr. Clinton met 
     Mr. Suharto in Tokyo during the summit.
       Vice President Gore also got a letter in 1994 about the 
     Riadys. The White House has found the second page of a letter 
     to the Vice President from W. Blount of the Protective Life 
     Corporation saying that his company was forming a joint 
     venture with one of the Riady companies, the Lippo Group. He 
     asked for a letter of congratulations, noting that it would 
     help with the Riadys if the letter affirmed that his company 
     was known to the Administration. Several months later the 
     Vice President wrote to James Riady expressing 
     congratulations on the joint venture.

[[Page H3657]]

                 [From the Washington Times, Dec. 1996]

           While Lippo Eyed Vietnam, Huang Pushed at Commerce

                            (By Jerry Seper)

       John Huang began aggressively arguing for a new U.S. trade 
     policy toward Vietnam only one day after his July 1994 
     appointment as a top Commerce Department official--and pushed 
     the idea for the next 17 months while his former employer, 
     the Lippo Group, sought to expand its investment empire into 
     Vietnam.
       Republican legislators believe Mr. Huang's efforts to open 
     Vietnamese markets after his former company paid him a 
     $780,000 bonus is a conflict of interest, and they have 
     called for congressional hearings and the appointment of an 
     independent counsel to investigate the matter.
       ``Mr. Huang's prior involvement with Lippo and his 
     activities at Commerce with regard to Vietnam is an absolute 
     conflict of interest,'' says Rep. Gerald B. H. Solomon, New 
     York Republican and chairman of the House Rules Committee. 
     ``It's just outrageous that these kinds of things can happen, 
     these kinds of things can happen, and we're going to insist 
     that we get to the bottom of it.
       ``If this was Wall Street or the New York Stock Exchange, 
     this kind of insider information would result in people going 
     to jail.''
       The Justice Department is now reviewing a request by Mr. 
     Solomon and the chairmen of three other House committees, 
     along with Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, for the 
     appointment of an independent counsel. Assistant Attorney 
     General Andrew Fois says the case is being examined by the 
     department's Public Integrity Section.
       Mr. Huang's attorney, John C. Keeney Jr., says he and his 
     client ``were not in a position to respond'' to questions 
     concerning the Vietnam accusations.
       Now at the center of a growing controversy over foreign-
     linked campaign donations to President Clinton and the 
     Democratic National Committee, Mr. Huang met several times 
     with White House officials, key friends and associates of Mr. 
     Clinton, international bankers, and corporate executives to 
     discuss an expansion of trade ties with Vietnam, according to 
     his personal appointment calendars.
       In fact, his first involvement in the topic as a deputy 
     assistant secretary for international trade came during his 
     first full day on the job, July 19, 1994, when he scheduled a 
     9 a.m. meeting on ``U.S.-Vietnam policy.'' Several other 
     meetings are listed in his personal calendars as Vietnam-
     related.
       Mr. Clinton, discarding a 1992 campaign pledge for a ``full 
     accounting'' of Americans missing in action during the 
     Vietnam War, ended a 30-year trade embargo against Vietnam in 
     February 1994. Several companies, including the Lippo Group 
     and its U.S. affiliates, were scrambling to take advantage of 
     new market potential.
       Five months after the embargo was listed, while talks 
     continued on formulating new trade policies with Vietnam, Mr. 
     Huang moved to Commerce with his $780,000 Lippo bonus and 
     immediately began a vigorous campaign to open up that country 
     to U.S. trade.
       Three House committees probing suspected illegal foreign 
     contributions to Mr. Clinton and the DNC are looking into Mr. 
     Huang's ties to Vietnam trade agreements and have begun to 
     examine his appointment calendars to determine with whom he 
     met, what was said and what agreements were reached--
     particularly those that might have benefited the Lippo Group 
     directly.
       Investigators also have focused on assertions by James 
     Riady, deputy chairman at Lippo and son of Lippo's owner, 
     Mochtar Riady, that Mr. Huang was ``my man in the American 
     government.''
       Mr. Solomon says preliminary inquiries have shown that 
     ``extremely large contributions'' were made during the 1996 
     presidential campaign but it is not clear what concerns the 
     Lippo Group had in giving the money or what the company 
     received in return.
       The request for an independent counsel is backed by Mr. 
     Solomon; Mr. McCain; and Reps. Bill Thomas of California, 
     chairman of the House Oversight Committee, William F. Clinger 
     of Pennsylvania, chairman of the House Government Reform and 
     Oversight Committee, and Benjamin A. Gilman of New York, 
     chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
       Eight specific areas of concern, including ``the fund-
     raising activities of DNC executive and former Commerce 
     Department official John Huang,'' were cited.
       According to Mr. Huang's calendars, copies of which have 
     been obtained by the committees, he scheduled several 
     Vietnam-related meetings with government and corporate 
     officials between his 1994 appointment and his December 1995 
     resignation to join the DNC as a fund-raiser.
       At the time, the Jakarta-based Lippo Group, where Mr. Huang 
     was a banking executive and vice chairman, was seeking White 
     House and Commerce Department help in expanding its $6.9 
     billion real estate and investment holdings into Vietnam, 
     where the firm had huge financial interests.
       Mochtar Riady had led a trade mission of Asian bankers to 
     Vietnam in September 1993 to appraise business opportunities 
     there--five months before Mr. Clinton's decision to lift the 
     embargo. By early 1995, the firm had put together a joint 
     marketing venture with First Union Corp. of North Carolina to 
     finance trade efforts in Southeast Asia.
       James Riady and Mr. Huang are longtime friends of Mr. 
     Clinton and were officers at Worthen National Bank in Little 
     Rock (which has become Boatmen's Bank of Little Rock, a 
     subsidiary of Boatmen's Bank of St. Louis) when Mr. Clinton 
     was the governor of Arkansas. In 1992, they approved a $3.5 
     million loan to the Clinton presidential campaign just before 
     the New York primary.
       Mr. Huang also raised $250,000 in contributions for the 
     1992 race and was responsible for raising $4 million to $5 
     million in donations for Democrats in 1996.
       Most actively involved in the Vietnam venture was Lippo 
     Ltd., a privately held finance and real estate subsidiary of 
     the Lippo Group. the firm reported $3.6 billion in assets, 
     with 143 subsidiaries in 11 countries. The Riady family 
     controls 54 percent of Lippo Ltd. stock and oversees it 
     subsidiaries, one of which was Worthen.
       Also involved was Lippo Bank, publicly held and based in 
     Jakarta. With assets of $3.3 billion, it has more than 260 
     branches in 90 cities in Indonesia, as well as offices in 
     Vietnam and California.
                                  ____


                 [From the Washington Times, Dec. 1996]

                    Secrecy on Riady Letters Ripped


                     solomon warns of more scrutiny

                    (By Jerry Seper and Paul Bedard)

       A House committee chairman probing campaign contributions 
     to the Democratic Party yesterday accused the White House of 
     balking at Congress' request for letters detailing the 
     controversy while it conducts a public-relations campaign 
     through the press.
       ``I found it offensive that instead of paying me the 
     courtesy of faxing the March 1993 letter from Mochtar Riady, 
     the White House prefers to let the press view the Clinton-
     Riady correspondence under controlled conditions and with its 
     own self-serving spin,'' said House Rules Committee Chairman 
     Gerald B.H. Solomon, New York Republican.
       ``For four years, this has been the standard White House 
     reaction to exposure of its own actions. The White House is 
     now in no position to complain of increased congressional 
     scrutiny,'' he said. ``In fact, they can count on it.''
       The complaint came as the White House released new details 
     on the letters between the president and Indonesian 
     billionaire Mochtar Riady and his son, James, but continued 
     to put off congressional demands for the documents.
       Mr. Solomon, who Monday denounced the White House's refusal 
     to release documents, said a March 9, 1993, letter from 
     Mochtar Riady calling for an end to a 30-year trade embargo 
     on communist Vietnam was critical in determining the scope of 
     pending hearings and whether they should be conducted by a 
     special or standing committee.
       He said the hearings are necessary because of Attorney 
     General Janet Reno's decision last week to reject his request 
     for the appointment of an independent counsel to look into 
     accusations of campaign-finance irregularities.
       The White House letters suggest a strong friendship between 
     the Riady family, which runs the Lippo Group, and the 
     president and his aides, as well as a reliance by Mr. Clinton 
     on the Riadys' advice on Asia policy. A key to this 
     relationship is the March 1993 letter calling on Mr. Clinton 
     to lift the embargo. The president did so in February 1994.
       In that letter, Mr. Riady thanked Mr. Clinton for meeting 
     with him on Inauguration Day in 1993 and suggested that 
     normalizing business relations would snowball into political 
     reforms in the communist country. He also urged Mr. Clinton 
     to continue U.S. engagement in China and suggested he let 
     Indonesian President Suharto attend the 1993 Group of Seven 
     economic summit in Tokyo.
       The White House said Mr. Clinton responded by referring Mr. 
     Riady's letter to Robert E. Rubin, who at the time was Mr. 
     Clinton's top economic-policy adviser and now is Treasury 
     secretary.
       The letters detailing the president's links to Mochtar 
     Riady also indicate that former Democratic National Committee 
     fund-raiser John Huang wielded influence over the president. 
     For example, after the White House delayed nearly two months 
     in writing a letter congratulating Mr. Riady for receiving an 
     award from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, Mr. Huang 
     weighed in.
       In April this year, he wrote Nancy Hernreich, deputy 
     assistant to the president and director of Oval Office 
     operations, seeking a Clinton letter. Seven days later, Mr. 
     Clinton wrote a congratulatory note to Mr. Riady.
       The White House said it will release the texts of the 
     letters once it completes its search for all records of the 
     Clinton-Riady relationship.
       Many of the letters also detail the relationship between 
     the president and his aides and James Riady, the chairman of 
     Lippo and a longtime Clinton friend.
       A Clinton associate, Little Rock businessman Mark Grobmyer, 
     wrote the president about his May 1993 trip to Indonesia and 
     Asia and asked him to write James Riady a thank-you note for 
     aiding in the trip. In May 1993, the president wrote to Mr. 
     Riady, applauding his efforts to strengthen U.S. business 
     ties to Asia. He also thanked Mr. Riady for giving him a 
     specially made nameplate.
       The White House also detailed a letter from William E. 
     Blount of Protective Life Corp., whose firm joined in a 
     venture with Lippo in Asia. In January 1994, Mr. Blount asked 
     Vice President Al Gore for a letter

[[Page H3658]]

     congratulating the firms on the venture. That April, Mr. Gore 
     wrote Mr. Riady to express the administration's satisfaction 
     with the venture.
                                  ____


                 [From the Washington Times, Dec. 1996]

           Clinton Says Lippo Letter Didn't Sway Hanoi Policy

                    (By Jerry Seper and Paul Bedard)

       President Clinton acknowledged yesterday that he received a 
     letter from the head of the Indonesia-based Lippo Group 
     seeking normalization of trade relations with Vietnam, but he 
     denied the 1993 letter influenced his decision to end a 30-
     year trade embargo on that country.
       The chairman of a House committee probing the role of three 
     Lippo executives in the decision to end the embargo angrily 
     denounced what he called a possible ``cover-up'' in Mr. 
     Clinton's failure to release the letter from Mochtar Riady, 
     Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon, New York Republican, demanded that 
     the president immediately make it public to avoid the 
     perception of an ``obstruction of justice.''
       Mr. Solomon, chairman of the House Rules Committee, had 
     asked the White House and the Commerce Department in October 
     for all communications, correspondence or ``any other 
     dealings'' involving Lippo; Mr. Riady; his son, James, a 
     Lippo executive; and John Huang, former Lippo and Commerce 
     official, regarding efforts to ``influence'' U.S. trade 
     policy with Vietnam.
       The committee chairman also sought clarification on Vietnam 
     policy meetings called by Mr. Huang while a deputy assistant 
     secretary for international economic policy at Commerce and 
     on Lippo efforts to end the embargo at a time when it was 
     moving its $6.9 billion real estate and investment empire 
     into Vietnam.
       ``Failure to do so could only be construed . . . as a 
     continuation of the pattern of stonewalling begun before the 
     recent elections,'' Mr. Solomon said. ``There could be no 
     other possible explanation of your failure to produce the 
     letter. Such an invitation would also invite suspicions of 
     obstruction of justice, whether such suspicions are warranted 
     or not.''
       Mr. Clinton promised to make the letter available, but not 
     before he first delivers it to congressional oversight 
     committees--probably sometime next week. Its existence was 
     first reported yesterday by the Wall Street Journal.
       ``It's a letter like tens of thousands of other letters I 
     get, people suggesting every day . . . what our policy ought 
     to be in various areas,'' Mr. Clinton told reporters at a 
     ceremony to honor spaceshuttle astronaut Shannon Lucid. ``You 
     will see it's a straightforward policy letter, the kind of 
     thing that I think people ought to feel free to write the 
     president about.''
       Mr. Clinton also dismissed threats of hearings. ``They'll 
     have to do their business. They can do whatever they think is 
     right. I'm going to spend my time working on what I can do,'' 
     he said.
       His spokesman, Michael McCurry, tried to say there was 
     nothing new in the Journal's story. He said that the letter's 
     existence was ``largely known'' to other reporters and that 
     Mr. Riady's representative had made reference to the letter's 
     having been sent.
       ``I think we never formally disputed the notion that there 
     was such a piece of correspondence from Mr. Mochtar Riady,'' 
     Mr. McCurry said.
       The letter was not released, he said, because the 
     administration wanted first to answer congressional inquiries 
     about the affair.
       Mr. McCurry also rejected suggestions that Mr. Riady 
     influenced policy toward Vietnam: ``To suggest that any 
     particular individual's views, whether it be a financial 
     contributor or not, would have a disproportionate thinking on 
     the work of the administration is a little bit less than 
     credible,'' he said.
       The March 9, 1993, letter called on Mr. Clinton to 
     normalize relations with Vietnam, noting that two Lippo 
     executives were scouting investment opportunities there. The 
     president responded on April 5, 1993, saying the letter had 
     been sent to Robert E. Rubin, then chairman of the White 
     House National Economic Council and now Treasury secretary.
       Mr. Huang and the Riadys are at the center of a growing 
     criticism over foreign-linked campaign donations to Mr. 
     Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, with as many 
     as 11 House committees looking into the matter.
       James Riady and Mr. Huang were among 14 donors of $100,000 
     or more to the 1993 Clinton inaugural festivities--a 
     contribution coming at a time when the administration was 
     considering a change in U.S.-Vietnam relations.
       The rules panel has targeted Lippo's role in the 
     president's Feb. 4, 1994, decision to end the Vietnam embargo 
     despite a 1992 campaign pledge to first get a ``full 
     accounting'' of Americans missing from the Vietnam War.
       After the embargo was lifted, talks began within the 
     administration on formulating trade policies toward Vietnam. 
     Mr. Huang then moved from Lippo to Commerce and began a 
     campaign to trade with Vietnam, where his former employer had 
     opened offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
       The administration fully normalized relations with Vietnam 
     in July 1995.
       Mr. Solomon wants to know whether Lippo sought to influence 
     U.S. policy toward Vietnam while the company was making trade 
     overtures to that country, and he asked Commerce Secretary 
     Mickey Kantor for similar documents in October. Mr. Kantor 
     responded with some documents but did not include Vietnam-
     related files.
       The panel's interest in Lippo's role in the embargo 
     surfaced in October when investigators obtained Mr. Huang's 
     Commerce appointment calendars and found he began an 
     aggressive campaign for a new Vietnam trade policy a day 
     after his July 18, 1994, appointment. He pushed that policy 
     for the next 17 months while Lippo sought to expand into 
     Vietnam.
       Mr. Huang's calendars show that immediately after he left 
     Lippo with a $780,000 bonus he began a series of meetings 
     with White House officials, key associates, international 
     bankers and corporate executives to discuss an expansion of 
     trade with Vietnam.
       Republicans have suggested his role in the matter was a 
     conflict of interest and have called for hearings to 
     investigate the matter.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Times, Dec. 14, 1996]

               Clinton Ties to Russian Visitor Questioned

                            (By Jerry Seper)

       The chairman of the House Rules Committee has asked the 
     White House for records of all meetings and correspondence 
     between President Clinton and Grigori Loutchansky, a White 
     House visitor and head of a firm identified as being tied to 
     Russian criminal activity.
       Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon, New York Republican, this week 
     also sought records on Sam Domb, a New York real estate 
     executive who brought Mr. Loutchansky as guest to a White 
     House dinner in October 1993 and donated $160,000 to the 
     Democratic National Committee over 12 months after the 
     dinner.
       I do not take pleasure in noting that the selective and 
     carefully controlled release of information by the White 
     House has obliged Congress to make repeated following 
     inquiries about possible fund-raising irregularities and 
     conflicts of interest,'' Mr. Solomon said in a letter to the 
     president.
       ``Public accounts have placed you, Mr. President, and Vice 
     President Gore with both Mr. Loutchansky and Mr. Domb at 
     least once,'' Mr. Solomon said in his request for the 
     records.
       Mr. Loutchansky, head of an Austrian-based commodities 
     trading firm known as Nordex, got a private two-minute 
     meeting with Mr. Clinton and his picture taken with the 
     president. He also was invited by the DNC to a fund-raising 
     dinner with the president at the Hay-Adams Hotel in July 1995 
     but did not attend.
       A Russian who now lives in Israel, Mr. Loutchansky was not 
     available for comment yesterday. Mr. Domb also was 
     unavailable but has said he took Mr. Loutchansky to the 
     dinner as part of a business venture that ``didn't work 
     out.''
       ``Any DNC invitation to Loutchansky in 1995 would show a 
     severe lack of scrutiny and appalling bad judgment. It would 
     be unwise in the extreme for there to be any ties between the 
     U.S. government and Loutchansky or Loutchansky's company, 
     Nordex,'' R. James Woolsey, who headed the CIA from 1993 to 
     1995 and is a partner at the Washington law firm of Shea and 
     Gardner, has said.
       ``At a congressional hearing in April, the current director 
     of central intelligence, John Deutch, identified Grigori 
     Loutchansky's company, Nordex, as an `organization associated 
     with Russian criminal activity'. Next to Loutchansky, the 
     Lippo syndicate looks like the Better Business Bureau.''
       The Indonesian-based Lippo Group is at the center of a 
     growing scandal over foreign-linked campaign donations to Mr. 
     Clinton and the DNC. The real estate and investment firm was 
     founded by Mochtar Riady, a longtime Clinton supporter and 
     campaign contributor.
       In a four-page report in July, Time magazine said Mr. 
     Loutchansky's firm was linked with nuclear smuggling, drug 
     trafficking and money laundering and that Nordex was 
     established to ``earn hard currency for the KGB.''
       Te magazine reported that, during the past three years, the 
     National Security Agency ``found indications that Nordex was 
     engaged in nuclear smuggling.'' It also said Mr. Loutchansky 
     was the sole subject of a two-day Interpol meeting involving 
     11 nations in 1995.
       More than a year before Mr. Loutchansky was invited to the 
     1995 White House dinner; Canada blocked him from entering 
     that country because he failed a background check.
       Questions this year about Mr. Loutchansky's visit to the 
     White House--and that of convicted drug dealer Jorge 
     ``Gordito'' Cabrera--prompted a review by the Justice 
     Department into procedures used for screening guests.
       In November 1995, Cabrera gave $20,000 to the DNC. He 
     accepted invitations a month later to a White House Christmas 
     party and a Miami fund-raiser.
                                  ____


             [From the Stars and Stripes, Dec. 9-15, 1996]

   '93 Lippo Letter Renews Hill Scrutiny of Move To End Viet Embargo

                        (By Mark Allen Peterson)

       President Clinton's 1994 decision to end the U.S. embargo 
     with Vietnam has come under renewed scrutiny in the light of 
     correspondence on the issue received by the White House from 
     Indonesian businessman Mochtar Riady.
       The Wall Street Journal last week revealed that the White 
     House had received a letter

[[Page H3659]]

     dated 9 March, 1993, filled with policy advice from Riady, 
     who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic 
     National Committee. Among other thing, the letter urged the 
     president to normalize relations with Vietnam.
       President Clinton 2 Dec. described the letter as being 
     ``like tens of thousands of letters I get of people 
     suggesting what our policy ought to be in various areas.''


                           solomon Disturbed

       White House press secretary Mike McCurry denied Riady's 
     suggestions played any part in the president's decision to 
     lift the longstanding embargo.
       But the Journal story created a furor on Capitol Hill, 
     where several committees have expressed interest in probing 
     the gifts by Riady's Lippo Group to the Democrats. One of 
     those most disturbed was Rep. Gerald Solomon (R-NY), head of 
     the Government Rules Committee, which is planning hearings on 
     the issue.
       In October, and again last month, Solomon requested from 
     Secretary of Commerce Mickey Kantor ``all information'' 
     involving contacts, agreements or ``other dealings'' with the 
     Lippo Group, its founder Mochtar Riady, his son, Lippo 
     executive James, and former Lippo executive and Commerce 
     official James Huang and ``any influence of U.S. policy and 
     the normalization of relations with the Socialist Republic of 
     Vietnam.''


                            More Information

       In particular, Solomon said, he wanted more information on 
     Vietnam policy meetings called by Huang while he was deputy 
     assistant secretary of international economic policy at 
     Commerce and on efforts by Lippo to end the Vietnam embargo.
       After reading the Journal story, Solomon fired off a letter 
     to Clinton, asking why he had not been given a copy of the 
     letter after his request for information, and requesting the 
     White House to fax the letter to the Rules Committee.
       The White House 4 Dec. faxed the letter to the House 
     Committee on International Relations, which subsequently made 
     it available to Solomon and other interested lawmakers and 
     reporters.
       Sources in Congress said the Rules Committee's 
     investigation would be asking two key questions: First, was 
     Clinton's decision to lift the U.S. trade embargo with 
     Vietnam influenced by the Lippo Group's six-figure 
     contributions and, second, did the administration leak 
     advance information to Riady that the embargo was going to be 
     lifted.


                           trade initiatives

       ``The media has overplayed the idea that the president was 
     influenced to lift the embargo and downplayed the second 
     scenario,'' said a source close to the investigation. ``But 
     we really think the second scenario is the more likely.''
       The committee is particularly interested in whether advance 
     information about the decision played a part in Vietnam 
     ``trade initiatives'' hatched between Hong Kong-based Lippo, 
     Ltd. and North Carolina's First Union Corp., sources said.
       The lifting of the trade embargo was a difficult move for 
     the president because of the emotional issue of POWs and MIAs 
     still unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.
       In 1992, Clinton said he did not think lifting the Vietnam 
     embargo was a good idea.


                                reversal

       ``I don't think we should normalize and then get an 
     accounting [of American POWs and MIAs],'' he told The 
     Washington Times. ``I think we ought to know where our people 
     are. That's putting the cart before the horse.''
       But after several visits to Vietnam by presidential 
     advisors and lobbying by several visits to Vietnam by 
     presidential advisors and lobbying by several congressmen, 
     including former POW Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Clinton 
     reversed his position, saying, ``I am lifting the trade 
     embargo against Vietnam because I am absolutely convinced 
     that it offers us the best way to resolve the fate of those 
     who remain missing and about whom we are not sure.''
                                  ____


                 Solomon Staffers Widening Huang Probe

       WASHINGTON.--John Huang, a central figure in the 
     investigation into Asian donations to Democrats, had more 
     access to government secrets during his short tenure at the 
     Commerce Department than previously disclosed, documents 
     show.
       The Commerce Department has identified 109 meetings in 1994 
     and 1994 attended by Huang and at which classified 
     information ``might have been discussed,'' according to 
     information released Tuesday.
       Previously, the department disclosed 37 intelligence 
     briefings Huang had attended while a deputy assistant 
     secretary.
       Investigators for House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald 
     Solomon, R-Glens Falls, say they also have tracked other 
     dates in which Huang received ``secret'' documents, then 
     called the Los Angeles office of his former employer, the 
     Indonesian-based Lippo Group.
       Solomon has been investigating whether Huang, who later 
     became a vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee, 
     passed any secrets to Chinese government and business 
     interests or to Lippo, a financial conglomerate with 
     substantial interests in China.
       In addition, the Justice Department is investigating 
     whether the Chinese government plotted to influence U.S. 
     elections last year by funneling illegal contributions to 
     candidates and parties.
       Huang, who had a top-secret security clearance while at the 
     Commerce Department, has broadly denied wrongdoing. But he 
     has refused to cooperate with congressional investigators, 
     citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. 
     His lawyers did not immediately return calls to their offices 
     Tuesday.
       One week in May 1995 has stood out to investigators looking 
     at Huang's activities at Commerce.
       According to a summary prepared by Solomon's office, Huang 
     received a document classified ``secret'' at 10 a.m. on May 
     4, 1995. Four hours later, Huang had a 10-minute call with 
     Lippo's office in Los Angeles.
       On May 9, 1995, Huang had a meeting scheduled with other 
     senior Commerce officials on the ``status of Dragongate,'' a 
     multibillion-dollar Taiwanese power plant project. That 
     afternoon, he made two short calls to Lippo. Taiwan was one 
     area of interest for Huang.
       The next day, Huang received additional secret documents 
     and made two short calls to Lippo's office in Los Angeles.
                                  ____


                 [From the Washington Times, May 1997]

                Solomon: Is Cosco ``Strategic Threat''?

                         (By Rowan Scarborough)

       A senior House Republican yesterday asked Navy Secretary 
     John H. Dalton to report whether the Chinese Ocean Shipping 
     Co. (Cosco) represents a ``global tactical or strategic 
     threat'' to the Navy.
       The effort by Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon, chairman of the 
     House Rules Committee, to force the Navy to make an 
     assessment is the latest development in a campaign to block 
     Cosco from taking over the abandoned Long Beach Naval Station 
     in California.
       ``In order to understand the magnitude of the growing 
     threat of the PRC [People's Republic of China], I would like 
     you to state the U.S. Navy's position on [Cosco],'' Mr. 
     Solomon, New York Republican, wrote in a one-page letter to 
     Mr. Dalton.
       ``Considering their potential world-wide information 
     gathering capabilities, a history as the delivery system of 
     weapons of mass destruction to terrorist countries and the 
     size of this fleet under direct control of the communist 
     regime--does Cosco pose a potential global tactical or 
     strategic threat against the U.S. Navy?''
       The Solomon letter represents a more specific question for 
     the Navy. Before, congressional inquiries have centered on 
     whether Cosco at Long Beach would be a regional threat. The 
     congressman wants to know if Cosco, and its 600-ship fleet, 
     poses a danger to the Navy itself.
       Mr. Solomon was one of the first in Congress to speak out 
     against the Chinese-Long Beach connection.
       ``This is almost a caricature of Lenin's prediction that 
     the West will hand the rope to its Communist executioners,'' 
     he said March 10. ``The Clinton administration seems to be 
     going out of its way to help the most serious threat to 
     American security, the so-called People's Republic of 
     China.''
       Cosco plans to lease 144 acres to operate a large container 
     terminal, giving Beijing an important beachhead in making 
     Cosco one of the world's largest carriers.
       Lawmakers in recent weeks have emerged from closed-door 
     intelligence briefings with conflicting interpretations.
       Conservatives who oppose the deal say the intelligence 
     shows Cosco is a tool of the Chinese People's Liberation 
     Army, trafficking in weapons of mass destruction to known 
     terrorist states such as Iran.
       But local Long Beach legislators say the briefings show 
     Cosco is not a threat.
       President Clinton personally backed the city of Long 
     Beach's overture to Cosco, after a commission had targeted 
     the station for closure as part of armed forces downsizing.
       The negotiations occurred at a time China is suspected of 
     funneling millions of dollars in illegal campaign 
     contributions into the United States in a government-
     sponsored operation to influence the 1996 election.
       Some Republicans wonder if there is a connection between 
     Cosco's expansion plans and the Democratic fund-raising 
     scandal.
       Reps. Duncan Hunter and Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham, both 
     California Republicans, want to stop the Cosco-Long Beach 
     marriage through legislation attached to the 1998 defense 
     authorization bill. The House National Security Committee is 
     schedule to write the bill next month.
       However, the Cosco transaction may die before the Navy 
     officially transfers the property to the city's Harbor 
     Commission.
       A coalition of conservationists and history buffs have 
     filed suit to stop the project, which calls for leveling 
     every naval station building.
       A judge in Los Angeles has ordered the city to terminate 
     the Cosco lease and re-evaluate the plan's environmental 
     impact.
       The New York Times reported yesterday that a Clinton 
     appointee, Dorothy Robyn, in November urged the 
     preservationists to abandon their effort to save any 
     buildings.
       Miss Robyn, who serves on the National Economic Council, 
     told the paper she made the calls as a favor to Long Beach's 
     mayor. She said she had no contacts with Cosco officials.
       Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, has asked 
     the Federal Maritime Commission to report whether Cosco is 
     guilty of predatory pricing.

[[Page H3660]]

     
                                  ____
                 [From the Washington Times, May 1997]

        Solomon Seeks Details as Number of Huang Briefings Rises

                            (By Jerry Seper)

       The chairman of a House committee asked Commerce Secretary 
     William M. Daley yesterday to explain briefings in which 
     former Democratic fund-raiser John Huang may have receive 
     classified information at 146 separate meetings instead of 
     the 37 originally claimed or the 109 later acknowledged.
       In a letter, Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon, New York Republican 
     and chairman of the House Rules Committee, also asked whether 
     President Clinton or Vice President Al Gore attended some of 
     those briefings, which the Commerce Department now says may 
     have taken place at the White House.
       Mr. Solomon's concerns were raised by a May 9 letter from 
     Mr. Daley, who sought to explain published reports last month 
     that Mr. Huang, now at the center of the growing campaign-
     finance scandal, received 109 classified intelligence 
     briefings during his 18 months at Commerce, not the 37 
     previously acknowledged.
       Mr. Daley said a recheck of the records showed that Mr. 
     Huang received 37 ``intelligence briefings'' and may have 
     attended 109 other meetings, including, some at the White 
     House, ``at which classified material might have been 
     discussed.'' He said 70 of those meetings were in 1994, and 
     39 were in 1995.
       ``These 109 meetings were not intelligence briefings,'' Mr. 
     Daley wrote, although he acknowledged that classified 
     information might have been made available.
       Mr. Solomon, who first questioned Mr. Huang's possible ties 
     to national-security violations and economic espionage and 
     urged the FBI to investigate, told Mr. Daley his letter 
     ``begged more questions than it answered.''
       ``With great concern and no little irritation, I now 
     discover that John Huang received secret and top-secret 
     information not merely 37 times, as the Commerce Department 
     originally wanted Congress and the American people to 
     believe, but possibly as many as 146 times,'' he said, adding 
     that the questions surrounding Mr. Huang ``have long since 
     gone beyond campaign financing to include possible 
     espionage.''
       ``Until such time as Mr. Huang, who pled the Fifth 
     Amendment, agrees to return to Washington and cooperate with 
     Congress, the information I'm requesting would be helpful,'' 
     he said. ``What's more, some of those meetings taking place 
     at the White House may have included the president and vice 
     president.''
       He told Mr. Daley he wants a list of the 109 meetings at 
     which classified material may have been discussed.
       Last month, Mr. Solomon asked Mr. Clinton for a list of all 
     meetings he had with Mr. Huang, and explanation for Mr. 
     Huang's 1994 appointment as deputy assistant commerce 
     secretary for international economic policy and a list of 
     ``all meetings'' Mr. Huang had with other White House 
     officials.
       Sources close to the Rules Committee said Mr. Solomon is 
     concerned about briefings in which Mr. Huang received 
     classified information including documents stamped 
     ``secret,'' after which telephone logs show he made calls to 
     his previous employer, the Lippo Group.
       Phone logs show 70 calls by Mr. Huang to Lippo Bank in Los 
     Angeles and other calls to prominent Arkansas businessmen and 
     lawyers with financial ties to Asia. The bank is controlled 
     by the Lippo Group, a $6.9 billion conglomerate based in 
     Indonesia. Mr. Huang was vice chairman of the bank until his 
     Commerce appointment.
       House investigators want to know how Mr. Huang received a 
     top-secret security clearance five months before he reported 
     to Commerce. Such a clearance was explained in a January 1994 
     memo as necessary ``due to the critical need for his 
     expertise in the new administration'' of Commerce Secretary 
     Ronald H. Brown.
       He also was issued a ``consultant top-secret'' security 
     clearance after he resigned at Commerce to become a fund-
     raiser at the Democratic National Committee. That clearance, 
     issued in December 1995, remained in effect until December 
     1996, although it is not clear how he used it as a Democratic 
     fund-raiser.
       Mr. Huang, who became a U.S. citizen in 1976, has not been 
     available for comment but previously denied any wrongdoing. 
     He is believed to have returned to California.
                                  ____


               Solomon Questions Security at Former Base

       Washington.--A high-ranking Republican lawmaker wants the 
     Secretary of the Navy to determine if a Chinese shipping 
     company seeking to lease a former naval base in Southern 
     California poses a national security threat.
       Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-Queensbury, wrote to Secretary of 
     the Navy John H. Dalton Friday, asking if the Chinese Ocean 
     Shipping Co., known as COSCO, poses ``a potential global 
     tactical or strategic threat against the U.S. Navy.''
       Dan Amon, a spokesman for Solomon, said the injury by the 
     House Rules Committee chairman is simply an attempt to 
     resolve controversy over COSCO's proposed lease of a $200 
     million shipping terminal to be build at the former Long 
     Beach Naval Station.
       The Clinton administration supported the city of Long Beach 
     when it contacted the Chinese government-owned COSCO about 
     leasing the naval base, which was a victim of military 
     downsizing. But two California Republicans, Reps. Duncan 
     Hunter and Randy Cunningham, want to stop the deal with an 
     amendment to next year's defense spending bill. They say the 
     lease will allow China to spy and smuggle weapons.
       The controversy comes as the Justice Department 
     investigates whether the Chinese government tried to 
     influence 1996 elections with illegal campaign contributions

                           *   *   *   *   *

                                  ____


                      [From MSNBC, June 10, 1997]

                  Huang May Have Passed Trade Secrets

                          (By Robert Windrem)

       Washington.--U.S. intelligence agencies told the Senate 
     Intelligence Committee last month that they have found there 
     is evidence that former Assistant Commerce Secretary John 
     Huang ``collected'' and ``passed'' U.S. trade secrets on to 
     his former bosses at the multibillion-dollar Lippo Group of 
     Indonesia, NBC News has learned.
       According to a congressional staffer familiar with 
     intelligence matters, the evidence was picked up at a U.S. 
     electronic eavesdropping site targeted on trans-Pacific 
     communications. The United States maintains an extensive 
     network of eavesdropping sites around the Pacific Rim, from 
     Yakima, Wash., to Pine Gap, Australia.
       Huang raised millions of dollars for the Democratic 
     National Committee from the Asian-American community after he 
     left the Commerce Department in December 1995 to work as a 
     Democratic fund-raiser. He is the focus of both congressional 
     and Justice Department investigations.
       By all accounts, Huang was an instant success, bringing in 
     more cash from Asian-Americans than had been given to any 
     previous president. But on Oct. 18, 1996, Huang was suspended 
     from his job at the DNC after news surfaced that he had 
     solicited a $250,000 South Korean donation in violation of 
     U.S. laws against foreign political contributions. More 
     questions were raised by Huang's dozens of visits to the 
     White House in 1996. It could create a bad impression to have 
     a fund-raiser spending so much time in the White House.
       The congressional source said the focus of U.S. 
     intelligence efforts now is what Huang did in the last few 
     months of 1995 just before leaving for the DNC. Congressional 
     critics, in particular Rep. Gerry Solomon, R-N.Y., have noted 
     various meetings and phone calls in which Huang dealt with 
     Lippo officials just before or just after a Commerce 
     Department briefing.
       One typical incident: According to phone records and logs, 
     Huang called Lippo's Los Angeles office on Sept. 19, 1995, at 
     2:45 p.m., just 15 minutes before a classified briefing. 
     After the briefing, at 5:34 p.m., he called Lippo back.
                                  ____


            [From the San Diego Union-Tribune, May 11, 1997]

         Navy Asked To Rule on Threat of Chinese Using Old Base

                          (By Alice Ann Love)

       Washington.--A high-ranking Republican lawmaker wants the 
     secretary of the Navy to determine whether a Chinese shipping 
     company seeking to lease a former naval base in Southern 
     California poses a national security threat.
       Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y., wrote to Secretary of the Navy 
     John Dalton on Friday, asking whether the Chinese Ocean 
     Shipping Co., known as COSCO, poses ``a potential global 
     tactical or strategic threat against the U.S. Navy.''
       Dan Amon, a spokesman for Solomon, said the inquiry by the 
     House Rules Committee chairman is an attempt to resolve 
     controversy over COSCO's proposed lease of a $200 million 
     shipping terminal to be built at the former Long Beach Naval 
     Station.
       President Clinton's administration supported the city of 
     Long Beach when the city contacted the Chinese government-
     owned COSCO about leasing the base, which was a victim of 
     military downsizing.
       But two California Republicans, Reps. Duncan Hunter of El 
     Cajon and Randy Cunningham of Escondido, want to stop the 
     deal with an amendment to next fiscal year's defense spending 
     bill. They say the lease would allow China to spy and smuggle 
     weapons.
       The controversy comes as the Justice Department 
     investigates whether the Chinese government tried to 
     influence 1996 U.S. elections with illegal campaign 
     contributions.
       The Long Beach Harbor Commission says the new lease to 
     COSCO, which has had a presence in the port for 16 years, 
     would create 1,600 construction jobs over 1\1/2\ years, 600 
     permanent shipping jobs once completed and several hundred 
     jobs elsewhere in the city.
       The port would receive about $20 million a year in rent, 
     while the city stands to reap about $1 million in taxes 
     annually.
       Local resistance has also stalled the lease. A group of 
     Long Beach environmentalists and preservationists opposes the 
     deal, saying historic buildings would be torn down.
       Harbor commissioners face a hearing Tuesday before a Los 
     Angeles Superior Court judge to prove that the project would 
     comply with state environmental laws.
                                  ____


              [From the Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1997]

Huang Accused of Espionage--Solomon Says Fund Raiser Shared Classified 
                       Information to Lippo Group

       Washington--John Huang, the former Clinton administration 
     appointee and star

[[Page H3661]]

     Democratic fundraiser, conveyed ``classified information'' to 
     the Indonesia-based Lippo Group, Rep. Gerald Solomon alleged 
     Thursday.
       Solomon, R-Queensbury, chairman of the House Rules 
     Committee, said he is aware of electronically gathered 
     evidence--presumably telephone calls monitored by a U.S. 
     intelligence agency--verifying that Huang relayed the 
     information.
       ``I have received reports from government sources that say 
     there are electronic intercepts which provide evidence 
     confirming what I suspected all along, that John Huang 
     committed economic espionage and breached our national 
     security by passing classified information to his former 
     employer, the Lippo Group,'' Solomon said.
       The congressman and his aides declined to elaborate. They 
     would not say, for instance, whether Solomon based his 
     allegation on information provided directly by intelligence 
     or law enforcement officials. The congressman does not serve 
     on either the House Intelligence Committee or a separate 
     panel that has jurisdiction to investigate Huang's 
     activities.
       FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, in recent weeks, has briefed 
     members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees about 
     the bureau's ongoing investigation of Huang and others. An 
     FBI spokesman declined Thursday to comment on any aspect of 
     the inquiry.
       If Solomon's allegation proves credible, it would magnify 
     the significance of the fund-raising scandal that already 
     besets both President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore.
       Documents disclosed earlier by the Commerce Department show 
     that Huang made scores of calls on government phones to Lippo 
     offices in Los Angeles. Some of those calls were made close 
     to times when Huang was scheduled to attend classified 
     briefings convened by the Commerce Department's Office of 
     Intelligence Liaison.
       The possibility that Huang passed classified data to Lippo 
     is especially sensitive because the conglomerate is closely 
     aligned with China.
                                  ____


               [From the Wall Street Journal, July 1997]

      China, After Request From U.S., Searches for Campaign Donor

               (By a Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter)

       Shanghai, China--Responding to a request from Secretary of 
     State Madeleine Albright, Chinese authorities are looking for 
     Charlie Trie, an Arkansas-based restaurateur involved in the 
     U.S. campaign fund-raising controversy.
       Agents of China's State Security Ministry have made 
     inquiries with people who may have been in touch with Mr. 
     Trie since he came to this country, possibly to avoid 
     questioning in the U.S. Some of those who were contacted say 
     the authorities didn't appear to know his location.
       Mr. Trie, a Taiwan-born entrepreneur who became close to 
     Bill Clinton when they both lived in Little Rock, Ark., owns 
     a restaurant in Beijing and has been involved in property 
     projects in Shanghai and other Chinese cities. He contributed 
     heavily to Mr. Clinton's reelection campaign, and tried to 
     give $600,000 to the president's legal defense fund. (That 
     money was rejected because of questions about the money's 
     origins.)
       In June, Mr. Trie came to Shanghai for an off-camera 
     interview with NBC News, but acquaintances say he isn't 
     living here.
       Yesterday, Rep. Gerald Solomon (R., N.Y.) disclosed that 
     Mrs. Albright last week asked the Chinese government to help 
     find Mr. Trie. The State Department instructed the U.S. 
     Embassy in Beijing to underscore that request, Barbara 
     Larkin, assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, 
     wrote in a letter to Mr. Solomon.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, July 23, 1997]

      State Department Asks China to Help Find Former Fund-Raiser

                           (By Leslie Wayne)

       Washington, July 23--Under pressure from House campaign-
     finance investigators, the State Department has asked the 
     Chinese Government to help locate Yah Lin Trie, a central 
     figure in the Democratic fund-raising controversy, according 
     to a State Department letter released today.
       The letter was made public by Representative Gerald B. H. 
     Solomon, the New York republican who heads the house Rules 
     Committee and who is an outspoken critic of Democratic 
     campaign fund-raising practices.
       ``I am pleased to inform you that, on July 14, the 
     department communicated to the Chinese Government your 
     interest in determining Mr. Trie's location,'' said the 
     letter, which Mr. Solomon received earlier this week.
       It continued: ``We informed the Chinese Government that 
     this is a high priority in which Secretary Albright is 
     personally interested. In order to emphasize the importance 
     we attach to this matter, we have also instructed our embassy 
     in Beijing to communicate your request to the Chinese 
     Government there.''
       Mr. Trie, a onetime Little Rock restaurateur and longtime 
     friend of Mr. Clinton, raised more than $645,000 in donations 
     that have been returned because of their questionable origin. 
     In addition, investigators are looking at $470,000 in money 
     transfers to Mr. Trie from an account in Macao. They were 
     made about the time he brought cash donations to the 
     Democratic Party or money from donors who cannot be found.
       Mr. Trie, a naturalized American citizen, returned to China 
     after the campaign finance investigations began. He has 
     refused to testify before Congressional investigators. In an 
     interview in Shanghai with NBC News in June, Mr. Trie said he 
     had no plans to return to the United States.
       ``They'll never find me,'' he told NBC.
       Three weeks ago the Clinton Administration said it 
     preferred not to ask China for help finding Mr. Trie, citing 
     questions of conflict of interest between the White House and 
     the Congressional investigation.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Times, July 23, 1997]

        State Department Asks China to Help Locate Elusive Trie

                            (By Jerry Seper)

       The State Department has asked China for help in finding 
     Democratic fund-raiser Charles Yah Lin Trie, a key figure in 
     congressional and Justice Department investigations into 
     accusations that foreign governments sought to influence the 
     1996 elections.
       Barbara Larkin, assistant secretary of state for 
     legislative affairs, said in a letter yesterday to Rep. 
     Gerald B. H. Solomon, chairman of the House Rules Committee, 
     that a request was made of the Chinese government on July 14, 
     and that the U.S. Embassy in Beijing would make a follow-up 
     request in person.
       ``Secretary [Madeleine K.] Albright has repeatedly made 
     clear her commitment to do everything within her authority to 
     assist Congress in its investigations regarding alleged 
     violations of federal campaign financing laws,'' Mrs. Larkin 
     wrote. ``We informed the Chinese government this is a high 
     priority in which Secretary Albright is personally 
     interested.''
       Mr. Trie disappeared in China after surfacing in the 
     campaign-finance probes of Congress and the Justice 
     Department. Mr. Solomon asked the White House on July 3 for 
     help in finding him.
       The New York Republican, who described Mr. Trie as a key 
     figure in Congress' inquiries, wants the department to assist 
     congressional investigators in locating and obtaining 
     evidence from the Arkansas businessman. He has questioned Mr. 
     Trie's ties to the fund-raising scandal and his relationships 
     with John Huang and Chinese arms dealer Wang Jun, both White 
     House visitors.
       Mr. Trie, who was interviewed in Shanghai by NBC's 
     ``Nightly News'' but who has eluded congressional and federal 
     investigators, has boasted he could hid in Asia for 10 years 
     and has said he had no plans to return to the United States 
     to answer questions by congressional investigators.
       A subpoena was issued for him in February by the House 
     Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
       Mr. Trie, who ran a Chinese restaurant in Little Rock near 
     the Arkansas State House where he first met Bill Clinton, 
     then governor, came to public notice after the President's 
     Legal Defense Fund announced it was returning $640,000 in 
     donations he collected.
       The cash, delivered in two envelopes, was returned when 
     fund executives said they did not know its source. The 
     donations included checks with signatures that matched those 
     on other checks and money orders numbered sequentially but 
     from different cities.
       In a statement, Mr. Solomon said it was ``refreshing to see 
     a Cabinet secretary in this administration willing to take a 
     strong personal interest in helping us get to the bottom of 
     such serious matters.''
       Besides the Legal Defense Fund donations, House 
     investigators want to know what role Mr. Trie played in 
     getting Mr. Wang, chairman of China's Poly Technologies Ltd., 
     to a White House meeting in February with Mr. Clinton. Two 
     months later, Poly Technologies, which makes weapons for the 
     Chinese military, was identified by U.S. Customs Service 
     agents as a target in a sting operation to deliver 2,000 AK-
     47s to the United States.
       White House records show Mr. Wang, as Mr. Trie's guest, met 
     with Mr. Clinton at a reception with several Democratic 
     campaign contributors. Mr. Huang arranged for Mr. Trie to 
     attend a White House coffee with Mr. Clinton.
       Mr. Solomon said that China could ``easily return Mr. Trie 
     . . . if it had a will to do so.''
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, July 27, 1997]

                           Saving Facepowder

                          (By William Safire)

       Washington--It was mid-October, the final month of the 1996 
     Presidential campaign. A column in this space titled ``The 
     Asian Connection'' had just appeared, followed the next day 
     by a front-page article about John Huang's fund-raising in 
     The Wall Street Journal. Though TV lagged, The L.A. Times and 
     New York Times were advancing the story of illegal Asian 
     money flowing into the Democratic campaign.
       But silence from the Republicans. Not only were they not 
     the original source of the story, they offered little 
     newsworthy reaction. I ran into Haley Barbour, then chairman 
     of the Republican National Committee, campaigning in 
     Birmingham, Ala., and put it to him: Did he have a statement?
       His reply: ``This is something for Ross Perot to hit 
     hard.'' That struck me as curious; why Perot, the third-party 
     candidate--why not Dole and Barbour? I put it down to the 
     Republican inability to react swiftly to news.

[[Page H3662]]

       Now it comes clear. Haley must have been worried that the 
     Asian connection would boomerang.
       The Republican think tank he headed--an adjunct to the 
     R.N.C.--had in 1994 borrowed $2 million on the collateral of 
     Ambrous Tung Young, a citizen of Taiwan.
       Haley made the deal aboard a yacht in Hong Kong and was 
     reluctant at first to blast Clinton for foreign fund-raising.
       At the Thompson hearings, that G.O.P. fund-raising chicken 
     has come home to roost. As usual, most media coverage of the 
     Barbour appearance centered on the witness's performance--
     ``spirited,'' ``well-prepared,'' ``combative''--and less on 
     the evidence of wrongdoing developed. We cover the show but 
     ignore the case.
       The case is that a top Republican official solicited a huge 
     loan from a foreign national. The millions traveled through 
     an affiliated think tank to the National Committee and--
     because money is fungible--materially helped G.O.P. political 
     campaigns.
       Barbour insists this shell game was legal; if so, the law 
     needs tightening. He borrowed from a foreigner on the 
     anticipation of a favorable I.R.S. ruling on a think tank's 
     status; that was foolish and--most damaging to his 
     reputation--politically debilitating. His Republicans stiffed 
     Mr. Young for half his loan and now the R.N.C. must make him 
     whole.
       The Asian lender used a colorful expression to explain his 
     loan: not just to gain influence and access, but ``to put 
     powder on my face.'' That usually derisive Chinese 
     phrase--tu zhi mo fen, ``rouge and powder''--means ``to 
     hide blemishes with makeup,'' its extended meaning ``to 
     improve one's image with superiors.''
       That's behind some foreign giving. But to equate the one-
     time ethical lapse of a G.O.P. campaign chief with the 
     sustained, widespread, and probably espionage-ridden marriage 
     of Asian money to the Clinton-Gore White House is to fall for 
     the ``everybody does it'' excuse.
       ``Everybody doesn't do it,'' said Barbour (meaning, ``Not 
     everybody does it''). He's right; the scale of the Clinton-
     Gore Great Asian Access Sale is unprecedented, its pattern of 
     cover-up unique.
       The White House-Commerce cover-up has spread to the Justice 
     Department. Lest credible evidence be developed by the Senate 
     implicating a ``covered person'' (Vice President Gore), Janet 
     Reno resisted allowing victimized nuns to testify publicly. 
     Not even Democratic senators could swallow that insult.
       In the same way, when the House's Burton committee 
     subpoenaed Justice Department records of $700,000 in wire 
     transfers from Vietnam to an account in the Bank Indo-Suez 
     supposedly controlled by Ron Brown, Justice responded three 
     days later with a subpoena for all Chairman Burton's election 
     records.
       Dan Burton is undeterred. His committee will hire a D.C. 
     superlawyer or former U.S. Attorney as counsel this week.
       Its staff is quietly taking depositions from aides to White 
     House chiefs of staff and now-unprivileged counsel.
       The vital power to depose witnesses under oath was voted at 
     the behest of House Rules Chairman Gerry Solomon, who last 
     week induced Secretary of State Albright to help bring 
     Charlie Trie back from his Chinese hideout. Solomon, first in 
     Congress to blow the whistle on espionage, gets few headlines 
     but gets results.
       Republicans who make mistakes and try to brazen their way 
     out will get roughed up in the investigations; that's 
     healthy.
       But let us keep our eye on the main arena: the Clinton-Gore 
     sale of influence to agents of Beijing.
                                  ____


                        To Avoid Such a Disgrace

                          (By William Safire)

       If by the first week in October Attorney General Janet Reno 
     does not seek appointment of Independent Counsel, she may 
     well be the first Cabinet member since William Belknap in 
     1876 to be impeached.
       That is the clear import of three coordinated letters, all 
     dated Sept. 3 and delivered to the Justice Department last 
     week.
       One is a 23-page missive signed by every member of the 
     majority of the House Judiciary Committee, delineating 
     evidence that Federal crimes may have been committed by 
     officials covered by the Independent Counsel Act. The crimes 
     include bribery, use of the White House for political 
     purposes, misuse of tax-exempt organizations and extortion of 
     campaign contributions.
       The second letter, from every member of the majority of the 
     House Rules Committee, notes that the weak excuse given by 
     Ms. Reno for refusing to trigger the act--that Vice President 
     Gore's solicitations from the White House were only for 
     ``soft money''--had been shattered by the revelation that the 
     Democratic National Committee allocated funds raised by Gore 
     from Federal property as ``hard money'' for the Clinton-Gore 
     campaign.
       Because Congressional committees do not issue threats, a 
     third letter came from an individual member, House Rules 
     Chairman Gerald Solomon, to inform her of the serious 
     consequences of her continued stone-walling
       ``With credible evidence reported by Mr. Robert Woodward in 
     today's Washington Post that Vice President Gore . . . may 
     have committed a felony,'' wrote Solomon. ``I can not 
     conceive you can so willfully neglect your duty . . . I 
     should inform you that the mood in Congress to remove you 
     grows daily.
       If it should ever come to that. Ms. Reno's best defense 
     would be to blame the egregious ineptitude of the vaunted 
     ``career professionals'' in what Justice laughably calls its 
     Public Integrity Section.
       It is now 11 months since the Asian Connection story broke. 
     In all that time, it never occurred to those humbling Justice 
     bureaucrats to travel a few blocks over to the D.N.C. to find 
     out if money raised from inside the White House was used to 
     buy Clinton-Gore commercials. They waited to read about the 
     crime in the Washington Post. Their lame excuse: ``The focus 
     of our energies was elsewhere.''
       But those conflicted, slow-walking ``energies'' have not 
     been focused on tracking down and bringing back Little Rock's 
     Charlie Trie, a suspected dirty-money conduit now lying low 
     in Beijing. We rightly criticize Whitewater Independent 
     Counsel Ken Starr for being slow; Clinton's in-house 
     Dependent Counsel are hip-deep in Democratic molasses.
       The sad part of all this is that Reno and Gore are paying 
     the price for the political fund-raising strategy set not by 
     them but by Bill Clinton in his infamous Sept. 13, 1995, Oval 
     Office sellout to Rlady, Huang and company.
       Gore is a serious person, solid on foreign affairs except 
     for some global warming nuttiness, and I confess to liking 
     and often admiring him. But Clinton's anything-goes political 
     morality reduced Gore to describing 86 wrongful calls as ``a 
     few occasions.'' John Huang, D.N.C. fund-raising vice 
     chairman, brought a Buddhist leader into Gore's office to 
     arrange a temple event; the event illegally raised $100,000; 
     now Gore professes to never have known it was a fund raiser.
       But here's a campaign memo from Gore's scheduler asking him 
     to choose: give a speech to a long Island Jewish group or 
     ``do the two fundraisers in San Joe and LA.'' Gore replies, 
     ``if we have already booked the fundraisers then we have to 
     decline.'' To call that Buddhist fundraiser ``community 
     outreach'' takes a long reach.
       Gore's followers, who see him as a Clinton with integrity, 
     are circling the wagons, expecting two years of assault by 
     Independent Counsel when Reno chooses honor over impeachment. 
     Martin Peretz, owner of the New Republic, has just fired his 
     editor-columnist, the gutsily gifted Michael Kelly, for 
     taking too strong a stand against Clinton-Gore campaign 
     crimes.
       But John Huang and Johnny Chung will be flipped; Web 
     Hubbell will be re-indicted and Jim Guy Tucker convicted; 
     House committees will surprise: the F.B.I. will shake its 
     shackles; media momentum will build; and justice, despite the 
     Department of Justice, will be done.
                                  ____


                 [From the Washington Times, May 1997]

  No MFN Without Trie, Solomon Hints--Urges Clinton to Pressure China

                            (By Jerry Seper)

       The chairman of a House committee yesterday asked President 
     Clinton to help find Arkansas businessman Charles Yah Lin 
     Trie, who disappeared in China after surfacing in Congress' 
     campaign finance probe, and he suggested that China's most-
     favored-nation status could be in jeopardy if the president 
     refuses.
       Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon, New York Republican and chairman 
     of the House Rules Committee, said that because of Mr. Trie's 
     ties to the growing fund-raising scandal and his 
     relationships with John Huang and Chinese arms dealer Wang 
     Jun, Mr. Clinton should direct Secretary of State Madeleine 
     K. Albright to determine his whereabouts.
       ``If Mr. Trie is indeed in China, it is vital he be 
     returned before any renewal of the most-favored-nation 
     trading status even be considered,'' Mr. Solomon said. ``That 
     is not to say the return of Mr. Trie would convince me and a 
     number of other members that renewing China's MFN status is 
     advisable, considering that nation's performance in other 
     areas.
       ``But Congress also has the duty to investigate any undue 
     influence on U.S.-China policy, and Mr. Trie would be helpful 
     in that regard,'' said Mr. Solomon, an outspoken opponent of 
     giving China MFN status.
       Congress is scheduled to begin debate next month on Mr. 
     Clinton's expected decision to extend China's most-favored-
     nation trading status for another year. MFN status gives 
     China's products low-tariff access to U.S. markets, similar 
     to those enjoyed by most other U.S. trading partners. 
     Revoking it would price most Chinese products out of the 
     market.
       White House Special Associate Counsel Lanny J. Davis 
     declined comment on the letter, but said, ``I can state as a 
     general matter, the president is fully committed to 
     cooperating with the congressional committees and encourages 
     others to do so.''
       House investigators want to talk with Mr. Trie, former 
     Little Rock restaurateur and Democratic National Committee 
     fund-raiser, about his delivery of $640,000 in questionable 
     contributions to Mr. Clinton's legal-defense fund. The 
     contributions were later returned when legal-defense fund 
     investigators found they could not establish the source of 
     the money, which included checks with signatures that matched 
     those on some other checks, and money orders that were 
     sequentially numbered but purportedly came from people in 
     different cities.
       They also want to know what role Mr. Trie played in getting 
     Mr. Wang, chairman of China's Poly Technologies Ltd., into a 
     White House reception last February with Mr. Clinton. Two 
     months after that reception, Poly

[[Page H3663]]

     Technologies, which makes weapons for the Chinese military, 
     was identified by U.S. Customs Service agents as a target in 
     a sting operation that had been about to deliver 2,000 AK-47s 
     to U.S. criminals.
       Mr. Wang, according to White House records, met with Mr. 
     Clinton at a reception with several Democratic campaign 
     contributors. The records show he was Mr. Trie's guest at the 
     event.
       Mr. Trie and Mr. Huang have been described as longtime 
     Arkansas friends of the president. It was Mr. Huang who 
     arranged for Mr. Trie to attend a White House coffee with Mr. 
     Clinton. Both men are now at the center of investigations by 
     a Justice Department-FBI task force and Congress into 
     irregularities involving money that was raised for Mr. 
     Clinton's reelection and his legal-defense fund.
       Mr. Clinton, who appointed Mr. Trie to the Commission on 
     U.S. Pacific Trade and Investment Policy in April 1996, has 
     said he did not know his longtime friend was collecting money 
     for his legal-defense fund until after the fact.
       Mr. Solomon said the Chinese government could ``easily 
     return Mr. Trie to the United States if it had a will to do 
     so,'' and that refusing a request by Mr. Clinton--through 
     Miss Albright--``would certainly raise even more questions 
     about any nation wanting good relations with the United 
     States.''
       Mr. Solomon also asked Mr. Clinton to turn over any 
     background reports or investigations the White House 
     possesses regarding Mr. Trie's appointment to the Commission 
     on U.S. Pacific Trade and Investment Policy.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, July 17, 1997]

                       Was John Huang Debriefed?

                          (By Robert D. Novak)

       A previously missing government form that should have 
     indicated whether John Huang was debriefed by a security 
     officer before the left the Commerce Department two years ago 
     turned up last Friday. But the place where the now infamous 
     Democratic fund-raiser was supposed to have signed is blank.
       Any government official with top-secret access--Deputy 
     Assistant Secretary of Commerce Huang included--must attest 
     to the return of all classified information when debriefed as 
     he leaves the government. But Huang's unsigned debriefing 
     document underlines questions about what he did with 
     government secrets and how well they were protected.
       Complete answers can come only from investigators with 
     subpoena powers. Contrary to the White House mantra, current 
     Senate hearings concern much more than campaign finance 
     reform--such as Huang's security clearance, dubious on its 
     face. Immediately following CIA briefings, Huang would 
     regularly contact the Chinese Embassy. Yet, even after 
     resigning from the government and going to the Democratic 
     National Committee (DNC), he received another security 
     clearance. The CIA, which had given him documents, was not 
     alerted to Huang's change of status.
       Under the Freedom of Information Act, the conservative 
     weekly Human Events several weeks ago obtained from the 
     Commerce Department Huang's ``Separation Clearance 
     Certificate,'' noting that his ``effective date of 
     separation'' was Jan. 17, 1995 (though he actually went to 
     the DNC in December). Commerce officials signed the document 
     on Jan. 22, noting Huang's return of government charge cards, 
     his parking permit and his diplomatic passport. ``Security 
     debriefing and credentials'' was noted and signed by a 
     Commerce Department security officer named Robert W. Mack.
       At that debriefing, Huang should have signed a Standard 
     Form 312 acknowledging return of classified material. But an 
     official Commerce spokesman told Human Events editor Terrence 
     Jeffrey two weeks ago: ``The recollection of our security 
     personnel is that he [Huang] was debriefed but that a 
     Standard Form 312 has not been located.''
       What's more, there are indications it was never given to 
     congressional investigating committees. On July 3, Rep. Jerry 
     Solomon (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Rules Committee, 
     wrote Commerce Secretary William Daley demanding the Form 312 
     by July 9.
       That deadlines came and went, but late on Friday, July 11, 
     the pieces of paper was dispatched to Solomon. It showed that 
     on July 18, 1994, Huang signed for his security briefing. But 
     Huang never signed the debriefing acknowledgement that ``I 
     have returned all classified information in my custody.''
       If security officer Mack signed off for the debriefing, why 
     didn't Huang? ``For reasons that we have not determined,'' 
     Commerce press officer Maria Cardona told me. I called Mack 
     himself, but he said he could not reply. ``When you're as low 
     on the totem pole as I am . . .'' he said, trailing off.
       However, an unsigned Commerce document of Dec. 9, 1996, 
     supplied to Solomon earlier this year, quotes Mack as saying 
     that ``he personally briefed Huang and had him sign a SF-
     312'' in July 1994 but adds: ``Mack has no recall of the 
     debriefing'' the following January. The memorandum continues 
     that ``he does recall'' a call from a high-ranking official 
     ``to make sure that Huang did not lose his top-secret 
     clearance'' but kept it as a ``consultant.''
       ``Mack said to the best of his knowledge, Huang never 
     worked as a consultant, but DISCO [Defense Industrial 
     Security Clearance Office] did issue a top-secret clearance 
     to Huang. . . . DISCO has never been notified to cancel the 
     clearance,'' the memo continued. The memo writer said the 
     clearance, issued on Dec. 14, 1995, was still valid on Dec. 
     9, 1996.
       Yet another mysterious document: Commerce security officer 
     Richard Duncan--Mack's colleague--on Feb. 13, 1995, wrote an 
     internal memo listing Huang among other officials as signing 
     SF-312s. Was this an attempt to create a paper trail?
       This is the curious conclusion of John Huang's access to 
     secret information. It began with the official request Jan. 
     31, 1994 that the required background investigation for Huang 
     be waived because of ``the critical need for his expertise . 
     . . by Secretary [Ron] Brown.'' When Huang resigned a year 
     later, Assistant Secretary Charles Meissner proposed the 
     consultant's role, in order for Huang to retain access to 
     classified documents. Brown and Meissner both perished in the 
     tragic plane crash in Croatia, but their patronage of John 
     Huang remains a fit subject for scrutiny.
                                  ____


              [From Time Warner Pathfinder, Nov. 4, 1997]

                    Inquiry Sought Into China Stocks

                 (By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer)

       Washington (AP).--A senior congressman wants an 
     investigation of the possibility that China may be skirting 
     U.S. disclosure laws in sales of stock in its big government-
     owned companies.
       Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y., who heads the House Rules 
     Committee, recently told the chairman of the Securities and 
     Exchange Commission, Arthur Levitt Jr., that the Chinese 
     actions represent ``a potential threat to our country.''
       He urged Levitt to take appropriate action, possibly 
     including an investigation.
       At issue is the sale to U.S. investors a chunk of giant 
     state-owned China Telecom. Its special New York shares began 
     trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 22.
       In an Oct. 20 letter to Levitt, Solomon cited a Bloomberg 
     News story that quoted China's communications minister as 
     saying the government would ease accounting rules to boost 
     China Telecom's profits.
       The statement by Wu Jichuan came in mid-October as shares 
     of companies backed by China plunged on the Hong Kong stock 
     market.
       Solomon called Wu's reported statement ``cynical, 
     manipulative and direct evidence of fraud.''
       ``The highest priority of American securities law is to 
     provide accurate information to the American investor, and 
     (China's) actions flout that objective,'' he wrote Levitt.
       The lawmaker expressed similar concerns about two other 
     government-owned companies, China Southern Airlines and 
     Beijing Enterprises, which also are expected to sell special 
     shares in the United States.
       At the same time, Solomon and Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., 
     are pushing House and Senate bills that would establish a new 
     Office of National Security within the SEC to monitor foreign 
     involvement in U.S. securities markets, financial 
     institutions and pension funds. The legislation doesn't name 
     any countries specifically.
       Solomon is to testify Wednesday at a hearing on the issue 
     by the Senate Banking subcommittee on financial institutions.
       SEC spokesman Christopher Ullman declined comment on 
     Solomon's letters to Levitt and the proposed legislation. 
     Spokesmen at the Chinese Embassy didn't immediately return a 
     telephone call seeking comment.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Times, November 1997]

17 in House Want Clinton Impeached--Barr Leads Charge To Force Hyde To 
                             Begin Inquiry

                          (By Mary Ann Akers)

       The House Rules Committee yesterday took the first step 
     toward initiating impeachment proceedings against President 
     Clinton after 17 House conservatives raised the issue in a 
     formal resolution.
       Talk of impeachment, which was laughed off by the White 
     House and dismissed as incredible even by most Republicans, 
     was sparked by Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican. His 
     resolution calls for an ``inquiry of impeachment'' on 
     everything from the 1996 campaign fund-raising scandal to the 
     FBI files and White House travel office issues.
       ``I believe William Jefferson Clinton . . . has violated 
     the rule of law, and however difficult it may be to go down 
     the dark tunnel of impeachment, at the end of the tunnel 
     there is light,'' Mr. Barr said.
       Although the resolution has little chance of passing the 
     House or making its way to the House Judiciary Committee for 
     a formal review of impeachment, it is still likely to spark 
     yet another line of investigation of the White House--this 
     time by the Rules Committee.
       Rep. Gerald B.H. Solomon, New York Republican and chairman 
     of the panel, indicated he would hold hearings soon relating 
     to ``the matter of the president and others in their 
     potential illegal activities as custodians of the executive 
     branch of the United States.'' He did not set a date.
       This investigation would be parallel to the one being 
     conducted by the House Government Reform and Oversight 
     Committee under Rep. Dan Burton, Indiana Republican.
       Mr. Barr's plan was to have his resolution go to the Rules 
     Committee first, then to the Judiciary Committee, which has 
     jurisdiction over impeachment proceedings, and finally to the 
     House floor.

[[Page H3664]]

       But House Judiciary Chairman Henry J. Hyde, Illinois 
     Republican, made it clear yesterday that he wants no part of 
     the impeachment inquiry and disagreed with Mr. Barr's 
     assessment that the current fund-raising scandal is as 
     serious as Watergate.
       ``The state of play is quite different now than it was 
     then,'' Mr. Hyde said.
       Among the differences Mr. Hyde noted: President Nixon's 
     approval ratings were very low; two former attorneys general, 
     John Mitchell and Richard Kleindienst, along with Mr. Nixon's 
     general counsel, John Dean, had been convicted of felonies; 
     Mr. Nixon himself had been named an unindicted co-
     conspirator; and a rash of other administration officials had 
     either pleaded guilty to crimes or been forced to resign.
       By contrast, Mr. Clinton has been enjoying unusually high 
     approval ratings lately, no one in his administration has 
     been indicted for anything relating to fund raising and the 
     ongoing Justice Department or congressional probes have not 
     yet demonstrated that crimes were committed by anyone in the 
     Clinton administration.
       ``Impeachment is a very political act. It is a Draconian 
     act, and ultimately it must be a bipartisan act,'' Mr. Hyde 
     said.
       Only one president in U.S. history has ever been 
     impeached--Andrew Johnson in 1868 for firing his secretary of 
     war without cause and without consent of the Senate.
       House Republican leaders, meanwhile, indicated they were 
     not as actively behind the impeachment inquiry resolution as 
     Mr. Barr had implied to reporters.
       ``The speaker is aware of what we're doing here today, is 
     supportive of it,'' Mr. Barr said. But a spokeswoman for 
     House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Georgia Republican, said only, 
     ``Speaker Gingrich is aware of Mr. Barr's resolution and 
     feels it quite sobering that 17 members find this 
     appropriate.''
       At the White House, Mr. Clinton said of Mr. Barr, ``He's 
     always had a rather extreme view of these things.''
       White House Press Secretary Michael McCurry added: ``In any 
     body of 535 people, there will always be a denominator that's 
     lowest. And we've seen this from Barr before. . . . Every 
     time things get a little quiet on the [scandal] inquiry 
     front, he pops off about impeachment to get you all 
     excited.''
                                  ____


            White Water--China Hawks Warn of Beijing's Bonds

                         (By Timothy W. Maier)

       The China hawks are armed with a get-tough-on-China bill 
     that could limit Beijing's access to the U.S. capital market. 
     The bill, called the U.S. Market Securities Act, sailed 
     through a Senate Banking subcommittee last month and now is 
     traveling full-speed ahead for a possible vote next year in 
     the House and Senate.
       Supporters say the measure takes the first step in 
     providing both national-security protection and a safeguard 
     for taxpayers by creating a screening process at the 
     Securities Exchange Commission, or SEC, to monitor fund-
     raising activities of companies with ties to Beijing. 
     Opponents say it will be an expensive federal regulatory 
     nightmare that won't work.
       But to Wall Street's dismay, the legislation is gathering 
     strong support on Capitol Hill. The China hawks claim Beijing 
     fails to disclose its business dealings with military 
     enterprises. They fear that of the funds being raised by the 
     Chinese communist regime, close to $7 billion from bonds, may 
     be finding their way into the arms of the People's Liberation 
     Army, or PLA--the same army that rolled tanks into Tiananmen 
     Square to crush a pro-democracy demonstration in 1989.
       The U.S. Treasury Department does not restrict foreign 
     countries from the bond market unless they are subject to 
     embargo or trade sanctions, even if a national-security 
     concern exists. The legislation doesn't sit too well with 
     Wall Street. Economists warn that the day the bill is passed 
     the Hong Kong flu that rocked the American stock market two 
     days before the subcommittee held hearings on it will return 
     with a vengeance.
       A temporary market setback, however unlikely, is a small 
     price to pay to ensure national security, says Roger 
     Robinson, a senior director of international economic affairs 
     at the National Security Council under President Reagan and 
     one of the principal architects of the bill. ``If China is 
     not doing the wrong thing, it has nothing to worry about,'' 
     he insists. ``All we want is a list of names. The American 
     people have inquiring minds and they want to know. What we 
     want to know is who were the funders and suppliers that paid 
     for weapons of mass destruction now held by Iraq. We can't 
     answer that because we don't know.''
       Charles Wolf, dean of the Rand Institute's graduate school 
     of political studies, doesn't buy the story that the money is 
     supporting missiles for the PLA. Wolf says, ``The hawks start 
     the premise by saying China is doing as much as they can get 
     away with, but that's like asking, How many angels can sit on 
     the head of a pin? There is some indirect borrowing or some 
     indirect leakage to the military, but it is not all that big 
     a deal. What is a big deal is pursuing military 
     modernization, especially the Russians. But that's something 
     the intelligence agencies and military should do. I don't 
     think that is the purview of the SEC.''
       But Robinson points to China International Trust and 
     Investment Corp., or CITIC, which is run by kaffeeklatsch 
     guest and PLA arms dealer Wang Jun, to show it's not the 
     amount of money but the potentially devastating quality of 
     some of these weapons. For example, CITIC received $800 
     million from 15 bonds, and some of those funds may have 
     drifted into Wang's weapons company, Poly Technologies--which 
     last year was caught smuggling 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles to 
     California street gangs and which tried to sell rockets 
     capable of bringing down jetliners.
       ``How would we feel if a street gang shot down a national 
     airliner?'' Robinson asks. ``When you have the wrong 
     management with the wrong reporting structure and not a true 
     corporate identity, you have the ingredients in today's 
     information and technology age for world-class incidents and 
     national-security challenges.''
       Leading the charge that is gaining considerable support on 
     Capitol Hill are Senate Banking subcommittee on Financial 
     Institutions and Regulatory Relief chairman Lauch Faircloth 
     of North Carolina and House Rules Chairman Gerald Solomon of 
     New York. The bill these conservative Republicans introduced 
     in the Senate and House also asks the Pension Benefit 
     Guaranty Corp., a federal agency, to issue annual reports on 
     communist China's securities that are held in the portfolios 
     of pension funds--a protection for the American taxpayer.
       On Nov. 5, Solomon spelled out the significance of the bill 
     be predicting economic warfare soon will supersede more-
     traditional forms of conflict. ``With the emergence of the 
     new global economy creating megamergers involving 
     many foreign conglomerates, some of which are reported to 
     involve international Mafia connections and drug-cartel 
     monies, this Office of National Security within the SEC is 
     an absolute must. In other words, we need a special 
     watchdog agency specifically committed to making sure no 
     entity can engineer fluctuations that could bring our 
     markets down.''
       And Faircloth tells Insight the bill simply is trying to 
     protect the hard-earned savings of the American taxpayer. 
     ``We must take steps to ensure that the average American 
     investor enjoys the same market protection abroad that he 
     does here stateside,'' Faircloth says. ``In other words, the 
     American investment must be alerted to the insider trading, 
     adulterated disclosure and manipulated accounting standards 
     commonly practiced in the debt and equity markets of 
     countries such as China. Further, the American people need to 
     be aware that through their pension and mutual-fund 
     investments they may be unwittingly supporting the 
     modernization of the Chinese military.''
       The bill has bipartisan support from the left-wing, 
     Berkeley-based environmental watchdog group International 
     Rivers Network, or IRN. The group last month launched an 
     advertising blitz calling on American investors to order 
     their fund managers to dump all investments tied with China's 
     State Development Bank, which is behind the huge Three Gorges 
     Dam project. IRN Executive Director Owen Lammers calls it one 
     of the ``largest and most environmentally and socially 
     destructive projects on Earth,'' claiming it will not improve 
     flood control or provide the electrical power needed but 
     instead will displace 1.9 million people. ``We're asking 
     investors to tell their fund managers to get out of those 
     bonds supporting this,'' Lammers tells Insight.
       Investors probably have very little idea about how the 
     money is spent based on the perspectives the Beijing banks 
     provide. The State Development Bank supplies a list of 10 
     projects under development and less than 200 words about the 
     Three Gorges Dam. ``They technically disguise this project 
     claiming it will cost $30 billion but unofficially will 
     likely cost $75 billion because they are building a dam that 
     would stretch from Boston to New York,'' Lammers says.
       Insight also obtained hundreds of pages of SEC documents 
     involving other Chinese companies, and what is apparent is 
     what is not present. Red Chinese entities are short on 
     specifics and background information, especially regarding 
     Wang Jun and his ties to the military. The lack of detailed 
     prospectuses is one of the reasons why Randolph Shih Shung 
     Quon, a Chinese-American financial consultant who worked in 
     Hong Kong as an adviser to the Chinese Central Bank from 1993 
     to 1995, is demanding that the SEC investigate Beijing's 
     offerings underwritten by some leading investment firms such 
     as Goldman Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, 
     Discover & Co. The SEC is not commenting.
       Quon wants to know why foreign countries such as the 
     People's Republic of China are not held to the same threshold 
     of disclosure as American companies. Now based in Washington 
     at the Free Congress Foundation, a conservative think tank, 
     Quon claims he fled to the United States after reporting 
     fraudulent activities among the Beijing princelings' 
     children. ``Whether the Chinese government can be trusted to 
     play by the rules, I have serious doubts,'' Quon tells 
     Insight. ``This is the time to lay down the law in Asia. 
     There is no level playing field. They are like 19th-century 
     barons.''
       Quon, who testified at the subcommittee hearings, called 
     for SEC investigations into several high-profile stock and 
     bond deals claiming disclosure violations. For example, he 
     says that just before the $4.2 billion China Telecom offering 
     Wu Jichuan, communist China's minister of posts and 
     telecommunications, stated the government soon would hand 
     over valuable assets to the new company. Wu also declared he 
     would allow China Telecom to book certain networks that 
     normally would go through state companies. In addition, Quon 
     notes the China Telecom prospectus filed with the SEC failed 
     to disclose

[[Page H3665]]

     Hong Kong billionaire Li Kashing had been found to be 
     involved in an insider-trading scheme and that Li controlled 
     companies that in turn controlled 10 percent of China 
     Telecom.
       Michael J. Evans, managing director of Goldman Sachs, the 
     firm that handled the offering, did not return repeated phone 
     messages left at his offices in Hong Kong, London and New 
     York. However, Evans has claimed in other interviews that his 
     firm followed the letter and spirit of U.S. securities law, 
     that Wu only repeated points made in the China Telecom 
     prospectus and that any fee adjustments would have to be 
     reviewed by SEC.
       Some economists and Wall Street watchers warn that the 
     legislative proposal creates a costly layer of bureaucracy 
     and is impossible to enforce because, they argue, once funds 
     go to a state-owned company, Beijing still could covertly 
     divert the money to the PLA. ``This is a chapter out of Alice 
     in Wonderland,'' says Steve Hanke, a professor of economics 
     at Johns Hopkins and former Reagan economic adviser. ``I 
     can't conceive how you would make certain the money would 
     stay in state-owned enterprises. Even if it could be done, 
     would it make any difference? The answer is no.''
       Hanke says the money just would be funneled from another 
     source and there is no possible way to monitor every single 
     dollar. ``This is a full-employment bill for bureaucratic 
     parasites that want to be doing something. It's jobs for the 
     boys--for the bureaucrats in Washington who want to regulate 
     something that is over China. The effect of this bill in 
     China? You couldn't find it on the radar screen. You won't 
     have any effect in what's going on in China. The 
     administrative expense will cost us and it will cost them. 
     It's going to raise the cost of Chinese doing business. It 
     will be more difficult to make these bond issues.'' v. . . . 
     Intelligence specialists including Robinson strongly disagree 
     with Hanke's evaluation, claiming this simply could be done 
     with one person plugging names into a computer and sending 
     information to Congress for intelligence reviews.
       ``The idea that it is some costly process is rubbish,'' 
     insists Robinson, who President Reagan credited as being 
     ``the architect of a security-minded and cohesive U.S. East-
     West economic policy.'' If it is done, Robinson predicts huge 
     defaults that ultimately would be paid by U.S. taxpayers.
       To understand the seriousness of the situation, one must 
     look no further than Beijing's major banks, which effectively 
     are bankrupt because of $90 billion in nonperforming loans, 
     says Robinson. Beijing acknowledges that 20 percent of all 
     the bank loans have turned sour, although most analysts say 
     that is an underestimate. Consider the recent bank failure in 
     Japan--triggered by 8 percent nonperforming loans. The 
     People's Republic of China has a banking crisis, with U.S. 
     taxpayers potentially picking up the bill, Robinson says.
       The Economist refers to these banks as ``unstable and mired 
     in debt,'' because the ``banks' senior executives rarely are 
     given reliable information by their loan officers.'' Peter 
     Schweizer, a scholar at the Hoover Institution, says 
     investing in bonds issued by these banks could be a disaster 
     waiting to happen. ``U.S. pension funds and individuals who 
     have invested in these bonds could end up holding worthless 
     paper,'' he says.
       Is Red China's debt really cause for concern? Tom Byrne, 
     vice president and senior analyst at Moodys' Investors 
     Service in New York, tells Insight he thinks the debt is 
     manageable. ``It is a major problem, but unlike other 
     countries external borrowing is fairly well-controlled,'' 
     Byrne says. ``Long-term borrowing is fairly tight and the 
     short-term debt is at a reasonable level. They have 
     controlled it, and they have sent out signals that they will 
     continue to control it.''
       Robinson counters, ``I received the same assurances about 
     the Soviet Union that Moscow's debt was entirely manageable. 
     They said I was overreacting then. Well, what was the 
     epilogue? Very simply, roughly $100 billion in Soviet debt to 
     Western governments was lost in a 25-year rescheduling.''
       What did the Soviet Union do with all that U.S. cash? They 
     made their attack submarines quieter and enhanced their range 
     so that now ``they can threaten every American city with no 
     advance warning sign,'' Robinson says.
       But there is a significant difference between Russia and 
     China in these matters because, unlike bank loans, the bonds 
     cannot be rescheduled. Instead, if it can't pay the debt, 
     Beijing simply will default--forcing U.S. taxpayers to bail 
     it out.
       The whole Asian picture is cause for alarm in light of 
     recent events with more than $100 billion in bailouts already 
     expected. South Korea leads the pack with $50 billion; 
     Indonesia is at $37 billion; Thailand, $17 billion; and 
     Malaysia at $10 billion. The United States is responsible for 
     bailing out 25 percent of it. Now throw Beijing into that 
     picture and the result 10 years from now could be another 
     $100 billion bailout.
       And disclosure may be imperfect, Robinson admits. But he 
     says a do-nothing approach could bankrupt the future of 
     American children even as our money and credits, aid and 
     trade, are used to finance building Red China into a military 
     superpower. ``Taken alone, the widespread proliferation of 
     weapons of mass destruction and ballistic-missile delivery 
     systems constitutes a sufficient argument for the 
     establishment of an Office of National Security at the SEC,'' 
     Robinson says. ``After all, foreign governments are by far 
     the largest category of proliferators--but you may be certain 
     the American people will not want to discover in the future 
     that their leaders bankrupted them to fund enemies in an epic 
     global tragedy.''

  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. All time for debate has expired.
  The resolution is considered read for amendment.
  Pursuant to House Resolution 436, the previous question is ordered.
  The question is on the resolution.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a 
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not 
present.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 342, 
nays 69, answered ``present'' 12, not voting 10, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 177]

                               YEAS--342

     Abercrombie
     Aderholt
     Allen
     Archer
     Armey
     Bachus
     Baesler
     Baker
     Baldacci
     Ballenger
     Barcia
     Barr
     Barrett (NE)
     Barrett (WI)
     Bartlett
     Barton
     Bass
     Bentsen
     Bereuter
     Berry
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Blagojevich
     Bliley
     Blumenauer
     Blunt
     Boehlert
     Boehner
     Bonilla
     Bono
     Borski
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boyd
     Brady (TX)
     Bryant
     Bunning
     Burr
     Burton
     Buyer
     Callahan
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canady
     Cannon
     Capps
     Cardin
     Castle
     Chabot
     Chambliss
     Chenoweth
     Christensen
     Clement
     Coble
     Coburn
     Collins
     Combest
     Condit
     Cook
     Cooksey
     Costello
     Cox
     Coyne
     Cramer
     Crane
     Crapo
     Cubin
     Cunningham
     Danner
     Davis (FL)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis (VA)
     Deal
     DeLauro
     DeLay
     Diaz-Balart
     Dickey
     Dingell
     Dixon
     Doggett
     Dooley
     Doolittle
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Dunn
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ehrlich
     Emerson
     English
     Ensign
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Evans
     Everett
     Ewing
     Farr
     Fawell
     Foley
     Forbes
     Ford
     Fossella
     Fowler
     Fox
     Frelinghuysen
     Frost
     Gallegly
     Ganske
     Gejdenson
     Gekas
     Gephardt
     Gibbons
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gilman
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Goodling
     Gordon
     Goss
     Graham
     Granger
     Green
     Greenwood
     Gutierrez
     Gutknecht
     Hall (OH)
     Hall (TX)
     Hamilton
     Hansen
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Hefley
     Hefner
     Herger
     Hill
     Hilleary
     Hinojosa
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Hooley
     Horn
     Hostettler
     Houghton
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Hutchinson
     Hyde
     Inglis
     Istook
     Jenkins
     John
     Johnson (CT)
     Johnson (WI)
     Jones
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kasich
     Kelly
     Kennedy (RI)
     Kennelly
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kim
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kleczka
     Klink
     Klug
     Knollenberg
     Kolbe
     Kucinich
     LaFalce
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Lantos
     Largent
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lazio
     Leach
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     Livingston
     LoBiondo
     Lofgren
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Luther
     Maloney (CT)
     Manton
     Manzullo
     Mascara
     McCarthy (MO)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McCrery
     McHale
     McHugh
     McInnis
     McIntosh
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McNulty
     Meehan
     Menendez
     Metcalf
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Minge
     Mink
     Moakley
     Mollohan
     Moran (KS)
     Morella
     Myrick
     Neal
     Nethercutt
     Neumann
     Ney
     Northup
     Norwood
     Nussle
     Obey
     Ortiz
     Oxley
     Packard
     Pallone
     Pappas
     Pascrell
     Paul
     Paxon
     Pease
     Peterson (MN)
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Pitts
     Pombo
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Portman
     Poshard
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Quinn
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Redmond
     Regula
     Reyes
     Riggs
     Riley
     Rivers
     Roemer
     Rogan
     Rogers
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Rothman
     Roukema
     Royce
     Ryun
     Sabo
     Salmon
     Sanders
     Sandlin
     Sanford
     Sawyer
     Saxton
     Scarborough
     Schaefer, Dan
     Schaffer, Bob
     Schumer
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shaw
     Shays
     Sherman
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Sisisky
     Skeen
     Skelton
     Smith (MI)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (OR)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith, Adam
     Smith, Linda
     Snowbarger
     Snyder
     Solomon
     Souder
     Spence
     Spratt
     Stabenow
     Stearns
     Stenholm
     Strickland
     Stump
     Stupak
     Sununu
     Talent
     Tanner
     Tauzin
     Taylor (MS)
     Taylor (NC)
     Thomas
     Thornberry
     Thune
     Thurman

[[Page H3666]]


     Tiahrt
     Tierney
     Traficant
     Turner
     Upton
     Walsh
     Wamp
     Watkins
     Watts (OK)
     Waxman
     Weldon (FL)
     Weldon (PA)
     Weller
     Weygand
     White
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wise
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                                NAYS--69

     Ackerman
     Andrews
     Becerra
     Bonior
     Brady (PA)
     Brown (CA)
     Brown (FL)
     Brown (OH)
     Carson
     Clay
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Cummings
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     Deutsch
     Dicks
     Engel
     Fattah
     Fazio
     Filner
     Furse
     Hastings (FL)
     Hilliard
     Hinchey
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kennedy (MA)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Markey
     Martinez
     Matsui
     McDermott
     McKinney
     Meek (FL)
     Millender-McDonald
     Miller (CA)
     Moran (VA)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Oberstar
     Olver
     Owens
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pickett
     Rangel
     Rodriguez
     Roybal-Allard
     Rush
     Scott
     Serrano
     Skaggs
     Slaughter
     Stark
     Stokes
     Thompson
     Towns
     Velazquez
     Vento
     Visclosky
     Waters
     Wexler
     Wynn
     Yates

                        ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--12

     Berman
     Bishop
     Clayton
     DeFazio
     Frank (MA)
     Kind (WI)
     Maloney (NY)
     McGovern
     Sanchez
     Tauscher
     Watt (NC)
     Woolsey

                             NOT VOTING--10

     Bateman
     Franks (NJ)
     Gonzalez
     Harman
     Johnson, Sam
     McDade
     Meeks (NY)
     Parker
     Pelosi
     Torres

                              {time}  1447

  Messrs. THOMPSON, CUMMINGS, MORAN of Virginia and OBERSTAR and Ms. 
McKINNEY changed their vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  Mrs. KENNELLY of Connecticut, Ms. McCARTHY of Missouri, and Messrs. 
HINOJOSA, ROTHMAN, COSTELLO and MANTON changed their vote from ``no'' 
to ``aye.''
  Mr. WATT of North Carolina and Mrs. CLAYTON changed their vote from 
``no'' to ``present.''
  Mrs. MALONEY of New York and Ms. WOOLSEY changed their vote from 
``aye'' to ``present.''
  So the resolution was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

                          ____________________