[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 123 (Thursday, October 5, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8897-H8898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            JAMES RIADY INVITES BILL CLINTON TO LIPPO BOARD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, last year, during our 
investigation, the Committee on Government Reform had John Huang 
testify that James Riady, a close personal friend of the President of 
the United States, organized a scheme to funnel a million dollars into 
the President's campaign in the early 1990s. Around $700,000 to 
$800,000 of that money was raised, brought into the country from 
Indonesia through conduits, and funneled into the campaign as had been 
promised.
  We believe much more than that was brought in, but that is all we 
could account for. Most of that money was sent back, was returned, 
because it was illegal campaign contributions. We have been after the 
Justice Department for some time to, in absentia, indict Mr. Riady for 
illegal campaign contributions and for obstruction of justice.
  Mr. Riady fled the country. He is now living in Indonesia, and he is 
one of the major partners or executive officers in the Lippo Group, 
which was formed by his father, Mochtar Riady, sometime ago.
  Mr. Riady also orchestrated a complex scheme to launder over $4 
million in political contributions to various campaigns, parties and 
other nonprofit groups in addition to the money that he gave to the 
President's campaign in the early 1990s.
  And throughout the 1990s, he worked with John Huang, helped get John 
Huang appointed to the Democratic National Committee leadership, so 
that he could extract more money from illegal sources in China and the 
Far East, including Indonesia.
  The Justice Department has not moved to indict Mr. Riady, and that is 
something that we have really been fighting with them about, because we 
think, even though he is in Indonesia, he has violated American law, he 
has fled the country, and he has not complied with subpoenas from our 
committee and others.

[[Page H8898]]

  One of the things that really bothers me, and the reason I come to 
the floor today, is not to rehash what we have known for a long time, 
Mr. Speaker; but today we find out that Mr. Riady invites the President 
of the United States to be on the Lippo board of directors in 
Indonesia. This comes right from the Far Eastern Economic Review that 
was reported today, and I urge my colleagues to look at the article.
  Mr. Speaker, I include this article for the Record.

                  Riady Invites Clinton to Lippo Board

       Indonesian tycoon James Riady has invited U.S. President 
     Bill Clinton to join the board of Lippo Group when he steps 
     down from Office early next year, according to business 
     people who have met Riady in Jakarta recently. Riady has been 
     telling business contacts in Jakarta that he expects Clinton 
     to accept, even though the U.S. president has been dogged by 
     allegations that Riady funnelled illegal foreign donations to 
     Clinton's 1992 and 1996 election campaigns. A former Lippo 
     Group employee reports that as far back as the mid-1990's 
     Riady was said to be trying to recruit Clinton to the board 
     as soon as he left office. Jakarta police are currently 
     helping the U.S. Justice Department in its investigation of 
     the alleged campaign contributions.

  The article reads like this: ``Riady invites Clinton to Lippo board. 
Indonesian tycoon James Riady has invited President Bill Clinton to 
join the board of Lippo Group when he steps down from office early next 
year, according to business people who have met with Mr. Riady in 
Jakarta recently. Riady has been telling business contacts in Jakarta 
that he expects Clinton to accept even though the U.S. President has 
been dogged by allegations that Riady funneled illegal foreign 
contributions to the 1992 and 1996 campaigns.''
  The thing that is interesting about this, and I am not accusing the 
President of anything, so I do not want to be stopped for anything, but 
the thing that is interesting about this, Mr. Speaker, is that the 
beneficiary of one of the major decisions by the administration was the 
Riady group, the Lippo Group, in Indonesia.
  Sometime in the 1990s, the President took the coal reserve, the 
largest clean burning coal reserve in the United States, out of 
possible production in Utah and made it a national park. Many engineers 
told us that this could have been mined in an environmentally safe way; 
but, nevertheless, the President said he wanted to make it a national 
park to preserve the ecology.
  Now the beneficiary of that was the Lippo Group in Indonesia, because 
they have one of the largest clean burning mining operations in the 
entire world. And when you take this large reserve out of possible 
production in Utah, the only real beneficiary that we could find was 
the Riadys and the Lippo Group in Indonesia.
  In addition to that, Mr. Riady met with the President in the back of 
a car in 1992, and again in 1996 worked with him, met with him, and 
funneled, we believe, millions of dollars in illegal campaign 
contributions in from Indonesia and from China and many of those 
hundreds of thousands of dollars of this money was returned because it 
was to be illegal.
  Now we find out that the Riady group is going to put the President on 
the board of directors when he leaves office in January. All I can say 
is that this really bothers me a great deal, because all of the 
information we have would lead one to believe that the very strong 
possibility exists that a lot of these things were done to benefit the 
Riady group, and now they are going to put the President on the board 
of directors. I think every American ought to know that.

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