JWR Jeff JacobyBen WattenbergRoger Simon
Mona CharenLinda Chavez

Paul Greenberg Larry ElderJonathan S. Tobin
Thomas SowellMUGGERWalter Williams
Don FederCal Thomas
Political Cartoons
Left, Right & Center

Jewish World Review / Nov. 3, 1998 /13 Mar-Cheshvan, 5759

Cal Thomas

Cal Thomas Clinton's greatest peril isn't Monica

WHILE THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES prepares to open hearings on whether President Clinton should be impeached, several current and former Capitol Hill staffers are quietly trying to persuade Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde to expand the inquiry beyond allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice to whether the president compromised U.S. security in his open-ended pursuit of campaign cash from China.

Hyde and other members of Congress have recently been given a new book called ``The Year of the Rat: How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash,'' by Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett II. Timperlake is on the professional staff of the House Committee on Rules dealing with national security. Triplett is the former Republican counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Hyde
While much of the material in their highly readable and deeply troubling book has been collected from hearings by Sen. Fred Thompson's Governmental Affairs Committee, which the Democrats have managed to stonewall, the book for the first time meticulously assembles in one place facts and persuasive circumstantial evidence to make its case that Bill Clinton may be guilty of the kind of high crimes and misdemeanors which are clearly impeachable offenses.

Timperlake and Triplett note that James Riady and his Lippo Group latched on to a young Bill Clinton and constructed a web of Asian influence that funneled millions of dollars into various Clinton campaigns and causes (such as silencing Webster Hubbell). For this, Riady enjoyed not only access to Clinton, but Riady's chief stooge, John Huang, got top-secret security clearance and continued to see classified information even after he became a big fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee. The authors build a strong case that Huang was a conduit for information that did not remain within the confines of the United States but found its way by fax and other means into the hands of those who do not wish America well, notably the Beijing government. Exactly what the Riadys and their Chinese Communist friends got for their money was not fully discovered by the Thompson committee. It should be probed by Chairman Hyde.

Throughout the book, the authors raise important questions. What is so significant about Huang's 1992 fund-raising and his relations with Clinton that he would risk a charge of perjury to deny them? Huang had access to our highest foreign intelligence, which was of great interest and use to the Chinese. What did James Riady get in exchange for massive amounts of campaign cash and hush money for Hubbell? The authors write that the "payoff'' was the insertion of his man, John Huang, into the heart of American political and economic intelligence. They conclude: "Intelligence information and overwhelming circumstantial evidence both indicate that (Huang) betrayed the trust that the American people placed in him when he was called to their service and put on their payroll.'' "Three remarkable women,'' as the authors describe them -- Democratic Party activist Maria Hsia, Pauline Kanchanalak of Thailand and Hong Kong billionaire Nina Wang -- all have money ties to Bill Clinton and Al Gore and all have connections to Chinese intelligence or the military arm of the Chinese Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army (PLA). "Beijing did not hesitate to exploit this connection, even face-to-face with Bill Clinton,'' the authors say.

Hsia is a known agent for the Chinese government who has been indicted for immigration and campaign-fund-raising scams and, say the authors, probably helped Chinese spies enter the United States. Kanchanalak, who has been indicted on charges of violating election laws, brought leaders of a Thai conglomerate that is in business with Middle East terrorists and with China's biggest arms smugglers to the White House to lobby the president. Wang has given millions of dollars to enable PLA officers to come to the United States, including some who participated in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and who received 19-gun salutes at the Pentagon.

Then there are the organized crime groups, known as triads, and others who used the campaign cash connections for their own purposes and against U.S. interests.

"Year of the Rat'' is a compelling and brutal indictment of an administration that not only was willing to sell out the country in order to hold on to political power, but probably violated enough laws to more than fit anyone's definition of "high crimes and misdemeanors.''

Up

10/30/98: Mother Teresa was right about killing
10/27/98: Clinton to Netanyahu: 'You're despicable'
10/21/98: A 'peace' agreement: Wye not?
10/19/98: Vanity Fair snubs some of the greatest women 'leaders'
10/14/98:The mean machine
10/09/98: Impeachment: an outside perspective
10/07/98: The corruption of the Secret Service
10/02/98: Land erosion in Israel
10/01/98: The race panel: lies in black and white
9/18/98: The Clinton strategy and the Clinton legacy
9/18/98: Stopping him before he sins again
9/15/98: Repenting when the end is near
9/11/98: Faithfully executing: Congress vs. the President
9/10/98: The degrees of separation between Dan Burton and Bill Clinton
9/08/98: Joe Lieberman and the Democrats' conscience
9/04/98: Clinton vs. Reagan and the struggle for power
9/02/98: If only Bubba had been a Boy Scout
8/31/98: Liberal clergy and the Lewinsky affair
8/27/98: Combating the terrorists among us
8/25/98: The president as 'Chicken Little'
8/20/98: That was no apology
8/18/98: Big government's crab grab
8/14/98:Untruths, half-truths and anything but the truth
8/12/98: Lying under oath: past and present impeachable offenses
8/10/98: Endangered species
8/04/98: In search of an unstained president
7/31/98: The UK is ahead of US in one area...
7/28/98: Murder near and far
7/21/98: Telling the truth about
homosexual behavior
7/17/98: One Nation? Indivisible?
7/14/98: Who cares about killing when the 'good times' are rolling?
7/10/98: George W. Bush: a different 'boomer'
7/08/98: My lunch with Roy Rogers
7/06/98: News unfit to print (or broadcast)
6/30/98: Smoke gets in their eyes
6/25/98: Sugar and Spice Girls
6/19/98: William Perry opposed
technology transfers to China
6/19/98: The Clinton hare vs.the Starr tortoise
6/17/98: The President's rocky road to China
6/15/98: Let the children go
6/9/98: Oregon: the new killing fields
6/5/98: Speaking plainly: the cover-up continues
6/2/98: Barry Goldwater: in our hearts
5/28/98:The Speaker's insightful remarks
5/26/98: As bad as it gets
5/25/98:Union dues and don'ts
5/21/98: Connecting those Chinese campaign contribution dots
5/19/98: Clinton on the couch
5/13/98: John Ashcroft: another Jimmy Carter?
5/8/98: Terms of dismemberment
5/5/98: Clinton's tangled Webb
4/30/98: Return of the Jedi
4/28/98: Desparately seeking Susan
4/23/98: RICO's threat to free-speech and expression
4/21/98: Educating children v. preserving an institution
4/19/98: Analyzing the birth of a possible new nation
4/14/98: What's fair about our tax system?
4/10/98: CBS: 'Touched by a perv'
4/8/98: Judge Wright's wrong reasoning on sexual harassment
4/2/98: How about helping American cities before African?
3/31/98:Revenge of the children
3/29/98: The Clinton strategy: delay, deceive, deny, and destroy
3/26/98: Moralist Gary Hart
3/23/98: CNN's century of (liberal) women
3/17/98: Dandy Dan
3/15/98: An imposed 'settlement' settles nothing
3/13/98: David Brock's Turnabout


©1998, Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Inc.