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