Clinton Scandal Clips

from The Progressive Review

June 2000 - Aug 2000

AUG 2000

THE LIST

A few of those who have contributed $10,000

or more to the legal defense fund

of the most corrupt president

in American history

- Peter Angelos BALTIMORE MD - Lawyer- Self - $10,000- 2000

- Smith Bagley WASHINGTON DC - Executive- Arca - $10,000- 2000

- Norman Lear LOS ANGELES CA - Chairman- ACT III Communications - $10,000- 2000

- Lew R Wasserman BEVERLY HILLS CA - Chairman Emeritus- Universal Studios Inc - $10,000- 2000

- Harvey Weinstein NEW YORK NY - Co-Chairman- Miramax Film Corp - $10,000- 2000

- Peter G. Angelos BALTIMORE MD - Attorney/Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos- P.C. $10,000- 1999

- Smith Bagley Washington DC - Executive/ARCA - $10,000- 1999

- Michael Douglas LOS ANGELES CA - - $10,000- 1999

- David Geffen UNIVERSAL CITY CA - Principal- DreamWorks SKG - $10,000- 1999

- Sally Hambrecht SAN FRANCISCO CA - - $10,000- 1999

- William R. Hambrecht SAN FRANCISCO CA - Chairman/WRH & Co.- LLC - $10,000- 1999 [Salon]

- Jeffrey Katzenberg BEVERLY HILLS CA - Principal- DreamWorks SKG - $10,000- 1999

- Ralph Lauren New York NY - Executive/Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. - $10,000- 1999

- Lew R. Wasserman BEVERLY HILLS CA - Chairman Emeritus- Universal Studios - $10,000- 1999

- Edith Wasserman BEVERLY HILLS CA - - $10,000- 1999

- Harvey Weinstien NEW YORK NY - Co-Chairman- Miramax Films - $10,000- 1999

- Smith Bagley

Washington DC - Executive/ARCA - $10,000- 1998

- Tony Bennett New York NY - Entertainer/Self - $10,000- 1998

- Tony Coelho Alexandria VA - Investor/self-employed - $10,000- 1998

- Robert L. Johnson Washington DC - President & CEO- Black Entertainment Television- Inc. - $10,000- 1998

- Lew R. Wasserman Beverly Hills CA - Chairman Emeritus/Universal Studios - $10,000- 1998

- Edith Wasserman Beverly Hills CA - Housewife - $10,000- 1998



Find Clinton's friends in your state:

OPEN SECRETS Former House impeachment counsel David Schippers told Boston talk show host Howie Carr that Juanita Broaddrick was telling "God's truth" when she said she had been raped by Bill Clinton. Schippers said the woman was interviewed by a top Chicago sex crimes detective who returned saying that Broaddrick was a classic rape victim.

Robert Haas, one of the Northrop Grumman contractors who discovered and worked on the missing e-mail at the Clinton-Gore White House, has revealed that after he was threatened to keep his mouth shut about what he had discovered, someone anonymously left a death list on his chair of 58 people who had died during the Clinton-Gore Administration. Linda Tripp testified that a similar death list was left on her chair on at least two occasions during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Haas also revealed that the Clintons and the Gores kept secret e-mail accounts and have done so since the inception of the Clinton-Gore Administration. This has never before been revealed to courts, Congress or independent prosecutors. Judicial Watch , which obtained Haas' statement said that "these suppressed e-mail are likely the "Rosetta Stone" of the Clinton-Gore scandals. NEWSMAX : Bill Clinton tacitly admitted that he raped Juanita Broaddrick during a conversation with her husband in the mid-1980s, according to an account given to House impeachment investigators by Broaddrick herself, a new book claims. David Schippers, the former Chicago mob-busting attorney selected by House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde to head the Clinton impeachment inquiry two years ago, offers the Clinton rape shocker in "Sellout: The Inside Story of President Clinton's Impeachment." But in his book, Schippers reveals a stunning new detail as he recounts [his investigator's] version of Broaddrick's story. "One evening, years before, in 1984 or 1985, Mr. and Mrs. Broaddrick had attended a function in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The couple didn't realize that Clinton was the keynote speaker. When they found out, they returned to their hotel room. "In the course of the evening, (Juanita's husband) David went down to the bar and found himself standing next to Clinton. Clinton stuck out his hand and said, 'You're with Juanita, aren't you?' "Broaddrick squeezed Clinton's hand as hard as he was able. He looked Clinton right in the eye and, continuing his grip, said, 'Don't you go near her or near her home; don't you even so much as look at her.' "Startled, Clinton pulled his hand away and said, 'I didn't know she was with you when that happened.'" When "that" happened? Clinton wasn't mystified by Mr. Broaddrick's angry demeanor and ominous sounding words. He accepted the warning without protest and asked for no further explanation. His sanguine reception of Broaddrick's hostile behavior has only one explanation.

ROLL CALL : Reaction to "Sellout," the book that fires away at House and Senate Democrats and reserves a special degree of contempt for Senate Republicans, was muted on Capitol Hill last week . . . Schippers, who was hired by House Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) as chief investigative counsel for the impeachment, labels the process one of "lies, cowardice, hypocrisy, cynicism, amorality, butt-covering." And that's just the fifth sentence . . . According to Schippers, [Senate Majority Leader] Lott -- who in an earlier meeting told Hyde, "Henry, you're not going to dump this garbage on us" -- and other GOP Senators were reluctant to call any witnesses. At that point Hyde said the managers had evidence Clinton sexually assaulted "another woman," an oblique reference to Juanita Broaddrick, the Arkansas woman who came forward after the impeachment to allege Clinton raped her in the 1970s. [Senator] Stevens became indignant, according to Schippers' recollection: "Henry," Stevens said, "I don't care if you prove he raped a woman and then stood up and shot her dead -- you are not going to get 67 votes [for conviction]." WORLDNET DAILY : A White House official threatened to punish contractors with "the full weight of the government" if they talked about missing West Wing e-mails under subpoena, a computer contractor testified in federal court. Northrop Grumman e-mail expert Robert Haas shed more light on what took place during a controversial June 1998 meeting between contractors and White House officials over gaps in e-mail records. The meeting is central to fact-finding hearings in a federal lawsuit against the White House, as well as to two criminal probes into charges officials hid evidence from investigators. . . . Haas said that during the June 15, 1998, meeting a top Clinton aide told him and four other Northrop Grumman workers the e-mail crisis was "top secret." At the time, Congress and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr were subpoenaing White House e-mail. Haas said White House official Mark Lindsay announced over a speakerphone that they could "not tell our wives or anyone." Lindsay denies even implying they should keep it a secret. Nonetheless, Congress and investigators were kept in the dark about the "Project X" problem for nearly two years, although a former White House computer manager says she briefed a House lawyer about it in November 1998 . . . Haas, a nine-year White House veteran, said Lindsay's order was jarring. He says it was the first time in his marriage anyone had told him not to talk to his wife. After Lindsay hung up, his confidant Laura Crabtree Callahan put a sharper point on the warning, Haas says. She said they'd not only lose their jobs if they talked, but also go to jail. He said she told the non-government technicians that the White House would use "the full weight of government to make sure we never work in government or this town again," Haas recalled. What's more, Haas said she told him "there will be a jail cell with your name on it."

WORLDNET DAILY : Hearings into missing White House e-mail took a surprise turn when a former White House computer manager said she told Congress about gaps in e-mail records almost two years ago. The federal court testimony undercuts GOP lawmakers' claims that the White House never told them the subpoenaed e-mails were missing until this year. Sheryl Hall, a former branch chief in the White House's computer division, said she secretly briefed a House investigator in November 1998 about the records gap, known internally as "Project X." She says the Republican staff lawyer, who went on to work for the independent counsel, didn't follow up on her complaint. The lawyer, Keith Ausbrook, told Worldnet Daily he doesn't recall talking about Project X with Hall.

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER : Former newspaper owner Abe Hirschfeld was dragged struggling and yelling from court yesterday after being sentenced to one to three years in prison for trying to have his partner killed. The 80-year-old millionaire real estate developer was convicted in June of second-degree criminal solicitation for offering $150,000 to have Stanley Stahl, his real estate partner of 40 years, killed in 1997 over a business dispute . . .

Hirschfeld once offered Paula Jones $1 million to drop her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton. Jones settled the lawsuit for $850,000 in 1998 and then sued Hirschfeld for allegedly backing out of the offer.

WJ CLINTON addressed the Association of Trial Lawyers last week, becoming the first president to address a convention of that body. It was not clear whether he was also the first impeached politician or first politician in the midst of disbarment proceeding to address the body.

JULY 2000

PARANOID

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS

ON APPEALS COURT?

The Ninth Circuit US Court of Appeals has ordered a district judge to review photos of Vincent Foster's body to see if they can be released to independent investigator Allan Favish under the Freedom of Information Act. The Independent Counsel had refused to release the shots, claiming that Foster's surviving relatives would suffer emotional grief if the photos were released because the photos are "graphic, explicit, and extremely upsetting." The district court judge will have to balance the privacy interests of Foster's survivors against "the public benefit to be obtained" by release of the photos.

In ordering the OIC to produce the photos to a district court judge in Los Angeles, the court said, "Favish, in fact, tenders evidence and argument which, if believed, would justify his doubts" about the government's conclusion. Favish argued that the report was replete with significant factual omissions, distortions, and conflicts with the underlying official investigative record.

APPELLATE BRIEFS

WHICH IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO SAY

Obviously, the president probably has more experience than any living human being about how deep in the gutter some people can go -- White House communications director Joe Lockhart

Arief Wiriadinata came to the US from Indonesia allegedly to study landscape architecture -- although some accounts describe him simply as a gardener. In any case, he somehow seems to have become distracted by the more fascinating world of raising funds for the Democratic Party, to which he eventually gave nearly a half million dollars. We're not quite sure how a gardener (or even a landscape architect) actually does this but it is at least interesting to note that his wife was the daughter of a key business partner of the Riadys, who have been bailing out Bill Clinton since the 1970s. We lost track of Wiriadinata when he returned home, reportedly to work for Sea World Indonesia.

Now Wiriadinata has appeared again, if only on videotape, using probably the corniest line in the whole Clinton saga. The 1995 tape shows a coffee at the White House hosted by Clinton and Gore. Clinton greets Wiriadinata, who actually says, "James Riady sent me."

James Riady is the son of Mochtar Riady, Clinton's billionaire guardian angel. As a teenager, James was taken on as an intern in 1976 by Stephens Inc. He later says he was "sponsored" by Bill Clinton. He did pretty well as an intern; by 1985 he is president of the Stephens' family's Worthen bank, and by 1992 he and his family and associates coughed up $700,000 for the Clintons. Riady also had a number of meetings with Webster Hubbell and at the White House shortly before Hubbell received $100,000 from a Hong Kong bank owned in part by the Chinese intelligence service. The latest word is that the Justice Department is interested in striking some sort of deal with James Riady.

On the tape, after Wiriadinata moves away from the president, a voice some believe to be that of Vice President Gore is heard to say, "We oughta, we oughta, we oughta show Mr. Riady the tapes, some of the ad tapes."

As House Government Reform Committee chairman Rep. Dan Burton says, "If it is the vice president, why does he want Mr. Riady to see the issue ads? Mr. Riady lives in Indonesia, and he was the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal foreign contributions. Why does the vice president want him to see those issue ads?"

Meanwhile, the ranking Democrat, Henry Waxman -- showing how much he has learned ceaselessly defending the Wizard of 'Is' -- argues, "Mr. Burton is convinced that Vice President Gore is saying on the tape, 'We ought to, we ought to, we ought to show Mr. Riady the tapes, some of the ad tapes.' Maybe it does. Or maybe the reference is to 'Dottie' or 'Lottie' or even 'John Gotti' - or who knows what?" He does not dispute it was Gore speaking.

MASTER OF DISASTER

When the Indonesian gardener, Arief Wiriadinata gave $455,000 to the Clinton machine, the Washington Times quoted Mark Fabiani, then a White House spokesman, describing the gift "as an act of gratitude for a get-well letter Mr. Clinton sent Mrs. Wiriadinata's father after he suffered a heart attack."

For such services to the republic, Fabiani has made his way to the point that he is now Al Gore's deputy campaign manager for communications, working with press secretary Chris Lehane. Although the Washington Post recently featured Fabiani under the headline, "Gore Turns to 'Master' Of Preemptive Strike" it curiously failed to recall his most notorious feat: he and Lehane cooked up the infamously weird and paranoiac "Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce," a bulky and logically twisted argument that placed the blame for the Clinton's troubles on right-wing conservatives. The report was lambasted and ridiculed and even led to the creation of a Fabiani Society, "operating from a secret headquarters in Manhattan" for those "who share right-of-center politics, conversation, and cocktails on the first Tuesday of each month." The society says it is named "in honor of Clinton White House aide Mark Fabiani. He helped produce the infamous 'Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce' report. The present society was formed to justify and further provoke such paranoia."

Last year, writing in the New York Observe, Philip Weiss recalled his experiences with Fabiani and Lehane:



"In fall 1996, The New York Times Magazine asked me to look into the Clinton haters, and I called Chris, who overnighted me another copy of the report, bigger than ever. Then I went down to Washington to talk to him and his boss, Mark Fabiani .. Mr. Fabiani laughed, talking about what a whiz Chris was on the Internet and the photocopier. The two of them were dark and light. A week later, I went to Arkansas for the first time and read Chris' report on my bed in the Excelsior Hotel. The clippings were like a box of candies of Clinton haters. I got to choose which person I'd do first. Sitting on the bed, I called Linda Ives. . . . When I asked Chris and Mark about the actual stories in the clips, they said they hadn't looked into them, that wasn't the point. When I left Linda's house, late at night, standing under the spotlight rural people have outside their homes, her dog barking, I promised her I wouldn't sell her out. I didn't realize it yet, but I was already becoming a Clinton-hater."

On Track International performed a test at the headquarters of the government contractor hired by the Clinton-Gore White House to copy, restore, and retrieve the missing White House e-mail. The firm was able to copy the missing e-mail at about 25 times the speed of the Clinton-Gore White House's contractors. The test results came in Judicial Watch's $90-million Filegate class-action lawsuit, where Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Clinton-Gore White House, Craig Livingstone, Anthony Marceca, and Bernard Nussbaum are defendants.

CLINTON'S 1974 CAMPAIGN

The Washington Post has run yet another article trashing those who have blown the whistle on the Clintons -- "their back-stabbing, story-changing, leg-iron-wearing friends." The article starts off on Paul Fray of HRC slur fame who helped Clinton in his first (and losing) congressional campaign in 1974. But the Post, like other major media, fail to tell the really interesting story about that campaign, namely that it was funded in no small part by Clinton's Uncle Raymond, who provided a $10,000 loans and some free houses to use for campaign activities. Raymond's drinking buddy, druggist and back room gambling operator, Gabe Crawford, offered his private plane.

So who was Uncle Raymond? Well, when Bill Clinton was 7, his family moved from Hope, Arkansas, to the long-time mob resort of Hot Springs, AR. Here Al Capone was said to have had permanent rights to suite 443 of the Arlington Hotel. Clinton's stepfather was a gun-brandishing, alcoholic who lost his Buick franchise through mismanagement and his own pilfering. He physically abused his family, including the young Bill. Bill's mother was a heavy gambler with mob ties. According to FBI and local police officials -- as reported by Roger Morris in "Partners in Power" -- Uncle Raymond, to whom young Bill turned for wisdom and support, was a colorful car dealer, slot machine owner and gambling operator, who lived on the fault line of criminality and whose house was once firebombed. Uncle Raymond's gambling operations were franchised by the Marcello organization of New Orleans. Thus began Bill Clinton's career as a mob-backed pol

WASHINGTON TIMES: President Clinton told federal investigators he never asked an Indonesian businessman to pay $100,000 to Arkansas pal Webster L. Hubbell to guarantee his silence in the Whitewater investigation. Mr. Clinton, under intense questioning by Robert J. Conrad Jr., the Justice Department's campaign finance task force chief, admitted going on vacation with Mr. Hubbell to Camp David a week after the businessman, James Riady, gave Mr. Hubbell the cash, but the president said they never discussed the matter. Mr. Clinton said he also met with Mr. Riady at the White House the same day the Indonesian businessman met twice with Mr. Hubbell to discuss the $100,000 payment, but knew nothing of the arrangement. White House records show Mr. Riady met with Mr. Clinton at the White House at 10 a.m. on June 23, 1993, the same day Mr. Riady met with Mr. Hubbell for breakfast and for lunch. Four days after his White House visit, Mr. Riady gave the $100,000 to Mr. Hubbell for work that has never been explained. "So the question would be, at the same time that Mr. Riady is meeting with Mr. Hubbell twice, sandwiching the meeting with you, do you have any recollection about any conversation with Mr. Riady with respect to Webster Hubbell?" Mr. Conrad asked in the April 21 interview, which was released Monday by the White House. "No, sir, I don't," the president said. "I just don't remember it. If he did say anything, I simply don't remember it."

http://www.washtimes.com THE WASHINGTON POST reports that Talk/Miramax's tell-all book about Clinton critics is being scrubbed after a firestorm over the investigative techniques used to compile it and anti-gay comments by the author. But Rod Dreher of the NY Post suggests that may have been the idea all along:



"Some believe the book never was intended to see the light of day. They say it's a shot across the bow intended to frighten journalists from making too much over Al Gore's ethical problems in the coming election season. "There is a level of recklessness here that makes me believe it's not an actual book but an attempt to intimidate," said ]book target and Wall Street Journal reporter John] Fund. "It's the Clinton spin-meisters trying to destroy everybody so nobody will lift a finger against him or Al Gore in the future," said [another target David] Bossie.

NEWSMAX : In an affidavit sworn by former Freedom of Information Act division head Sonya Stewart, Stewart details the efforts of the administration to withhold secret documents demanded under the FOIA by Judicial Watch and Congress. In her affidavit Stewart voiced fears of retribution for coming forward with her explosive charges.

"I come forward to present my declaration to this Court with great trepidation and grave concern about retribution and retaliation which may be directed at me, both professionally and personally, as a result of this affidavit," she wrote. "Nevertheless, I present this declaration out of my obligation to uphold the interests of justice as I swore to do upon my installation as a federal employee. I hope, believe, and expect that the Court will protect me" . . .

As head of the FOIA offices Stewart said she was aware of the political manipulations involved in the administration's attempts to hide documents subject to the act. Among those named by Stewart as having been involved in the cover-up was former White House Deputy Counsel to the President Cheryl Mills, one of the lawyers representing Clinton in his Senate impeachment trial . . . "I know that Ms. Mills, in her position as Deputy Counsel to the President, advised Commerce officials to withhold certain documents. In my many years working for the federal government on FOIA and other matters, and in my experience gathering and responding to FOIA and Congressional requests for information, I have never known or heard of a federal agency collaborating or discussing releasing or withholding documents with White House officials . . .

Also mentioned in the affidavit was Bruce Lindsey, Clinton's closest friend and White House aide, and William M. Daley, then Commerce Department secretary and now the top campaign official for Vice President Al Gore . . . "In my role as Commerce FOIA Director, I have reviewed Commerce Department documents showing that Commerce Department officials offered to contact White House official Bruce Lindsey concerning the vetting of participants, such as James Riady of the Lippo Group, in trade mission events led by late [Commerce] Secretary [Ron] Brown," Stewart states. I have also reviewed Commerce Department documents which show that Commerce officials did coordinate with White House official Doris Matsui concerning potential participants in trade mission activities, and that Commerce Department officials considered support for the President and Democratic Party during their review.

JUNE 2000

GREAT BALLS AFIRE

JAMES RIDGEWAY, VILLAGE VOICE : When former federal prosecutor Barbara Olson insisted on Larry King Live last week that President Clinton ought to be disbarred, panel member F. Lee Bailey angrily retorted that she was out to "deball the President." Bailey's outburst brought a snicker from Olson, but in fact discussion of castrating the "phallic boy king" has become a hot topic among psychohistorians, who plumb the unconscious for a more profound meaning of what politics is all about.

Psychohistory can be explored along the following lines, according to Lloyd deMause, editor of The Journal of Psychohistory: In modern society, a leader is less an authority figure than a delegate, "someone who tells us to do what we tell him we want done," who "takes the blame for us . . . [who] is expected to absorb our violent feelings without collapsing." As long as our leaders follow our unconscious demands, we will follow them, deMause observes. But the moment they ignore the fantasy, the jig is up. At the end of two terms in office, Clinton is weak and no longer able to absorb our "poisonous" feelings; as a result, the nation verges on disintegration. The signs are all around. Instead of bedding Monica, Clinton displeased the nation by having oral sex with her. The stain on her dress symbolizes his lack of manhood.

What to do? "Ancient societies underwent rituals of purgation to revitalize the powers of the king," thereby "ridding themselves of pollution through . . . sacrifice and other punishments, fasts, battles, and regenerative rituals. As Robespierre said in 1792: 'Louis must die because the patrie must live.' "

In modern democratic societies, we don't usually kill our leaders; instead we throw them out of office, replacing them with more virile substitutes. Or a fortunate leader might hie himself to the whorehouse, where, as a sniveling masochist (all leaders are masochists), he might seek the whip of a dominatrix to purge the poison. Clinton, of course, was prepared for his role in this regard by his whip-wielding mother long ago.

In this scenario, psychohistorians suggest, the current attempt to disbar Clinton is token regicide, since the impeachment failed to kill him off. If that doesn't work, a stock market crash still might do the trick. In what is potentially yet another crime by the Clinton machine -- threatening state judges -- the word is being passed that if the President is disbarred he may move his presidential library elsewhere. The flagrant effort to sway the state court on the matter was kicked off by Clinton crony Skip Rutherford, head of the Clinton library foundation and the fellow former Arkansas state trooper LD Brown claims tried to get him to change his Whitewater testimony. Now US News & World Report writes, "Little Rock is fretting over new rumors that President Clinton will move this presidential museum, library, and policy center to Georgetown University, his alma mater, if the state courts disbar him for fibbing [sic] about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky." NEWSMAX: Presidential crony Skip Rutherford isn't very happy about an Arkansas Supreme Court committee's recommendation that Bill Clinton be disbarred . . . Rutherford, who's been raising millions to build Clinton's presidential library, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Friday: "Speaking independently here, if I were the president, I would now begin to question why I would want to put a library, a policy center and $125 million worth of ongoing private investment in Arkansas." The Skipper, as the paper called him in a scathing Saturday editorial, said he's been getting angry calls from donors who are highly displeased over the prospect of funding a library for a president who's about to be disbarred . . . Former Arkansas state trooper LD Brown claimed that Rutherford once tried to get him to change his Whitewater testimony. JOHNNY CHUNG

PAVES THE WAY

JOHNNY CHUNG, HOUSE TESTIMONY, MAY 11, 1999: On August 7, 1996, I returned to Hong Kong with my daughter and her friend. On August 11, we were in Zhuhai (which is across the border from Macau and in China) when I received a phone call from Liu Chao Ying and she invited me to dinner with someone who she said was a very important man from Beijing. I accepted the invitation.

The dinner was on August 11, 1996. Liu Chao Ying picked me up in her car and we went to a restaurant which is famous for its abalone (I do not remember the name of the restaurant). She told me that the man we were going to meet with was very important. Liu Chao Ying stressed that I should not be afraid to talk myself up and she encouraged me to show him my brochure. Liu Chao Ying told me that I was a much more impressive prospect than Charlie Trie because I had better connections than Trie's and that my brochure was much better than Trie's. I also would like to add one oddity that stuck out in my mind. At one point during our conversation, Liu Chao Ying made a cell phone call from the restaurant's basement. I asked her how she could make a call from a basement - she said there was special antenna.

When General Ji arrived, he came through the kitchen and introduced himself as "Mr. Xu" - the Chinese equivalent of Mr. Smith. The general said, "You can call me Mr. Xu" and it was clear from the way he said this that this was a bogus name. I and Liu Chao Ying spoke with Ji about her recent trip - talking up the past times I was able to get meetings with politicians and dignitaries. Liu Chao Ying was very deferential to Ji in a way that it made me think he was her boss or superior. The key information relayed to me at this dinner from Ji was the following:

-- "We really like your President"

-- "We hope he will be re-elected" or ["We would like him to be re-elected"]

-- "I will give you $300,000 U.S. dollars"

-- "You can give it to [or use it for] your President and Democrat Party"

I was somewhat startled by this proposal and I wondered who this man really was. However, I didn't want to insult him or insult Liu so I remained quiet and agreeable. I said something like "this is fine - it would be great to do business together - the more business I can do, then the more money I can give [to the President and Democrat Party].

Ji then left through the kitchen and then we left the way they came in. No one paid the bill. When I got in the car with Liu, she put her finger up to her lips and indicated that I should not talk while they were in the car with the driver. When we got out of the car I asked: "Who is he?" and she told me the General's name and who he was. I did not recognize the name. Liu scolded me and said that I needed to know my Chinese history better. She explained that his predecessor was the government official who said that the American government should be more worried about missiles headed to Los Angeles than Taiwan. She then told me Ji was the Military Intelligence Director of the People's Liberation Army. She wrote down his name on a small piece of paper and gave it to me and I put the paper in my pocket . . .

THE BAGMAN, THE GENERAL & THE PRESIDENT

ARKANSAS MAFIA

Mara Leveritt of the Arkansas Times, with the help of Rep. Vic Snyder, has finally gotten documents pertaining to Barry Seal and the "train deaths" out of the FBI. Leveritt received hundreds of pages on Seal, but it was so heavily black out as to be worthless. Many of the deletions allegedly were for reasons of national security or for the needs of the CIA. Seal, one of the nation's most notorious drug smugglers, moved to Arkansas in the early 1980s. In August 1983, the FBI New Orleans office wrote, "Seal controls an international smuggling organization which is extremely well organized and extensive."

Leveritt's investigation into the deaths of Don Henry and Kevin Ives, the subject of "The Boys on the Tracks," -- Amazon's number 2 bestseller in Little Rock these days -- eventually produced an FBI admission that it has 17,000 pages on the case, considered by some to be one of the keys to the still largely suppressed story of the Arkansas mob.

The boys were killed in Saline County and left on a railroad track to be run over by a train The initial finding of joint suicide was punctured by dogged investigators whose efforts were repeatedly blocked by law enforcement officials. Although no one would ever be charged, the trail led deep into the penumbra of the Dixie Mafia and the Arkansas political machine. Some believe the boys died because they accidentally intercepted a drug drop, but other information suggests the drop may have dispensed not drugs but cash, gold and platinum -- part of a series of sorties through which those working with US intelligence on various Arkansas operations were being reimbursed. According to one version, the boys were blamed in order to cover up the theft of the drop proceeds by well-known persons within the Dixie Mafia and Arkansas political machine.

Leveritt is still trying to break loose the FBI's train death papers but has posted hundreds of pages from the Seal file on her web site. She writes, "I post them in the hope that persons who know more about some of these events than I will find information in them that may have eluded me, or that, as other pieces of this puzzle come to light, some of the pieces presented here may be seen in a different light. Mostly, though, I post them because they are public records, they are important, and they were so damn hard to get."

MARA LEVERITT

BOYS ON THE TRACKS



JERRY SEPER, WASHINGTON TIMES: A second FBI executive can confirm that a top Justice Department official said he was "under a lot of pressure not to go forward" with an investigation into 1996 campaign finance abuses, and that Attorney General Janet Reno's job "might hang in the balance." FBI general counsel Larry Parkinson told the House Judiciary Committee yesterday that Neil J. Gallagher, the bureau's assistant director for national security, was present at the meeting during which Lee Radek, head of the Justice Department's office of public integrity, made the comments.

WASHINGTON TIMES

FROM OUR OVERSTOCKED ARCHIVES

"His word is dirt. Not a statesman is he, but a common, run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen politician. A mere opportunist. A man whose word is fallow ground not because it is unwanted but because it is barren, bereft of the clean-smelling goodness that nurtures wholesome things. Those of us who cling to the precepts of another age, a time in which a man's word was his bond, and, morally, bailing out was not an option, cannot join the madding crowd in celebrating what is for some Bill Clinton's finest hour. We cannot rejoice in treachery. The bleaters who care more for celebrity than veracity are basking in a false and empty light. They trumpet the basest form of political expediency, for they revel amid the debris of a broken promise. Clinton will never accept that assessment of his actions or his following. He subscribes to the credo that the anointed must rule the empire, and he has anointed himself. In his ambition-blinded eyes, one released from a promise has not broken any promise. He ignores the fact that he granted his own pardon." -- Meredith Oakley, in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, on October 4, 1991, the day Clinton announced his candidacy for the White House

JERRY SEPER, WASHINGTON TIMES : High-ranking Justice Department and FBI officials said Vice President Al Gore may have lied to campaign-finance task force investigators when he denied knowing that 1996 donations he solicited from his White House office were illegally diverted to the Democratic National Committee. According to newly obtained Justice and FBI memos, there is "specific information from a credible source" that Mr. Gore "may have lied to us" in claiming no knowledge that "soft" money donations he sought may have been routed to "hard" money DNC accounts. "The statement of a person without apparent reason to lie, corroborated by notes taken by an aide to the vice president, form a basis for concluding that the vice president did know what he claimed not to know - or certainly for investigating whether he may have," wrote Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Robert S. Litt in a September 1998 memo.

WORLDNET DAILY : When Attorney General Janet Reno dropped her investigation of former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary for allegedly taking a bribe, she did so over the advice of her FBI chief, a long-secret memo reveals. Johnny Chung, a '96 Clinton-Gore campaign donor, charged in the summer of 1997 that O'Leary agreed to meet with communist Chinese oil officials after he donated $25,000 to her favorite charity, Africare. "It is clear that the donation was made under extraordinarily suspicious circumstances that are worthy of additional investigation," FBI Director Louis Freeh said in a Nov. 24, 1997, memo to Reno . . . "The meetings at the Department of Energy and Africare event show substantial involvement by DNC officials, including Richard Sullivan and Don Fowler," Freeh wrote in his 27-page memo. "Consequently, these events should be further investigated by an independent counsel." His memo was written a week before Reno announced her decision not to seek the appointment of an independent counsel in the case.

ANN COULTER: Juanita Broaddrick, whom about 80 percent of Americans believed when she accused President Clinton of raping her (how do you like that poll?), is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service . . . Indeed, the IRS' random audit selection process has led to audits of an impressive array of citizens inconvenient to the administration. These include: Elizabeth Ward Gracen (Clinton conquest who helpfully admitted that Clinton did not rape her); Billy Dale (fired in travel office imbroglio); Bill O'Reilly (Clinton critic on Fox News channel); Kent Masterson Brown (brought lawsuit compelling Hillary's health care task force to reveal members); Paula Jones (wrecked Clinton presidency). Paula Jones got her audit letter from the IRS not long after she beat Clinton in the Supreme Court . . . Clinton's IRS has also audited almost every conservative organization you can name. Among them are: National Review, The American Spectator, The Christian Coalition, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Oliver North's Freedom Alliance, The Heritage Foundation, The National Rifle Association, The Western Journalism Center, The National Center for Public Policy Research, Fortress America and Citizens Against Government Waste.

TINA BROWN Is becoming entwined in the growing controversy over the book by John Connolly she is planning publish that, according to the Drudge Report and London Telegraph, is filled with sexual slurs and gossip involving those who challenged the Clinton machine, including Kenneth Starr. One of those reportedly upset by Brown's role is former colleague and best-selling author Chris Buckley. Drudge says that Buckley has "expressed complete outrage that his sex life is being explored. 'Tina appears to be throwing her friends out with the bath water,' said a publishing source who worked with both Brown and Buckley at the New Yorker." Others under attack in the book, according to Drudge, include ABC's Jackie Judd and Chris Vlasto.

According to the Washington Post, Disney may be backing off off a new book by John Connolly that allegedly digs into the sex lives of Clinton's critics. The angst arose after Matt Drudge obtained a manuscript and reported that Connolly had written: "There are no less than six gays involved in the [Lewinsky] case. Two of the 'elves', and three of Starr's young male proteges were gay..."

Says Drudge: "Connolly plans to name some names. Using the term 'fag hag' to describe Lewinsky player Lucianne Goldberg, Connolly told the Drudge Report that he has an "iron clad contract" with Talk/Miramax . . . Connolly has been spending the cash advanced to him by Talk to explore the personal backgrounds of Clinton scandal insiders. Best-selling author and syndicated columnist Ann Coulter, who comes under the Connolly microscope, said on Monday that she was "harassed" after Connolly brought in a private investigator to dig into her background. 'The guy began a program of harassment by calling me at home 6 times a day until I changed my number, sending me flowers, and hiring a private investigator to look into my personal life. I have a copy of the letter his PI sent to an ex-boyfriend of mine, stating that he was hired by John Connolly to look into me.' . . . 'I will not be bullied around,' warns Connolly, 'by threats or lawsuits or anything else.' Hide your cigarettes under the bed, Snow White. A scorched earth alert has been issued."

NY POST : FBI Director Louis Freeh - whose feud with Attorney General Janet Reno has exploded in public - would gladly quit, but doesn't want to give President Clinton the chance to pick his replacement, sources told The Post. Those who've worked with Freeh say he's a straight arrow. Freeh's rank-and-file agents and Reno's line prosecutors say they still can work together but are alarmed the battle between their bosses has burst into public. One exception is within the funny-money task force, where relations are so bad that prosecutors and agents have had to be placed on separate floors . . . "He just doesn't like this president. And he's privy to all the facts of all our campaign-finance related cases, so you can't second-guess his judgment," an FBI agent said.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, NEWSWEEK : Charles Uribe, chairman of A.J. Construction Co. in New York, got an unusual phone message on Feb. 2, 1996. "The vice president is on the line," his secretary said. "Vice president of what?" Uribe barked. "The vice president of the United States," she said. Uribe immediately took the call, and other executives in the room listened curiously to their boss's end of the conversation, a string of "yes, sirs" and "no, sirs." When Uribe got off he explained. "We need to raise $50,000 for the campaign," he said, according to an account a colleague later gave the FBI.

GOOD LOGIC

[Craig White in a letter to the Washington Post]

It seems your paper opposes indicting President Clinton after he leaves office for two reasons: closure and the humiliation he has already suffered. Let's consider humiliation only. If the president had been a nobody who perjured himself, most Americans would never have heard of him. Likewise, unknown people who do good often get little or no public honor and praise.

Loud acclaim and deep humiliation come with the territory Clinton sought, namely fame and power. To forgive him because he is famous and was humiliated suggests that we need a sliding scale of criminal punishment. The better known a person is, the less legal punishment needed.

The everyday criminal, known only to his neighbors, must receive full legal punishment; professors and journalists can receive medium sentences (a few people will hear about it), and the punishment of the rich and famous will be taken care of solely by the judgment of society. "I was outraged when I found out that the system for checking the backgrounds of contributors and things like that had been dismantled without my knowledge or approval." -- WJ Clinton

THERE HE GOES AGAIN

"Playing with the president was weird. He shot a 90. At the end of the game, his scorecard said 84." -- Fourth-ranked NCAA golfer Bryce Molder on his round with President Clinton

RON BROWN DEATH

[Although ignored by the major media, questions still abound in the plane crash death of former Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. While TPR has recounted many of the anomalies (which can be found by searching our site) Newsmax adds several new developments.]

-- GEORGE PUTNAM INTERVIEWING LARRY KLAYMAN OF JUDICIAL WATCH: GP: Larry, you've spoken with Brown's business partner, as you say, Nolanda Hill. Hill told you what had happened to Brown in the days just before his death. As the independent counsel, Daniel Pearson, was closing in on Brown, Brown went to see Bill Clinton . . . LK: That's right. What happened was this. This independent counsel started before this plane crash occurred. This counsel was a Democrat out of Miami. Brown went to Clinton, according to Nolanda Hill, and said to Clinton: "Unless you get this Democrat independent counsel off my back, I may have to turn state's evidence. I may have to cooperate." Clinton's response was - barefoot, according to Nolanda Hill, up on a foot stool, which is his way of walking around the White House, arms crossed - "That's nice." Almost like an organized crime figure, "That's nice." The icy chill in the room was so great that Nolanda Hill has told us that Ron Brown just walked out at that point. And it was within the next two weeks that he was sent to Bosnia. He did not know that he was scheduled to go there."

-- LT. COL. STEVE COGSWELL (a military pathologist who looked at Brown's body): Brown had a .45-inch inwardly beveling circular hole in the top of his head, which is essentially the description of 45-caliber gunshot wound.

-- CHRIS RUDDY, NEWSMAX: When they looked at the initial head X-rays, they found metal fragments, or potential fragments, in the head, sprinkled throughout the cavity of the head . . . All the original X-rays have been destroyed or are missing.

-- IN OTHER NEWS ON THE BROWN BEAT, the author of a new book on Brown has been denied freedom of information access to all of the FBI files on the former Clinton lieutenant because of matters still under investigation.

JUANITA BROADDRICK, who accused President Clinton of raping her, has been hit with in IRS audit. Given that the rape charges were quickly buried by the media, it is not surprising that the audit has received little attention either. One exception was Fox News where Rita Cosby reported, "In addition to Broaddrick, other women who've accused President Clinton of sexual assault or harassment have been audited after they spoke out, including Paula Jones, Gennifer Flowers and former Miss America Elizabeth Ward Gracen. Billy Dale was also checked out by the IRS soon after he criticized the White House for being fired from the travel office. Judicial Watch also says 20 conservative groups have been audited in the past seven years, but when asked about the complaint, a White House spokesman said, quote, 'We don't comment on meritless allegations.' A Democratic supporter says the case is motivated by politics."

Former Senator Al D'Amato appeared on Fox News later, with these observations to Paula Zahn:

D'AMATO: The president speaks to his people who are in positions who talk to them. The president would never talk to the director of the IRS himself. He'd have somebody who is very close and who is responsible for that fellow being picked. And that man might not even go to him. He might go to the political operative over there in IRS. It goes back to Richard Nixon. C'mon, let's wake up. Let's not think that this hasn't happened. It has happened. It happened with Nixon. Would it happen now? It happened with Johnson. You better believe it.

ZAHN: The GAO, when it came to conservative groups that have complained about this, said: Look, there is no evidence of intervention by the Clinton administration. You simply don't buy that?

D'AMATO: How are you going to find it? I mean, you think that you're going to be able to swear in some person who's going to say, "Yeah, somebody called me and told me..." Of course not. It's going to take place in a much more subtle way.

JAMES RIADY (CONT'D)

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Last year, [former Arkansas Governor Jim Guy] Tucker and his wife, Betty, moved to Jakarta to try to salvage a $6.5 million investment they made in 1996 in an Indonesian company now called PT K@belvision. With fresh backing and a team of half a dozen cable experts from home, the 57-year-old Mr. Tucker is trying to stitch together a fiber-optic network that will become what he and his colleagues call "Indonesia's Internet backbone" . . . It happens that a controlling stake in K@belvision is held by Lippo Group, the Indonesian conglomerate controlled by the family of James Riady, another prominent figure in President Clinton's financial scandals . . . The US Justice Department is still investigating allegations that Mr. Riady laundered $1 million in illegal contributions to the Democratic Party ahead of Mr. Clinton's election drive. He also has been cited in a House of Representatives report as having made a questionable payment to the family of Webster Hubbell, a key witness in the Whitewater investigation, fueling accusations by politicians and investigators that he doled out hush money.

NEWSMAX: Vice President Al Gore told Justice Department Campaign Finance Task Force Chief Robert Conrad in April that he "would be shocked" to learn that any of the participants at White House coffees understood them as fund-raising events, according to a transcript of the interrogation released late Friday.

And the Veep tried to blame President Clinton for whatever wrongdoing might emerge from the coffees, repeatedly claiming, "They were on his side of the house." But a month before Conrad's interview with Gore, one-time Clinton fund-raiser Johnny Chung told NewsMax that the vice president not only understood that at least one of these events was a fund raiser, but that the Veep personally solicited him for money on White House property. Chung, whose deep pockets bought him access to President Clinton, first lady Hillary Clinton and other senior White House officials more than 70 times, cited a 1995 luncheon at Washington, DC's Hay-Adams Hotel with 25 to 30 members of the Democratic National Committee's Business Leadership Forum. After the event, Chung said he and a number of other ripe financial prospects were invited across the street to the White House. Destination: Vice President Gore's office in the Old Executive Office Building. Chung told NewsMax that the vice president made a direct and personal appeal for campaign cash right there in his White House digs, a fact he shared with former Campaign Finance Task Force Chief Charles LaBella in 1998.

Former White House travel director Billy Dale says that he was never contacted by Independent Counsel Robert Ray regarding his knowledge of the Travelgate scandal. Ray, similar to his actions in Filegate, has closed the investigation without interviewing key players. Also learned from Dale: former bar bouncer and Chief of White House Personnel Security, Craig Livingstone, personally escorted him out his office after he was fired. The incident occurred one week before Dale's planned retirement. Dale made his comments on the Judicial Watch Report.

WORLDNET DAILY : Vice President Al Gore lost his memory at least 85 times during recent FBI grilling over his role in various campaign-finance scandals, a computer-aided analysis of his four-hour testimony shows. The WorldNet Daily analysis reveals that the likely Democratic presidential nod blanked out once every three minutes under examination by prosecutors.

ABC NEWS: The eccentric real estate mogul who offered Paula Jones $1 million to drop her sexual harassment case against President Clinton was found guilty today of trying to hire a hit man to kill his former business partner. Abe Hirschfeld, who made his fortune building parking garages in New York City, was accused of trying to arrange the murder of his longtime partner, Stanley Stahl. Hirschfeld faces up to seven years in prison when he is sentenced Aug. 1. He was found guilty of criminal solicitation and released on $1 million bail. Leaving a Manhattan courtroom today, Hirschfeld, normally a talkative man with the media, was silent and looked grim. He later spoke to ABCNEWS.com in a telephone interview but would not discuss the case, instead touting what he said were his accomplishments. "Where were you when I was selected as one of the 100 geniuses of the century?" asked Hirschfeld, when reached at his Manhattan office. "I'm one of 21 living geniuses and I am one of ten inductees in the immigrant hall of fame with Sammy Sosa and several others."

WAYNE MADSEN, COUNTERPUNCH: The Clinton/Gore administration walks and talks like born-again privacy advocates. However, when one peers under the rock that the administration claims to be its "progressive" privacy policy, repellent bottom feeders come into view. One major personal data collector is Axciom, a huge data-mining company that has amassed 20 million unlisted consumer phone numbers and routinely sells them to direct marketers. As a personal data reseller, Axciom combines the phone numbers with other personal data culled from sources such as the Internet. The result is a vast electronic dossier, available to nosy telemarketers . . . Axciom's chief executive officer is 55-year-old Charles Morgan, a bona fide "Friend of Bill". Shortly after Clinton's election in 1992, Morgan told the Direct Marketing Association's trade periodical DM News that Clinton would be a good friend of the direct marketing industry. He said Clinton "has been a strong supporter of our company and is a very strong proponent of companies like ours, which are information-based, and I would perceive him to be even-handed and rational about our industry." Morgan, who had been appointed to a number of Arkansas state commissions by then-governor Clinton, has advised Clinton on a number of issues relating to the direct marketing industry. None of this advice has been good for the cause of privacy in the United States.

WASHINGTON TIMES: For the record, in an 8-to-1 decision the Supreme Court voided Hubbell's misdemeanor guilty plea to tax-evasion charges, determining that Whitewater prosecutors improperly based their tax allegations on information gleaned from 13,120 pages of financial documents Hubbell submitted to them under a grant of limited immunity. But that ruling had no effect on the felony plea Hubbell also made last June. In that case, he admitted that over a five-year period he lied to federal bank regulators about legal work he and Hillary Rodham Clinton had done for a fraudulent real estate project which contributed to the collapse of Madison Guaranty, which cost taxpayers more than $60 million. . . . In December 1994, Hubbell pleaded guilty to a felony, admitting that he had effectively embezzled $400,000 from the Rose firm and more than a dozen clients, including Madison, by submitting false billings used to finance personal expenditures. Like Al Capone, Hubbell neglected to pay taxes on his ill-gotten loot, and he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of tax evasion as well. Hubbell spent 17 months in prison and promised to pay his back taxes and penalties as well as make restitution to the Rose firm. It didn't quite work out that way, however. Based on the financial documents Hubbell had submitted under a grant of limited immunity, prosecutors discovered that Hubbell and his wife earned more than $1 million from 1994 through 1997. But they managed to pay less than $30,000 against their tax obligations of $894,000, including taxes and penalties due on the embezzled funds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax payments due from his "consulting" work. During the same four-year period, however, according to an April 1998 indictment for tax evasion, the Hubbells did manage to spend $750,000 on clothes, personal accessories, domestic help, private school tuition for their children, etc. And there was the amended tax return for 1994 that added $77,000 in income after their tax records were subpoenaed. It was Hubbell's June 1999 guilty plea to tax evasion that the Supreme Court overturned, leaving three felony convictions on his rap sheet and, so far, the taxpayer holding the bag.

THE RIADY DEAL

There are reports that the Justice Department is ready to cut a deal with key Clinton machine figure James Riady. The department and former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr have an abysmal record on plea bargains, striking arrangements with central scandal characters such as Webster Hubbell but getting little or nothing in return. On the other hand, plea bargains have an immense advantage both to the targeted individual and to those wishing to limit how much the public learns about the Clinton scandals. This is especially true because of Justice's failure to make targets live up to their side of the deal. As the following chronology suggests, James Riady is someone the Clintons might not wish to come before a court in a full-blown trial.

RIADY TIME LINE

1976: Two Indonesian billionaires come to Arkansas. Mochtar Riady and Liem Sioe Liong are close to Suharto. Riady is looking for an American bank to buy. Riady's agent is Jackson Stephens, who also brokers the arrival of BCCI to this country and steers BCCI's founder, Hassan Abedi, to Bert Lance. Apparently because of pressure from Indonesia, Riady withdraws his bid to buy Lance's 30% share of the National Bank of Georgia. Instead, a BCCI front man buys the shares and Abedi moves to secretly take over First American Bankshares -- later the subject of the only BCCI-connected scandal to be prosecuted in the US. Riady's teen-age son James is taken on as an intern by Stephens Inc. He later says he was "sponsored" by Bill Clinton.

1983: Mochtar Riady forms Lippo Finance & Investment in Little Rock. A non-citizen, Riady hires Carter's former SBA director, Vernon Weaver, to chair the firm. The launch is accomplished with the aid of a $2 million loan guaranteed by the SBA. Weaver uses Governor Clinton as a character reference to help get the loan guarantee. First loan goes to Little Rock Chinese restaurant owner Charlie Trie.

1984: Mochtar Riady buys a stake in the Worthen holding company whose assets include the Stephens-controlled Worthen Bank. Price: $16 million. Other Worthen co-owners will eventually include BCCI investor Abdullah Taha Bakhish.

1985: Arkansas state pension funds --deposited in Worthen by Governor Bill Clinton -- suddenly lose 15% of their value because of the failure of high risk, short-term investments and the brokerage firm that bought them. The $52 million loss is covered by a Worthen check written by Jack Stephens in the middle of the night, an insurance policy, and the subsequent purchase over the next few months of 40% of the bank by Mochtar Riady. Clinton and Worthen escape a major scandal. Mochtar's son James comes back to Arkansas to manage Worthen as president. He bonds with Clinton and Charlie Trie. Lippo executive and Chinese native John Huang becomes active in Lippo's operations in Arkansas. China Resources pays for a Lippo-organized trip to Asia by Gov. Clinton, according to a later FBI inteview with John Huang. Mochtar and James Riady engineer the takeover of the First National Bank of Mena in a town of 5,000 with few major assets beyond a Contra supply base, drug running and money-laundering operations.

1990: James Riady takes over operations of a new branch of the Lippo Bank, working with Hong Kong Lippo executive, John Huang.

1991: Jackson Stephens and BCCI figure Moctar Riady buy BCCI's former Hong Kong subsidiary.

1992: James Riady, his family, and employees give $700,000 to Clinton and the Democratic campaign.

1993: John Huang and James Riady give $100,000 to Clinton's inaugural fund. John Huang arranges a private meeting between Mochtar Riady and Clinton at which Riady presses for renewal of China's 'most favored nation' status and a relaxation of economic sanctions. China's 'most favored nation' status is renewed.

1994: Ron Brown goes to China with an unprecedented $5.5 billion in deals ready to be signed. Included is a $1 billion contact for the Clinton-friendly Arkansas firm, Entergy Corporation, to manage and expand Lippo's power plant in northern China. Entergy will also get contracts to build power plants in Indonesia. James Riady tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: "I think the idea of having President Clinton from Arkansas in the White House shouldn't be underestimated."

Webster Hubbell is convicted of tax evasion and mail fraud involving the theft of nearly a half million dollars from his partners at the Rose firm and failing to pay nearly $150,000 in taxes. After quitting the Justice Department and before going to jail, Hubbell is a busy man. He meets with Hillary Clinton, and follows up by getting together with major scandal figures John Huang, James Riady, and Ng Lapseng. Riady and Huang go to the White House every day from June 21 to June 25, 1994 according to White House records. Hubbell had breakfast and lunch with Riady on June 23. Four days later -- and one week after Hubbell's meeting with Hillary -- the Hong Kong Chinese Bank, jointly owed by Lippo and the Chinese intelligence services, sends $100,000 to Hubbell. Huang, incidentally, formerly worked for the Hong Kong Chinese Bank. Hubbell also receives $400,000 from other sources.

DID WHITE HOUSE CONCEAL DOCUMENTS

FROM INVESTIGATORS?

[If true, this is one of the biggest Clinton scandals yet]

JERRY SEPER & ANDREW CAIN, WASHINGTON TIMES: The White House hid thousands of e-mails containing information on Filegate, Chinagate, campaign finance abuses and Monica Lewinsky, all of which were under subpoena by a federal grand jury and three congressional committees, a former White House computer manager says. Sheryl L. Hall, chief of White House computer operations who has since moved to a similar position at the Treasury Department, said administration officials covered up the fact that electronic messages from August 1996 to November 1998 had not been surrendered, as required by law, deciding instead to label them as "classified" documents. She said the cover-up was part of a bid to delay the investigations into 2001. "Contractors working at the White House discovered the glitch showing that 100,000 White House e-mails involving nearly 500 computer users had not been located during the document search," said Mrs. Hall. "When the contractors told the White House about the problem, they were threatened, warned not to discuss it. They were told the documents were classified. "In fact, a White House official told one of the contractors they had a jail cell with his name on it if he discussed the matter," she said. At least 4,000 of the e-mails involved or related to Miss Lewinsky, the former White House intern with whom President Clinton has admitted having a sexual relationship, she said.

WASHINGTON TIMES



GORE'S NUNS ON THE LAM

A federal judge has issued warrants for two Buddhist nuns who have apparently fled the country for Indonesia after being called to testify in a campaign finance case involving Al Gore. Gore attended a fund-raiser at the nun's temple, allegedly used as a conduit of funds into the Clinton-Gore campaign. On trial is fund-raiser Maria Hsia who is accused of illegally funneling about $55,000 into the Clinton-Gore coffers. Although Gore claims not to have been aware of what was going on, it has become an issue in the current campaign.





150 MILLION PARANOID

CONSPIRACY THEORISTS

UNCOVERED BY POLLSTER



A survey by the Zogby pollsters finds that 56% of Americans believe there are unanswered questions about the death of Vincent Foster that the media should press Kenneth Starr to answer. Only 27% agree with the najor media view that all questions have been answered.





ANOTHER FARHAD AZIMA UPDATE

MSNBC: The president is said to have raised $20 million for a library in Little Rock, Ark., which may cost as much as $125 million to build . . . Library executives have resisted giving the names of the donors, saying that there is no law that stipulates they have to do so . . . One name that has emerged is Farhad Azima, who is said to be one of the biggest donors, contributing more than $1 million. That raised eyebrows among certain political insiders, who recall that Azima, who runs an aircraft leasing business in Kansas City, Mo., was caught up in the Iran Contra scandal in the 1980s. Azima, who is a native of Iran, was linked to the Iran-Contra scandal when investigators found that a jet used to deliver arms to Iran belonged to him. Azima has denied any wrong-doing, but his name was so tainted by the connection to the scandal that Sen. Edward Kennedy once returned a contribution from him.



MAKING A FEDERAL CASE OF IT

The handling of the 1997 Starbucks murder case continues to raise eyebrows. Why, of all the 301 slayings that took place in DC that same year, did only these three killings attract the attention not only of the FBI but of Attorney General Reno herself? Reno has overruled her own US Attorney and called for the death penalty in the case.

(Even before considering criminal matters, this action is the latest in a long series of Clinton regime assaults on local self-government, since DC voters are strongly opposed to capital punishment.)

There are two reasonable explanations for the federal intrusion in the case. One is that the murders took place in Georgetown, home of some of the city's most powerful residents. The second is that one of the victims was formerly a White House intern, Mary Caitrin Mahoney, allegedly familiar with some of the licentious activities occurring there.

While there is no concrete evidence that Mahoney was specifically targeted, the heavy involvement of the federal government in what it claims was a routine murder case inevitably raises questions. The appearance of Reno, the Miss Fixit of Clinton crime and corruption investigations, is even less reassuring. Reno squashed investigations into drug and gubernatorial payoff aspects of the Department of Agriculture case, has never bothered to go after Webb Hubbell for the taxes he owes, and has repeatedly undermined the work of special prosecutors and congressional investigators. And as Wllliam Safire rightfully notes, Reno's Justice Department "wants none of the Clinton-Gore Asian funny-money traffickers such as John Huang, Pauline Kanchanalak and Charlie Trie to face punishment that might induce them to involve any of the famous recipients of China's largess."

The accused in the case has recanted his confession, which was acquired after extensive interrogation. Ironically, he is being prosecuted under federal anti-racketeering statutes, the very laws that could have been more aptly applied to the White House for its mob-like activities over the past few years.



WILLIAM SAFIRE, NEW YORK TIMES: About that awful word, "truth": At first Gore said the [temple] fund-raiser was merely "community outreach"; months later, he amended that to knowing only it was "finance-related." But Gore's 10-year relationship with Hsia was always based on her fund-raising; Harold Ickes sent him a memo that John Huang was organizing the temple event to raise $250,000; and there stood fund-raising Maria in a golden robe when he walked in. Yet he still denies he knew he was raising Asian-generated money in a Buddhist temple.



JOE FARAH, WORLDNET DAILY: An Arkansas company with ties to Mochtar Riady, the billionaire Indonesian and Chinese intelligence agent, has amassed 135 million consumer telephone numbers -- including about 20 million unlisted numbers -- to help identify and profile people who call toll-free lines to shop or make an inquiry. The company is called Acxiom Corp. of Conway, Ark. Formerly it was called Alltel, and before that Systematics ~~ the company was owned by Jackson Stephens, the billionaire Arkansas partner of Riady and a strong financial backer of President Clinton. Hillary Clinton, Webster Hubbell and Vincent Foster all worked on a secret National Security Agency project for Systematics while at the Rose Law Firm . . . The general counsel for Acxiom is Catherine L. Hughes, 48, a former public defender and assistant state attorney general who worked at Rose from 1983 through 1988 . . . When someone makes a toll-free call to a client of Acxiom, a telemarketing agent can learn who the caller is and where he or she lives, even before answering the call. The agent can also find out the kind of home the caller lives in, the type of cars the owners drive, whether they exercise or own a cat. This is the kind of thing Acxiom brags about. What the company is more reticent to share with the public is its means of gathering such data.

WORLDNET DAILY



CULTURE OF IMPUNITY

Cost of Defense Secretary William Cohens' four-night stay at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills during a visit in which he attended the People's Choice Awards and met with Julia Roberts and Stephen Spielberg: $10,000.



KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER

WHEN YOU READ ABOUT

THE FBI FILES CASE

According to Judicial Watch, neither Ken Starr nor Robert Ray has interviewed or called before a grand jury such key witnesses as Linda Tripp, who witnessed FBI file misuse; Thomas "Mack" McLarty, former White House Chief of Staff during the period in question; and Terry Good, Director of the Office of Records Management, who stored FBI files for the White House.

It would appear that Starr relied heavily upon the FBI -- itself a suspect party in the matter -- to determine whether there was a criminal conspiracy concerning the abuse of the files. The FBI was partially investigating itself.

Some witnesses, including former FBI Special Agent Dennis Sculimbrene, claim to have been harassed by the agency during the investigation.

The special prosecutor is releasing his report on the FBI files without consideration of information possibly contained in a recently discovered cache of White House e-mails.



OLD NEWS:

TPR'S COVERAGE

OF THE FBI FILES

JULY 1995: As the White House tries to spin Whitewater away, we will leave you with one story. Early in the Clinton administration your editor had dinner with, among others, a high White House official -- a lawyer. The conversation turned to marijuana. The lawyer said that numerous staffers had asked how they should respond to FBI queries on the matter. The official's reply was that they should remember that they would only be in the White House for a short while but the FBI files would be there forever. And what if friends or relatives actually saw them using pot? The White House lawyer's response: "If you can't look an FBI agent straight in the eye and tell him they were wrong, you don't belong here."

MAY 1996: Let's see. As we understand it we are meant to believe that an Army operative looking through the White House-obtained files on James Baker wouldn't have noticed that Baker was something of a Republican. Some gum shoe . . . But don't put all the blame on the FBI for collecting the stuff. The FBI increasingly is relying on Pentagon and NSA files. Less and less material comes from agents chatting with the neighbors, more and more from monitored phone calls. Although wire tapping is theoretically under court control and the NSA theoretically has no role in domestic law enforcement, the agency gets around this little problem by monitoring long distance phone calls downloaded in England and Australia. Let's say you're on the NSA watch list. The agency will electronically listen for certain key words, transcribe any messages dealing with these key words and pass them on to whatever other agencies might be interested. This helps to explain how the agency ended up with hundreds of documents on Vince Foster that it's refusing to release.



OCTOBER 1996: The missing ex-White House staffer mentioned in our last report turned up for closed-door testimony before Senate investigators. Mari Anderson, who was D. Craig Livingstone's executive assistant, said that Livingstone and his colleague Anthony B. Marceca knew that there were former Republican officials on the list of White House pass holders for whom FBI files were being requested. According to Anderson, when she mentioned it to Livingstone, he said, "Yes, that is just, it's part of the process." A recently uncovered WH memo also strongly suggests Livingstone knew what he was doing despite his earlier sworn testimony that "I was not told, and I had no reason to believe, that some of the persons on the lists no longer should have been included in the Secret Service's White House access list."

The New York Post has raised an interesting question: who is paying the legal fees of Craig Livingstone, the White House's former personnel security chief? Livingstone is using lawyers from a firm that normally charges between $350-600 an hour. The firm -- Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin -- is where Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick used to work.



OCTOBER 1996: The Review that "there seems to be adequate grounds for impeachment," based on the suborning of witnesses, obstruction of justice, and abuse of FBI files."



JULY 1997: So where's the editorial outrage of the abuse of FBI files by the White House? Why is this story dead? A year ago Knight-Ridder reported, "College-age interns and other volunteers had free access to hundreds of FBI investigative files kept in the White House security office during the first months of the Clinton administration. Nancy Gemmel, a retired security office deputy, said that during the first few months of the Clinton Administration 'extremely young' interns, 18 to 20 years of age, helped manage the heavy flow of paperwork. Other older volunteers also pitched in. All of the had access to a vault in the office that was used to store the background files. None of the volunteers, according to Gemmel, had been cleared by the FBI to hand such documents."



AUGUST 1998: Former White House FBI agent Gary Aldrich says the administration has among its improperly obtained FBI files the dossier on Henry Hyde, who would chair the committee considering impeachment.



AUGUST 1998: Here's the problem with the White House's explanation of how it came by 1,000 FBI background files. To believe the story one must envision an extremely security conscious White House during the period in question, 1993-94. This simply was not the case. One anonymous WH official justified the file raid to the Washington Times this way: "The official explained that the White House was updating its security files from an outdated Secret Service list that contained both existing employees and those who had left the White House.

"'We were working from a list that was not an accurate one, but there was certainly nothing intentional about this,' the official said. 'There's no question that there were certain people on the list that came over from the Secret Service who were no longer individuals who needed access to the White House. We've said that from the very beginning. ... It was an error."

"The official added that it would be 'completely unfair and not correct' to infer that all names on the list are people whose FBI dossiers were improperly requested by the White House. 'Many of these requests were proper.'"



At the time in question, however, the WH was displaying unprecedented carelessness and arrogance in fulfilling the most meager security requirements such as filling out necessary forms so the FBI could do background checks. Top officials, including cabinet appointees, were being named without such checks. The maligned FBI agent, Gary Aldrich, for example, has written that Dee Myers worked for almost a year without security clearance. Yet we are being asked to believe that the WH was so assiduous in this matter that it not only took care of its own staff but vacuumed up 1000 GOP background files by accident as well.



AUGUST 1998: Terry Good, director of White House records management, has said in a deposition that shortly after the Monica Lewinsky story broke in January, he was asked by the White House counsel's office to pull "anything and everything that we might have in our files relating to Linda Tripp." The revelation, made in a suit filed by Judicial Watch is significant in that private information on Tripp was later improperly given by a Pentagon official to the New Yorker magazine.



SEPTEMBER 1998: Although Starr maintains he is still looking into the FBI file scandal, Judicial Watch's depositions reveal that the special prosecutor has not questioned such major figures as the former head of the FBI's criminal division, Larry Potts; Mack McLarty; and Terry Good, the then director of the White House Office of Record Management which stored many of the FBI files and who was asked to call up files on Tripp, Willey and Lewinsky. Hillary Clinton was only questioned by Starr for nine minutes on the matter.



SEPTEMBER 1998: One of the reasons, in fact, that Tripp has been in personal and physical danger is because, reports the London Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, she "saw boxes of FBI files piled up to the ceiling in the White House Counsel's office, and observed officials copying the data on to a computer."



OCTOBER 1998: Hyde also said he does not expect to expand the inquiry to include the Whitewater land deal, the mishandling of FBI files, campaign finance abuses or any other allegations unrelated to the Lewinsky affair. . . . "There is a limited amount of time, and we can't spend all the time we would like on all of the charges" -- Washington Post



NOVEMBER 1998: Kenneth Starr's conclusion that there was no evidence of presidential culpability in the abuse of 1,000 FBI files is based on an investigation even more shoddy than that pursued in the death of Vincent Foster. We know this for the simple reason that the public interest law group, Judicial Watch, has been deposing many of the people Starr should have talked to about the matter and didn't . . . FBI Director Louis Freeh has called the release of the FBI tapes an "egregious violation of privacy . . . without justification." It now appears that no one will be punished for it.



DECEMBER 1998: Mr. Starr also botched the investigation into the White House's illicit use of confidential FBI files on 900 Republican opponents. He used FBI agents to probe misconduct involving the FBI itself. Needless to say, they came up empty handed. A civil suit on behalf of the victims has since uncovered evidence that the purloined files were part of a campaign of political espionage ordered by Hillary Clinton herself. The dirt in the files, including raw data on congressional leaders, was fed into computers. Presumably it was later used for blackmail, or fed to media surrogates for the systematic smearing of Republicans. -- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, London Telegraph



SEPTEMBER 1999: DON'T CRY FOR ME, ARKANSAS: Lady Macbill has, in effect, told a federal judge that, frankly my dear, I'm too important to testify in your little old courtroom. Fighting a subpoena by Judicial Watch in a $90 million lawsuit on behalf of GOP officials and others whose FBI files were abused by the Clinton White House, HRC, in her brief, declares that "as a general proposition, high-ranking government officials are not subject to depositions" and she shouldn't have to testify so she can "have time to dedicate to the performance of [her] government functions." One problem: Mrs. Clinton is not a government official. She is, however, a defendant in the suit.

DRUDGE REPORT: An explosive new book by House impeachment counsel David Schippers has angered and blindsided Justice Department officials, the Drudge Report has learned, months before its planned publication . . . Insiders familiar with the book's content say Schippers is preparing to shed new light on a mysterious warning he delivered during impeachment hearings. Schippers warned Congress that he had "received and reviewed additional information and evidence from the independent counsel" and had "developed additional information from diverse other sources." He told the Judiciary Committee: "Unfortunately, because of the extremely strict time limits placed upon us, a number of very promising leads had to be abandoned. We just ran out of time. In addition, other allegations of possible serious wrongdoing cannot be presented publicly at this time by virtue of circumstances totally beyond our control." Schippers said he "uncovered more incidents involving probable direct and deliberate obstructions of justice, witness tampering, perjury and abuse of power."



JERRY SEPER, WASHINGTON TIMES: Five Northrop Grumman employees were so intimidated by White House threats of jail that one was nearly fired when she refused to tell her own bosses about the administration's failure to turn over thousands of e-mail messages under subpoena. Newly obtained information shows the White House threatened to have the five employees jailed after they found - and reported - a glitch in the White House computer system that prevented the discovery of more than 100,000 White House messages involving campaign finance abuses, Monica Lewinsky, "Chinagate" and "Filegate." The threat came from Laura Crabtree, White House customer-support branch chief, during a June 15, 1998, meeting in her office after the discovery by Northrop Grumman of the computer glitch, according to lawyers and others familiar with the growing scandal. She told the employees the matter was "extremely sensitive," warned them not to tell anyone about it without explicit authorization and said the consequences would be a "jail cell." One of the Northrop Grumman employees, all of whom worked on a technical-support contract for the Executive Office of the President, was given 30 minutes to change her mind or be fired for insubordination when she refused - as ordered by the White House - to tell her immediate supervisors about the e-mail problem. That employee ultimately told the company's program manager she would "rather be insubordinate than go to jail.



LA TIMES: A confidential report by the Justice Department's former chief campaign finance investigator, kept sealed by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno for nearly two years, accused senior Justice officials of engaging in "gamesmanship" and legal "contortions" to avoid an independent inquiry into Clinton-Gore campaign fund-raising abuses. According to an edited version of the 94-page document, former task force supervisor Charles G. LaBella also faulted Reno's top advisors for using "intellectually dishonest" double standards: endorsing independent counsels to investigate Cabinet-level administration officials while opposing them for similar or stronger cases involving senior White House figures. Among those getting special treatment, the report said, were President Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and former White House aide Harold M. Ickes. It is the first indication that the task force was considering Mrs. Clinton's conduct in the fund-raising scandal.

http://worldnetdaily.com/



WORLDNET DAILY: E-mail sent to Vice President Al Gore's office is still not being recorded for subpoena searches, the White House's top lawyer revealed yesterday. And she claims the 625 back-up tapes of that e-mail can't be fully searched until around the November election. In a related matter, the lawyer also revealed that the White House recently searched through a disk full of Monica Lewinsky e-mail -- a move that may have violated a court order. Vice President Al Gore White House Counsel Beth Nolan told Congress that all e-mail sent to Gore's office, located across from the White House, is "not being captured" by an automated archive system. And she testified that the White House "has not been able to correct the problem."



WHY THE GOP RAN FROM CLINTON

[On a number of occasions, GOP probes of WJ Clinton came to a swift end in a manner suggestive of the manner in which political blackmail can stifle curiosity. Now the British publication, The Ecologist, offers this explanation for the shutdown of one investigation]

Triad is the name of a front company used by the Koch Brothers, ultra-right billionaires, to funnel several million dollars into key congressional races in the very last days of the 1996 election. The money paid for TV ads smearing Democrats and bought the Republicans' razor-thin 11-seat victory in the battle for control of the House of Representatives. If Triad's and its affiliates' spending were tied back to the Koch's coordinating with the Republicans, the payments would have been declared illegal.

In 1997, a bipartisan Senate investigations committee unearthed evidence against both parties. Then, as now, Republicans controlled Congress and Democrats the White House. And therein lay the makings of a deal. According to a top-level congressional investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, three Republican senators made an offer the Democrats could not refuse: a truce -- 'you don't do Triad and we don't do Clinton.'

On 31 December the investigations committee abruptly shut itself down. The impeachment continued, but the deal limited Republicans to an embarrassing sideshow over Monica Lewinsky's cigar.



INSIGHT MAGAZINE: Canadian police have identified Clinton donor and Macao gambling tycoon Stanley Ho as the leader of a triad gang of organized criminals with strong ties to Communist China. President Clinton personally accepted $250,000 from a Macao gambling tycoon whom Canadian police identify as a "leader" of a Chinese triad, or organized-crime syndicate. Insight has obtained a copy of the Asian Organized Crime Roster of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, listing Stanley Ho - who handed the check to Clinton at a 1997 White House reception to fund the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial - as a suspected "member/leader" of the notorious Kung Lok triad . . . According to a separate Canadian Security Intelligence Service report, the triads are involved in "drug trafficking; money laundering; corruption; computer-software piracy; credit-card forgery and fraud; counterfeit currency and identification operations; and migrant smuggling. They will often provide direction to Chinese gangs in exchange for the 'muscle' needed in some triad operations."

INSIGHT



SCRIPPS HOWARD: A close friend of President Clinton and a top aide to the first lady were among those who contributed to a legal defense fund for former White House aide Craig Livingstone, according to documents made public Tuesday. Livingstone, who resigned last year as White House personnel security director amid controversy that his office gathered hundreds of FBI files on Republicans, collected less than $10,000 in donations from more than 60 donors. Vernon Jordan, Jr., an attorney and frequent golfing partner of Clinton's, contributed $250, and Margaret Williams, Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, donated $50 . . . Several lobbyists came to Livingstone's aid, as did Tony Coelho, a former congressman who now is a Democratic fund-raiser.



CULTURE OF IMPUNITY

One of the ways in which Washington correspondents and Washington politicians renew their commitment to each other is at a dinner known as the Gridiron -- the moral equivalent of a plaintiff having sex with a judge. Among the matters both journalists and Al Gore found funny this year were the Buddhist temple campaign finance scam, Gore's repeated exaggerations, and his dubious ice tea excuse for supposedly leaving a campaign finance meeting. Gore was supposed to be the butt of the humor, but one couldn't read the story without the sense that the joke is really on us.



TAKING CARE OF THE CLINTON MACHINE

DICK MORRIS, NY POST: The Wall Street Journal reported last week that shortly after former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker was convicted in the Whitewater scandal, he was hired by James Riady, head of the Indonesian Lippo Group . . . For years, Riady has eluded American investigators and stayed out of the United States. But that was no problem for Clinton. Clinton greeted him warmly in New Zealand, where he was invited to a private reception last September -- even though he knew that the Justice Department was after Riady. A friend is a friend.

In addition to hiring Tucker in 1999 (without waiting to see if he would begin serving a long jail sentence in a few months), Riady and former Hillary Clinton law partner Joe Giroir stepped in right after Tucker was indicted by Kenneth Starr in 1996 and arranged an unusual and lucrative deal for Tucker's wife, Betty. The deal meant a minimum of $325,000 per year for the Tuckers . . . Riady and Giroir have also helped out other Clinton confidants in trouble with the law. When former Assistant Attorney General Webb Hubbell was under investigation by the independent counsel, Riady hired him and paid him $100,000. . . . The payment was arranged by John Huang, a longtime Riady employee and the Democratic Party fund-raiser who pleaded guilty to collecting more than $1.6 million in illegal foreign campaign contributions to the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign . . . When Huang was under investigation, Riady provided him with $38,000 . . . By further coincidence, Giroir and Riady were in the Oval Office at the fateful meeting that led to the transfer of John Huang from the Commerce Department to the Democratic National Committee as a fund-raiser. It was only a day or two later that Riady decided he wanted to help out Webb Hubbell. Coincidence? At Commerce, Huang had access to classified documents that investigators believe may have been improperly transferred to Riady.NY POST



THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY

NEW YORK POST: Webster Hubbell, the disgraced former law partner of Hillary Clinton, is planning to sue the "vast right-wing conspiracy" he blames for forcing him out of the Justice Department, ruining his legal career, and leaving him broke. Fed up with the repeated investigations led by Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr, Hubbell met with civil rights law firm and Bill Clinton fund-raisers Leeds, Morelli & Brown at Le Cirque Wednesday night to discuss a possible lawsuit, and a potential job with the firm. "Webb Hubbell has the best civil rights lawsuit I've ever seen. I think he can get millions," said partner Leonard Leeds, who plans to name 28 defendants . . . Regarding a possible future for Hubbell at the firm, Leeds said, "We'd be delighted if he wanted to join the firm. Right now, he's disbarred so there's a problem, but we're still talking," said Leeds.

JERRY SEPER, WASHINGTON TIMES: The White House sought the secret FBI file of a staff aide four days after she resigned following her 1993 discovery of high-ranking Clinton administration officials looking through the FBI files of ex-Reagan and Bush officials. White House Counsel Bernard W. Nussbaum's request for the file of Deborah Perroy, a member of the National Security Council support staff who resigned Sept. 5, 1993, is contained in a Sept. 9, 1993, memo to the FBI. The request said the file was necessary because Mrs. Perroy was "being considered" for access to the White House. But the request came at a time when Mrs. Perroy no longer needed White House access since she had just resigned. WASHINGTON TIMES



NEW YORK POST: Jenny Craig's recent high-profile signing of Monica Lewinsky to boost her ailing business, has backfired. Yesterday, the stock price of the diet guru's company had plummeted to $2.63 per share - a figure widely held to reflect the public derision with which Lewinsky is held . . . Initially, when the deal with Lewinsky was announced, Jenny Craig Inc.'s stock price soared overnight from $2.13 per share to $3.88 per share . . . But now the stock has plummeted nearly to the point where it was on Dec. 28, when Lewinsky first signed on as a spokeswoman.

THE PENTAGON IS REFUSING to let Senate investigators look at the uncensored versions of an intelligence assessment on Chinese activities in Panama. TPR reported on this earlier:



CHARLES SMITH, WORLDNET DAILY: China does pose at least an "indirect" threat to the Panama Canal and the Clinton administration knew it all along, a newly declassified U.S. military document shows. Judicial Watch, a public-interest government watchdog group based in Washington, forced the military document to be released by the Clinton administration through the Freedom of Information Act. The document, an "Intelligence Assessment" prepared by the U.S. Southern Command Joint Intelligence Center, is heavily blacked out and stamped with an original classification of "Top Secret//X1." The assessment was prepared in October 1999, two months prior to the official turn over of the Panama Canal. WORLDNET DAILY

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, who was pressured by Whitewater prosecutors into cooperating in their investigation of President Clinton, was hired last year by an Indonesian cable-television company controlled by a friend of Mr. Clinton. The disclosure that Mr. Clinton's friend, Indonesian businessman James Riady, had dealings with Mr. Tucker is a late echo of the scandals that have colored much of Mr. Clinton's tenure. Mr. Riady previously had attracted the prosecutors' notice for paying large consulting fees to Webster Hubbell, another figure in the Whitewater case and friend of Mr. Clinton. Investigators probing the Whitewater land deal that preceded Mr. Clinton's election in 1992 had suspected that Mr. Riady and other Clinton associates paid Mr. Hubbell for his silence in the probe, though no charges were ever brought. Mr. Hubbell eventually pleaded guilty to tax charges . . . Mr. Tucker's dealings with Mr. Riady began in 1996, the year after he was first indicted. Mr. Tucker's wife, Betty, invested $6.5 million in cable equipment that was turned over to a Riady-affiliated Indonesian cable company . . .

PRESIDENT GRANTS

FORGIVENESS

TO CRITICS





UNSOLVED MYSTERIES

The Starbucks murders -- in which a former White House intern was slain (allegedly leading Monica Lewinsky to tell Linda Tripp that she didn't want to end up like that) -- remains on our watch list. It is a strange case for a number of reasons, including the gang-like character of the murders and the subsequent slaying of a witness in the case while he was serving as a police pawn in a drug case.

Now Whitewater Irregular David Martin points out something else that suggests the matter bears further looking into. In the 11th paragraph of a 13-paragraph Washington Post story on January 13, it is noted that "[Carl Derek Cooper] confessed to the killings to Prince George's County detectives after he was taken to Maryland, but [FBI Agent Barley Garrett] testified yesterday that Mr. Cooper recanted his confessions when he returned to the District on March 16 . . . He said, 'I admitted to everything under the sun. I said what they wanted me to say. They didn't advise me of my rights.'" The police say they have seven written statements from Cooper in which he agreed to talk without a lawyer over the four day interrogation period. Stay tuned.



NEWSMAX: Former DNC fund-raiser Johnny Chung, the only witness to fully cooperate with the Justice Department's campaign finance probe, said late Monday that Vice President Al Gore solicited him and other key Asian-American businessmen inside the White House in 1995, confirming information first reported by NewsMax.com. Chung made the startling admission to a national television audience on Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes." The Vice President's solicitation included requests for both hard and soft money, said Chung, making Gore's White House fund-raising potentially illegal -- even under the strict interpretation of campaign finance law offered by Attorney General Janet Reno . . . When asked by FNC's Sean Hannity whether Gore wanted only soft money for DNC issue ads or hard money for Clinton-Gore re-election ads, Chung said, "My recollection is, both."

NEWSMAX

STARBUCKS MURDERS

[Questions have arisen about the circumstances under which Carl Derek Cooper confessed to the Starbucks slaying in which former White House intern Caitlin Mahoney and two other workers were killed. Cooper was questioned for many hours, denied being involved, then accused someone else, and then confessed, only to recant his confession after being released by suburban Prince George's County police and returning to DC. Why this is not your average three-death murder is explained by Newsmax]:

NEWSMAX: The same week Cooper recanted, new information emerged about Mahoney's background and her possible ties to the Monica Lewinsky case. Author David M. Hoffman, who spent a year investigating Mahoney's murder, tells Globe Magazine's Tom Kuncl that the Starbucks massacre came just three days after Monica told Clinton she was going to tell her parents about their relationship. According to Monica Clinton reacted angrily, telling her, "It's a crime to threaten the President."

Hoffman's claim is corroborated by the Starr Report. "Monica took the threat seriously," Hoffman told Globe, "telling Linda Tripp that she feared for both their lives if her affair with Clinton ever became public." "I don't want to wind up like Caity Mahoney," Monica is rumored to have told friends. The Tripp tapes amply document Monica's fears for her own physical safety, featuring no fewer than four exchanges where the Clinton girlfriend voices sentiments such as: "I would not cross these people for fear of my life."



THE LIST

Cost of Clinton's

1997 dinner for

Chinese President

Jiang Zemin

$166,615 Tent

$5,282 Engraved invitations

$985 Steinway piano rental

$9,343 Flowers

$1,440 Trolley shuttles for guests

$9,698 Replacement of damaged sod

$7,676 Caterer's help and equipment

$297,832 Total cost

[US News & World Report from Judicial Watch FOIA request]



LAST DAYS

JOHN MCCASLIN, WASHINGTON TIMES: President Clinton was having a delicious time at his New Year's Eve gala dinner at the White House, someone who was there tells us. Mr. Clinton, pulling rank when the seating was arranged, like any red-blooded American man would, put himself between Sophia Loren - in a low-cut black Armani gown - and Elizabeth Taylor. Miss Taylor, according to our well-connected Democratic guest, simmered toward a boil as the dinner went on. She thought the president was focusing entirely too much attention on Miss Loren. "She said to the president, 'I hope you are not going to spend the whole evening staring at her boobs.' " "The president replied, 'I don't do that anymore.' " 'Bull--,' replied Miss Taylor. The president turned so red he barely spoke to her the rest of the evening, the witness says.



TAKE YOUR LIBRARY

WITH YOU

MEREDITH OAKLEY, ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT GAZETTE: Now that Bill Clinton is moving his voter registration to New York, is there any way to persuade his Arkansas admirers to move his presidential library there, too? Somehow, it just doesn't seem right that a hero and his monument should be separated . . . As sad a thing as may be the loss of the man who's largely defined Arkansas in the latter part of the 20th century -- I have it on good authority that we rose from 51st to 49th in a number of vital areas --look at the bright side: He'll have to pay all those taxes associated with tourism every time he visits. Provided he ever visits.



THE POST-MODERN DICTIONARY

MOVING ON: The most overwhelming desire of the American people as reported by various politicians and their flacks. For example, Al Gore said that the American people wanted to "move on" from the Juanita Broaddrick rape story and Maryland Lt. Government Kathleen Kennedy responded to reports of torture and abuse in her state's boot camps by saying, "There was a problem. We responded to its quickly. We made changes and we're moving on."



CULTURE OF IMPUNITY

BLOOMBERG NEWS: President Bill Clinton will join the New York investment firm Lazard Freres following the end of his presidency in January 2001, Washingtonian Magazine reported, citing unnamed sources. Clinton would be paid a salary of $8 million with $2 million in possible bonuses and he'd join his friend Vernon Jordan who became senior managing director at Lazard Freres in January and may have helped arrange a post for Clinton, the magazine said.



STROKE OF A PEN

JONATHAN WEISMAN, BALTIMORE SUN: The president has issued more than 310 executive orders in his seven years in office, close to the pace set by Ronald Reagan, who signed 381 orders in his two terms. But the rise in the number of Clinton's orders might understate the sweep of his executive decision-making, because Clinton -- more than most modern presidents -- has found other creative ways to enact his policies without congressional approval . . . Presidential proclamations were once reserved for such trifling acts as pardoning a turkey before Thanksgiving. But Clinton has used proclamations to establish the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, and to buy thousands of acres of wilderness, from California's deserts to Florida's Everglades . . . Clinton has averaged just over 44 executive orders a year, more than George Bush's 40 but fewer than Reagan's 47 and far fewer than Jimmy Carter's 74, according to National Archives statistics. All the presidents of the modern era