-Caveat Lector- Opening Statement by Congressman Dan Burton, Chairman, Committee on Government Reform "Immunity for John Huang" October 28, 1999 The first order of business today is to vote to confer immunity on John Huang. I believe we've reached an agreement on this issue. I thank Congressman Waxman for that, and I thank all of my colleagues. I think we're going to have a unanimous vote. This has been a long time in coming. We've wanted John Huang to testify since we started this investigation at the beginning of 1997. We've been trying for months to get the Justice Department to sign off on immunity. John Huang has been cooperating with them since the beginning of the year. He pled guilty in August. I thought we should have been able to get this done several months ago. But as they say, better late than never. John Huang was James Riady's right-hand man in the United States. He worked for James Riady at the Lippo Bank in Los Angeles. In 1994, the President appointed him Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce. This happened after a series of meetings involving James Riady and Webster Hubbell. Mr. Hubbell got $100,000 from Mr. Riady. A few weeks later, Mr. Huang got his job at the Commerce Department. At the end of 1995, he became the Vice Chairman for Finance at the Democratic National Committee. He was forced to resign from the DNC prior to the 1996 elections when the fundraising scandal surfaced. The DNC had to return more than $3 million that he raised. Most of that came from foreign sources. We have the FBI's interviews of John Huang. We've been reviewing them, I believe we've reached an agreement to make them public. Our staffs will work together with the FBI to redact personal information and I hope they'll be ready for release early next week. I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about two of the things we’ve learned. I think these issues just reemphasize the importance of having Mr. Huang testify. First, in August 1992, James Riady flew from Indonesia to Los Angeles to attend a fundraiser. He gave $100,000 for that fundraiser. He took a limousine ride with then-Governor Clinton. That much has been known for a long time. Now we're learning for the first time that, having just arrived from Jakarta, James Riady got in the limousine and promised to raise one million dollars for Bill Clinton's campaign. John Huang goes on to state that he and James Riady then arranged to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions funneled through Lippo Group employees and subsidiaries. Most of the employees didn't even live in the United States, but they had green cards. Mr. Huang states that he got the bank account numbers from some of these employees and passed them on to Lippo Group headquarters in Jakarta to make sure that they got reimbursed. This raises a very serious question. The Justice Department has had this information for most of the year. John Huang started cooperating in January. They've had bank records and memos showing that Lippo Group subsidiaries were reimbursed for contributions from overseas. I know because I sent them the information. Why hasn't James Riady been indicted? It's certainly not for lack of evidence. You have clear testimony that James Riady was organizing conduit contributions. People were being reimbursed from overseas. You have documentary evidence. A lot of money was involved. I don’t understand why he hasn’t been indicted. Other people have been indicted and punished severely by Janet Reno's Justice Department for far less. Let me give you just one example. In 1996, a businessman named Simon Fireman funneled about $120,000 through his employees to the Dole for President campaign. He got caught. He was prosecuted, as he should have been. He received a 6 million dollar fine. James Riady arranged more than $700,000 in contributions to Bill Clinton's campaign in 1992. Most of them were illegal. The Justice Department hasn’t touched him. Why not? It looks like the Attorney General has set two different standards -- a harsh one for some and a lenient one for others. This isn't the only example of unequal treatment we've seen. I want to mention one other matter raised by Mr. Huang. He was working at the Commerce Department in the fall of 1995. He told the FBI that he got a phone call from Harold Ickes at the White House. He states that Harold Ickes asked him to raise money for the campaign of one of our colleagues -- Jesse Jackson Jr. John Huang did so, which appears to be a violation of the Hatch Act. Now, Jesse Jackson Jr. is an honorable person. There's no reason to believe he knew any of this was going on. But this raises serious legal issues for John Huang and Harold Ickes. The Attorney General has refused to appoint an independent counsel for Harold Ickes. It's too late now, the law has expired. But she knew about this a long time ago. There were a lot of reasons to appoint an independent counsel for Mr. Ickes. Most of them were publicly known. This allegation was a secret. Only the Justice Department knew about it. The fact that Janet Reno knew about this allegation and still didn't appoint an independent counsel is very disturbing. I read in the paper this morning that the Justice Department has cobbled together a defense for Harold Ickes. They say he may not have been Huang’s superior. But this technical excuse -- which doesn't even make sense -- is unbecoming of the Justice Department. Throughout the campaign finance investigation, they've looked more like criminal defense lawyers than the nation's prosecutors. For over a year we've been quietly and thoroughly investigating the Justice Department's conduct in the campaign finance investigation. My staff is writing a report, which we will release next year. It's not a story that brings credit to the Attorney General. I think this all shows very clearly why we need a vigorous Congressional investigation in this area. When the Attorney General said that she wouldn't seek an independent counsel, she said that she could handle the job -- that she could conduct an honest investigation of her boss -- the President. She invited scrutiny. She accepted accountability. Why wasn't James Riady indicted? Why wasn’t an independent counsel appointed for Harold Ickes? Janet Reno needs to answer these questions. If this committee hadn't pressed the issue of getting immunity for John Huang, we still wouldn't know about some of this evidence. That's why this investigation is so important. These are just a couple of the issues that we need to hear about from John Huang. There are many questions. The American people deserve to have answers. That's why I have thought all along that it was very important that Mr. Huang testify before this Committee. I want to thank my colleagues for their cooperation in making this happen. Mr. Waxman, thank you for your cooperation. Thanks to all the Members, Democrats and Republicans. Because of scheduling conflicts that Mr. Huang's lawyer has, it will be several weeks before we can have Mr. Huang testify. It will have to be during the recess. I'll keep all of my colleagues informed. I hope as many Members as possible can come back and participate in the hearing. Thank you again, and I yield to Mr. Waxman. ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day. ================================================================= DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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