-Caveat Lector-
REWARDING SILENCE
Dick Morris
Wednesday,January 17,2001
WHY would the Justice Department conclude a plea deal with
Indonesian businessman James Riady just nine days before
President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno leave office?
Why demand only probation, community service and a fine that his
billion-dollar-plus company, the Lippo Group, can pay for him?
Why offer such a sweetheart deal to the man who orchestrated the
contribution of millions in illegal Chinese money to Clinton's
campaigns, especially when Riady has not cooperated or implicated
anyone other than himself?
Riady is also the man who paid former Deputy Attorney General
Webb Hubbell $100,000 after he left office, at a time when the
special prosecutor's office thought Hubbell might provide key
evidence in the Whitewater case. Why let Riady off without
requiring that he explain who asked him to pay Hubbell and why he
did it?
Why bring judicial proceedings against Riady to a close without
first demanding to hear why he paid Whitewater co-conspirator and
former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker and his wife almost half a
million dollars? These payments, over the past five years,
coincided with the precise moments that Tucker was under maximum
pressure to tell the truth about the Clintons and Whitewater.
These questions cry out for answers as President Clinton leaves
office having orchestrated his final coverup. If Clinton adds to
this disgraceful record by rewarding the silence of Whitewater
felon Susan McDougal with a pardon, the questions should
intensify.
Riady has been the paymaster of Clinton's efforts to buy silence
from his dangerous aides and co-conspirators. The Justice
Department indicted him - but not for the payments to Hubbell or
Tucker, nor even for the 1995-'96 donations to Clinton from the
Chinese. The charges related only to his pre-'95 donations to
Clinton. Now, he has been permitted to plead out to even that,
ending whatever leverage Justice ever had over him. That Riady
is being let off with a slap on the wrist in the closing moments
of this administration just adds to the insults to integrity in
Clinton's stewardship.
As Reno, Clinton & Co. pack for departure, they are cleaning up
any loose ends that could incriminate them. Rather than leave the
decisions on indicting Riady to John Ashcroft, George W. Bush's
pick to head Justice, Reno has seen to it that Riady will never
squeal. Riady only has to plead to a single count of conspiracy
to defraud by obstructing the work of the Federal Election
Commission, have his billion-dollar company pay an $8.2 million
fine and do 400 hours of community service (which he can perform
in Jakarta).
To make Lippo pay an $8 million fine is like forcing an elephant
to endure a flea bite. And community service in Jakarta is about
as enforceable as an order for the tide to not come in tomorrow.
Had Reno not given Riady his pass, Bush's attorney general might
have used the threat of imprisonment to make Riady answer some
tough questions. After all, it was Riady who supplied the money
that induced Hubbell to "roll over one more time," in the
immortal words of the former deputy attorney general.
If Clinton pardons McDougal, he will doubtless defend his action
by saying that she has "paid her debt to society" by serving time
in jail and that a pardon would just permit her to vote and
participate in our nation's politics. This will miss the
essential point - he is pardoning a woman whose non-cooperation
with prosecutors is ongoing and deliberate.
The president will say that Whitewater turned out to be nothing,
because he was not prosecuted or indicted. That brings to mind
the fellow who killed his parents, then begged for mercy because
he was an orphan: Prosecution became unlikely once Tucker,
Hubbell and McDougal kept quiet - and Clinton seems about to
pardon one of them, while his Justice Department is letting the
paymaster of the other two off with a token sentence.
In 1996, a Clinton associate told me a message from Tucker to
pass to the president. The message: Tell Clinton he owes me a
pardon. He owes me a pardon. Now Clinton is about to pay his
debts to at least some of the guilty for their silence that kept
him out of trouble. It's one heck of a note on which to end an
administration that Clinton pledged would be "the most ethical in
history."
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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