WASHINGTON-Congressional leaders vowed last week to investigate questionable foreign campaign contributions to both political parties. Huge sums paid to Democrats are involved, which some Republicans believe may have influenced Clinton administration trade policy in Asian markets that are worth billions of dollars in wireless telecommunications contracts.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s (R-Miss.) decision to go forward with a probe, which some Republicans initially resisted for fear of a public backlash, was sparked by Attorney General Janet Reno’s rejection of a third request for an independent counsel to investigate possible links between Indonesian donations to the Democratic National Committee and the formation of U.S. trade policy.
Direct foreign contributions to political parties are illegal.
“This latest rejection is an obvious attempt to save her position at the Justice Department, which has been very precarious recently,” said Larry Klayman, director of Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group whose Commerce Department lawsuit first raised questions about trade policy influence peddling.
“As there is a mountain of credible evidence about potential violations of law, this latest refusal is itself reason enough for Janet Reno to resign,” he said.
The administration’s reluctance to surrender key documents related to Commerce trade missions and encryption export policy also contributed to the decision to investigate the matter when the 105th Congress starts Jan. 7.
The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, headed by former Watergate counsel Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), will take the lead in that chamber.
However, John McCain (R-Ariz.), incoming Senate Commerce Committee chairman, whose two requests for an independent counsel were rejected by Reno, could focus on Commerce trade missions. Some of those missions included wireless industry executives who contributed to Clinton.
Though the controversy and its implications for Clinton’s second term are not fully understood, it is undeniable that improved trade relations with Asia-including the normalization of relations with Vietnam-has benefited the wireless industry.
Half of China’s $50 billion to $60 billion telecom market is up for wireless grabs, with Motorola Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc. already in. Meanwhile, $3 billion to $5 billion in telecom business awaits wireless firms and others in Vietnam.
PortaCom Wireless Inc., of Playa Del Rey, Calif., bid to build a cellular network in Ho Chi Minh City and Hughes Network Systems Inc. won a contract to build a digital microwave network there earlier this year.
Republicans who control Congress want to know whether U.S. trade policy was influenced by the Indonesian Riady family, which runs the Lippo Group-a mammoth financial conglomerate-and has contributed generously to Clinton and has ties to the president dating back to his days as governor of Arkansas.
A March 1993 letter from Lippo Chairman Mochtar Riady to Clinton, which the White House delayed releasing to Congress and declined to make public, advocated resuming ties with Vietnam; keeping most-favored-nation status for China separate from human rights; increasing the size of the U.S. delegation to Asia; and including Indonesia in a major trade meeting.
“There could be no other possible explanation of your failure to produce the letter,” said Rep. Gerald Solomon (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Rules Committee, referring to the delayed release of the letter that the congressman called “a continuation of the pattern of stonewalling that began before the recent elections.”
Solomon, who said Clinton was inviting “suspicions of obstruction of justice, whether such suspicions are warranted or not,” is expected to press Reno again for an independent counsel to investigate foreign campaign contributions to the DNC.
The White House released the letter to Solomon and others late Tuesday night.
Clinton downplayed the correspondence, saying, “it’s a straightforward policy letter, the kind of thing that I think people ought to feel free to write the president about.”
Riady’s letter said that with Japan’s slumping economy and Europe’s recession, the United States “has a unique window of opportunity to force greater inroads into the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.”
U.S. relations with Vietnam resumed in 1994, following the lead of many other countries, and China’s MFN status was renewed-as many policymakers advocated-and de-linked from human rights as Riady and others recommended.
The DNC has returned $1.5 million of $2.5 million in questionable contributions raised mostly by John Huang, a former Lippo employee who worked in 1994 at the Commerce Department. Huang moved to the DNC in 1995, before being dismissed recently. Most of the money he solicited came from Asian donors.
