by Ann Coulter
On May 15, 1995, Babbitt attended a political meeting at the White House. After the intimate, one-hour meeting, Babbitt attended a DNC dinner thrown by Fowler at the Hay Adams hotel for various cabinet secretaries.9
Two days later, on May 17, 1995, Chippewa lobbyist Paul Eckstein and his clients met with the Interior Department’s head of Indian gaming. Eckstein emerged from the meeting confident that the casino proposal would be approved. But he did not realize the fix was in: that very evening, Babbitt’s senior Interior Department aides decided they should reject the Chippewa’s casino application, putatively on the grounds of local opposition, which is practically inevitable with all casino applications.
Babbitt’s attorney, Washington super lawyer Lloyd Cutler, explained that it was “just coincidental”10 that the decision came so soon after the DNC dinner, and after Fowler’s lobbying campaign.
Wasting no time in spreading the good news, Heather Sibbison was on the horn to the White House the next day, May 18, informing them that the Chippewa’s application would probably be denied. The career official at Interior who made the decision—or thought he was making the decision—testified that he did not “make up [his mind]” about the Chippewa casino until June.11
The decision to reject the Chippewa casino application was formally announced on July 14, 1995. Later that very day Paul Eckstein met with his friend, former partner, and law school classmate, Secretary Babbitt. The testimony of Eckstein becomes crucial at this point. According to Eckstein’s amazing testimony before the Thompson committee on what Babbitt had said:Harold Ickes had directed him to issue the decision that day…. The Secretary said, at some point, when we were standing up, asked me, rhetorically, “Do you know how much”—I believe it was these tribes but it is not clear to me what these tribes referred to—“had contributed to either the Democratic Party or the Democratic candidates or the DNC?” I can’t be certain of that, but I am certain he asked me the general rhetorical question. I said I don’t have the slightest idea. And he responded by saying, “Well, it’s on the order of half a million dollars,” something like that.
Also on the day the decision was formally announced—it was a busy day all around—Pat O’Connor, lobbyist for the triumphant tribes, made a notation in his calendar to discuss “fund-raising strategies” with Ickes and Fowler. Whether he did so or not, on September 14, O’Connor sent a Democratic fund-raising letter to his client tribes reminding them of the favorable decision he had just won for them from the Interior Department. Over the course of the next eighteen months, the rival tribes contributed $286,000 to the Democratic Party.12
THE LAWSUIT
The casino-less Chippewa—whose leader was known to have been “active in Republican party politics,” according to O’Connor’s letter to Ickes—sued the Interior Department in December 1995. Not without reason, they alleged that campaign contributions had colored the Interior Department’s decision-making process. (The judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb, said she “believe [d] there is a distinct possibility that improper political influence affected” the Interior Department’s decision.13)
Unfortunately for Babbitt, Eckstein was no Susan McDougal. Consequently, in the summer of 1996 the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs began an inquiry into the Chippewa casino rejection, particularly Eckstein’s claim that Secretary Babbitt had blurted out the decision was based on the rival tribes’ generous contributions to the Democrats. Senator John McCain, chairman of the committee, sent a letter to Secretary Babbitt on July 19 requesting an explanation.
In a letter dated August 30 Secretary Babbitt replied to Senator McCain, “I must respectfully dispute Mr. Eckstein’s assertion that I told him that Mr. Ickes instructed me to issue a decision in this matter without delay. I never discussed the matter with Mr. Ickes; he never gave me any instructions as to what this department’s decision should be, or when it should be made.”
More than one year later, Babbitt’s memory of his conversation with Eckstein would markedly improve.
On October 10, 1997, Babbitt wrote a letter to another committee, the Thompson committee, which was investigating campaign finance abuses. This time Babbitt recalled that he had mentioned “something to the effect that Mr. Ickes wanted a decision” after all. But, he claimed, he was lying when he said this. It was only as an awkward attempt to get Eckstein out of his office. Babbitt denied that he mentioned the rival tribes’ campaign contributions to the DNC, and maintained that political contributions and White House pressure had not improperly influenced his department’s decision.
The Thompson committee made a criminal referral to the Justice Department for perjury on the basis of Babbitt’s testimony on this point.
THE CASE AGAINST BABBITT
Obviously, Babbitt’s testimony is irreconcilable with Eckstein’s. It is also in conflict with reams of other evidence, to say nothing of common sense.
On February 11, 1998—the day Attorney General Janet Reno decided to seek an independent counsel to investigate whether Secretary Babbitt lied to Congress—Babbitt, relying on a modified version of the Clinton “He said/She said” defense, said, “This is a disagreement between two people about the exact words spoken in a meeting they had alone two years ago. We’ve each told our version and we disagree. There’s nothing else to say about it. My attorneys say it can’t possibly form the basis of any legal charges.”14 And Monica’s lawyers told her perjury doesn’t count in a civil case.
But it’s not as simple as that. There may not be more than twenty hours of tape, but there is substantial evidence that makes Eckstein’s version of events much more credible than Babbitt’s.
To begin with, in order to believe Babbitt’s recollection—his October 30, 1998, recollection, not his August 30, 1996, recollection—one would have to believe that Babbitt lied to Eckstein, an old friend, about a very serious matter just to get Eckstein out of his office. Claiming he was under pressure from Ickes is not just an awkward white lie. It is an allegation of conduct that is certainly improper, and possibly illegal under the federal bribery statute, 18 U.S.C. 201 (criminalizing the receipt of anything of value in exchange for the performance of any official act). So Babbitt’s improved recollection to the Thompson committee asks us to believe that he gravely slandered Harold Ickes just to get an old friend out of his office, when a glance at his watch and a remark about a meeting in five minutes, Love to talk, really jammed this week, would have done the job just as well.
And why would Ickes’s name have sprung to mind in the first place? Even if we assume Babbitt had to allege federal crimes in order to make Eckstein leave, there seems to be no reason why he would instantly choose Ickes for his culprit—unless, as suggested by Patrick O’Connor’s May 8, 1995, letter to the deputy chief of staff, Ickes had become crucial to what would ordinarily have been a routine Interior matter.
Ickes, for his part, tepidly endorsed Babbitt’s assertion that the Clinton administration was not, in fact, selling government policy decisions to the highest bidder. Ickes testified, “I don’t have any recollection of it, [of] talking to Interior about this.”15
Babbitt aide Heather Sibbison also somewhat corroborated her boss’s recollection that the casino rejection was not bought and paid for by the rival tribes. Sibbison stated under oath that she was completely unaware of any lobbyists’ contacts with the White House, and that the decision was made on the merits, not politics.16 Sibbison was, of course, directly contradicted on this point by lobbyist Thomas Corcoran, who said under oath that he told Sibbison his firm was lobbying the White House, and that she should be expecting a call from White House Indian Affairs aide Loretta Avent.
In addition, there is evidence that Sibbison was, in fact, keeping the White House aware of progress on the Chippewa’s application, which would seem strange unless she had some reason to believe the White House was interested in this one little government decision. A White House memorandum dated May 18, 1995, from a White House aide to Harold
Ickes, states that “Heather Sibbison” at Interior had relayed the datum that the Department had concluded that the Chippewa casino was “probably a bad idea.”
Moreover, then-Chairman Dan Burton’s House Government Reform and Oversight Committee went over the bills that O’Connor & Hannan sent to the anti-Chippewa tribes whom they represented, and found charges for the following items that seem to suggest that the DNC was involved in the casino issue. The invoices included the following:• Meeting at DNC with Truman Arnold [high-profile Texarkana businessman and FOB] and Chairman Don Fowler.
• Calls to the White House and the DNC regarding tribes meeting with Don Fowler.
• Appointment at White House with Harold Ickes.
• Calls to DNC regarding White House appointment.
• Report to L. Kitto [Larry Kitto, a Wisconsin-based lobbyist who worked for the anti-Chippewa coalition] regarding President Clintons [sic] comments about “our friends and racetrack issue” [racetrack may refer to the fact that one of the properties that the Chippewa entrepreneurs wanted to turn into a casino was a dog racetrack].
• Memorandum to T. McAuliffe of Clinton/Gore Re-Elect Committee [Terry McAuliffe, finance chairman of that committee].
• Long distance telephone conference to T. Corcoran [Thomas Corcoran of O’Connor & Hannan] regarding Terry McAuliffe arranging appointment with Harold Ickes.
• Discussions with several aides on the White House staff, including aides to [then-Chief of Staff] Leon Panetta and Harold Ickes.
• Discussion regarding necessity to follow-up with Harold Ickes at the White House, D. Fowler at DNC and Terry Mac at the Committee to Re-Elect, outlining fund-raising strategies.17
Why would lobbyists who were retained for the purpose of influencing an Interior Department decision bill the clients for so much time related to DNC and Clinton-Gore fund-raising?
THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL
As noted, on February 11, 1998, the fleet-footed attorney general decided to seek an independent counsel to investigate whether Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt lied to Congress about how wellheeled Indian tribes managed to reverse a government decision that would have allowed a much smaller tribe to compete with them in the casino business. On March 19, 1998, Carol Elder Bruce was chosen for the assignment.
Reno has reportedly asked that the new independent counsel’s mandate be confined to whether Babbitt lied when he told a Senate committee that campaign contributions played no role in the Indian casino decision. Theoretically, Reno’s limitation would insulate Ickes and Lindsey, various DNC officials, and perhaps other Clinton acolytes who sold administration decision-making for campaign cash. (And how about the guy who steered lobbyists with bulging checkbooks, such as O’Connor, toward aides who could gin up the process, such as Lindsey?)
In any event, under the independent counsel statute, the investigation cannot be so circumscribed as Reno would like. The investigation could well spill over into what is obviously the question of broader public significance: did the Clinton administration sell a government-enforced monopoly to a group of tribes in return for campaign cash?
As mentioned, the Supreme Court has held that passive acceptance of a benefit by a public official is sufficient to form the basis of a Hobbs Act violation if the official knows that he is being offered the payment in exchange for a specific requested exercise of his official power. The official need not take any specific action to induce the offering of the benefit. In applying this to Clinton administration officials in the Chippewa case, much would depend on whether they knew that O’Connor or O’Connor’s clients were not making a request with empty hands—that they would pony up to the DNC in exchange for the action they desired.
In addition to the Hobbs Act, there is the bribery statute, which prohibits, on pain of a fifteen-year prison sentence, seeking anything of value in return for the performance of any official act. The thing of value need not be for the official himself: it could before any other person or entity—such as, for instance, the DNC. Here, proving intent would be difficult in the case of Clinton, somewhat less so in the cases of Ickes or Lindsey.
Chapter Nineteen
The Manchurian Candidate
The Chinese money scandal is for people too squeamish to face the perjury about oral sex charges. If the president’s “sex life” is no one’s business—as if we were talking about what Bill and Hillary do in the privacy of their bedroom—how about treason? Concerns about treason sound so much more high-minded than concerns about the president having a sexual relationship with an intern and then lying about it under oath. The framers did expressly set forth “treason” as one of the grounds for impeachment. They neglected to do the same for “having an oral-sex affair with White House interns and then lying about it baldly and repeatedly under oath.” Clinton’s defense to impeachment on the sex scandals is essentially that he has engaged in conduct so reprehensible that James Madison couldn’t have imagined it.
The problem with the Chinese money scandal is that Clinton was right when he tauntingly announced to reporters, “I don’t believe you can find any evidence of the fact that I had changed government policy solely because of a contribution.” That is basically a confession: Clinton has admitted that he did change government policy—in part—because of a contribution.
But, on the other hand, it remains true that some plausible alternative explanation can always be dreamed up for policy changes. His statement is a reminder that it is going to be very difficult to prove that, like everything else in the Clinton administration, foreign policy was sold.
What makes the idea of national security being traded for campaign dollars so arresting is that we’re talking about Clinton. As columnist Maureen Dowd said of another Clinton scandal that turned out to be false—and then turned out to be true—“What you need to know about Bill Clinton is that the charge was plausible.” 1 With the exact same money trail followed by the exact same policy changes in a Carter White House, illegal donations to the DNC would be a minor incident. But with a White House “where everything is political and everything is for sale,” it does not take a fevered conspiracy theorist to think that foreign policy was on the block. As Dowd said about other “despicable” charges against the Clinton White House, “it sounded so plausible.”2 And that was before what sounded plausible turned out to be true.
As we go to press, the public information about the Chinese money scandal has gaping holes. There is “strong circumstantial evidence,” according to a Senate report, that various individuals with close ties to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were funneling money to American political campaigns during the 1996 campaign.3 Several of these individuals had extraordinary access to the president. Many small, and some large, Clinton policies coincided with the desires of some of these individuals. But that doesn’t add up to evidence that Clinton changed government policy because of a contribution. And, if the new Clintonian standards for American presidents are to be accepted, it does not amount to evidence that Clinton “changed government policy solely because of a contribution.”
THE LIPPO GROUP
Mochtar Riady and his son, James, control the Lippo Group, a $6 billion conglomerate based in Indonesia. They have been friends and supporters of President Clinton since at least the early 1980s, when the Lippo Group acquired a minority interest in the Arkansas-based Worthen Bank, and James had moved to Little Rock to learn the banking business.
The Riadys also had a “long-term relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency,” according to a report by the Thompson committee.4 The report, which reveals only unclassified information, does not claim that Clinton knew of the relationship between the Riadys and the PRC, nor is that relationship explained.5
This much is known: On November 7, 1992, two days after Bill Clinton was elected president, China Resources Holding Company, a Beijing government-owned corporation known by U.S. intelligence to provide cover for Chinese intelligence-gathering operations, purchased 15 percent of the
Hong Kong Chinese Bank (HKCB), a subsidiary of the Riady family-controlled Lippo Group. The Riadys sold the 15 percent interest to China Resources for $2.10 a share at a time when the public stock was trading at $2.62 per share—a 20 percent discount. As the South China Morning Post noted, “It was essentially a private placement… structured in such a way as to circumvent having to secure the approval of the Hong Kong stock exchange.”
On June 17, 1993, Lippo announced that it had sold an additional 35 percent of HKCB to China Resources, giving the Beijing government-owned espionage front half ownership. This time, instead of getting a discount, Beijing paid a 50.7 percent premium on HKCB stock. According to the Morning Post, the “deal will also bring a profit of about $164.8 million to HKCB holding”6—that is, to the Riady family.
According to a summary prepared in December 1996 for House investigators examining the Lippo-China connection, “under Hong Kong law, China Resources [Holding] Company’s 50 percent share in the bank provided it with access to all [Lippo] corporate information.”
Thus, as of July 1993, every time Riady or Huang met with Clinton, the president was dealing with the partners of a Chinese government-owned organization known by U.S. intelligence agencies to provide cover for Chinese intelligence-gathering operations.
During the 1992 presidential campaign—about the same time the Red Chinese were acquiring an interest in the Riadys’ Lippo Group—James Riady and his wife contributed $200,000 in “soft money” to the DNC. In January 1993 Lippo executives James Riady and John Huang gave a joint $100,000 contribution to the Clinton inaugural fund. By the end of Clinton’s first term John Huang would be at the center of the Democratic Party’s fund-raising scandal.
