On Jan. 7, 1993, John Huang, then Vice Chairman of the Lippo
Bank, wrote to Ron Brown, then chairman of the Democrat National
Committee, in stilted English: "Congratulations on great performance
during yesterday Senate hearing."
The Huang letter was obtained from the U.S. Commerce Department
using the Freedom of Information Act. The letter was written to
Ron Brown before President Clinton took office.
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"I was watching it in the Senate Russell Building and came away
with the strong feeling that you will do an outstanding job as
the Secretary of Department of Commerce in the coming years,"
noted Huang in poor English.
"I was trying to reach you. But there were too many people
there and I was not successful to do it."
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"What I really want to do is to identify a convenient time in
the coming week to arrange a meeting between you and Dr. Moctar
Riady, our Group Chairman. Dr. Riady will be coming to the
States. ... Dealing with Japan and other Asian matters will be
all of our important agenda," wrote Huang.
"Thank you in advance for taking a little moment on this matter.
I know you extremely busy. But I think this matter is also
important as well."
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Huang's letter reads like the scripted dialogue from a very bad
1930s Charlie Chang movie. Appearances, however, can be
deceiving and John Huang, Taiwanese Air Force officer, and six
figure international banker, was certainly no fool.
John Huang was born in China. He is a U.S. citizen, raised in
Taiwan, and a former executive of the Lippo Group in Indonesia.
He started out with the Worthen Bank in Little Rock, Arkansas.
It was there that he met the future President of the United
States, Governor Bill Clinton.
Many meetings followed Huang's early correspondence in 1993 with
Brown, along with the prime members of the Clinton White House team.
Huang met with the President at the White House 10 times
between June 21 and June 27, 1994. Right after that Webster
Hubbell, who was about to be indicted by a Federal grand jury,
received $100,000 from the Lippo Group.
Shortly after the money was given to Mr. Hubbell, Huang obtained
a secret clearance and an executive position as Assistant
Secretary of the Commerce Department. While at the Commerce
Department, Huang obtained secret materials on trade deals with
Indonesia, China, Japan, Korea and the Middle East. Huang also
obtained information on U.S. Patriot missile deals with South
Korea and mobile artillery for Kuwait.
Huang has taken the Fifth Amendment. His wife, Jane Huang, has
taken the Fifth Amendment. According to Larry Klayman at
Judicial Watch, John Huang cited his Fifth Amendment rights
nearly two thousand times when asked if he were a spy for
Beijing.
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Yet, Huang worked for Moctar Riady, a central figure in the
Clinton White House scandals. Indonesian billionaire Moctar
Riady and his son James Riady are also very close to Clinton.
Riady is close to Beijing. Testimony before Senator Thompson's
committee in 1998 revealed Moctar Riady's involvement in Chinese
espionage. Testimony revealed the Lippo Group is in fact a
joint venture of China Resources, a trading and holding company
"wholly owned" by the Chinese communist government and used as a
front for Chinese espionage operations.
One such Chinese army operation involved an airliner part-owned
by Riady with a live missile stuffed in its belly.
In 1996, China obtained the most advanced Russian air-to-air
missile NATO code-named the AA-11 ARCHER. According to the Cox
Report, in 1996, Hong Kong Customs officials removed a fully
operational AA-11 missile from the cargo hold of a Chinese
Dragonair L-1011 airliner filled with paying passengers.
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It was Aviation Week and Space Technology that carried the full
story. Aviation Week reported that the missile was in a box
mis-labeled as "Machine Parts" and that Dragonair was then partly
owned jointly by the Chinese government and Clinton
buddy-billionaire, Moctar Riady. According to intelligence
sources, the Chinese missile was bound for Israel for an upgrade
with stolen U.S. Sidewinder technology.
The financial connections between Riady and Clinton are all too
well documented. They involve donations, coal monopolies and a
U.S. taxpayer backed electric power plant in Indonesia called
Paiton.
Paiton is a $2.6 billion coal fired electric power plant located
in East Java, Indonesia. The partners in the Paiton consortium
include Edison Mission Energy, Mitsui & Co., Ltd. of Japan,
General Electric Capital Corporation, and P.T. Batu Hitam
Perkasa. Suharto's youngest daughter, Titek Prabowo and her
brother-in-law, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, own PT Batu.
Paiton was billed as the first "private" electric plant in
Indonesia. "Private" ownership in Indonesia actually means
privately owned and operated by the Suharto "First Family." The
Indonesian company that owns, operates and fuels the Paiton
plant under a 30 year, no-cut, contract is PT Batu Hitam
Perkasa, owned by Suharto's daughter and her brother-in-law.
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The State Department characterized the over-priced coal contract with
Hashim as "the Achilles Heel" of Paiton Swasta I.
According to the Commerce Department, ".75%" of the Paiton project
was reserved for Suharto's daughter Prabowo. Prabowo's cut
amounted to an instant $15 million. Her kickback, along with a
cut for "brother-in-law" Hashim and various other Suharto
relatives, was provided up front, in cash, in the form of a $50
million loan.
Federal Election Commission records show that Mission Energy CEO
John Bryson donated money to the Clinton/Gore campaign and
contributed money to Clinton's legal defense fund. Mission
Energy is also a partner of Indonesia's Lippo group.
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Lippo also provided the financing to "brother-in-law" Hashim for
his coal mining company that supplies Paiton. Hashim is himself
a key figure. While serving as the minister for mines under
Suharto, Hashim also managed to purchase a "low sulfur" coal
mine. Hashim's financial backers include Moctar Riady's Lippo
Group and, his sister-in-law, Prawabo.
In 1996, Bill Clinton issued an executive order declaring the
1.7 million-acre Utah Grand Staircase-Escalante National
Monument to be off limits to coal mining. Of course, Utah is
the only other known "low sulfur" deposit in the world. Thus,
Hashim and Moctar Riady both found themselves with a global
monopoly on coal worth billions of dollars.
Most of the corruption is well documented by Clinton
administration officials. John Huang, the former six figure
Lippo banker, was briefed in 1994 about the documented
corruption inside Paiton. Huang received a detailed report on
the illegal payments made to the corrupt Suharto government
during a Commerce Department meeting with the Central
Intelligence Agency and the Export-Import Bank.
Right after that meeting, Huang phoned the Lippo Bank.
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Moctar Riady also managed to maintain a close working
relationship with Bill Clinton during this time even if he could
not visit him personally. Moctar sent his gardener, Arief
Wiriadinata, to see Bill Clinton in the White House.
Wiriadinata gave the President a $400,000 donation.
Moctar actually gave Wiriadinata $450,000 but $50,000 stayed in
the gardener's pocket, perhaps for fertilizer expenses. Again
the text of the meeting, obtained from a White House videotape,
reads like a B movie filled with bad actors.
"I'm from James Riady," said Wiriadinata meekly.
"Yes, I'm glad to see you," replied Clinton.