It was no West Wing. I just can't buy Gina as the President. She needs to wear less rouge.
Transcript from Conservative Roundtable
The public affairs television program of The Conservative Caucus http://www.conservativeusa.org
Guest: Larry Klayman, Esq.
Chairman and Founder, Judicial Watch
Friday, August 1, 1997 — First Broadcast
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Welcome to Conservative Roundtable. I'm Howard Phillips. My guest for this broadcast is attorney Larry Klayman, the founder and chairman of Judicial Watch, an organization which, among other things, monitors corruption in the Federal government.
Larry, you've been probably more closely observing the hearings on Capitol Hill than any other American so far as I know. You've been covering them for NET, the Political Newstalk Network, which was the first television network to give priority attention to what's going on. We are now in early August — Congress is about leave town. How would you size up the hearings those far which have been proceeding under the gavel of Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee?
LARRY KLAYMAN: Howard, we took a certain pride that these hearings even took place because it was our case against the Commerce Department which we brought three years ago which uncovered John Huang, it uncovered the sale of government services — in this case, trade missions for large campaign contributions — and, of course, taxpayers pay for that.
So, when we created that ignition that sparked this entire investigation, we wanted Senator Thompson to succeed, so I was very happy to do the commentary when Paul Weyrich asked me for the National Empowerment Television. And, of course, we continue to take depositions in our case, and gather information alongside the committee.
But we have been disappointed in these hearings so far. It would appear to us that Senator Thompson and the Republicans on that committee were not sufficiently prepared in going into the hearings. Perhaps they were rushing it a bit to beat Dan Burton, who has his own investigation on the House side, and there's a little bit of politics between the two chambers.
They hadn't gotten subpoenas out to the White House, to important witnesses like the Lippo Bank — they were relying on the good faith of these individuals and entities — they did not have a quick response time when the investigation started, so 50 major witnesses left the country, including Charlie Trie, including Pauline Kanchanalak (two Asian-Americans that were involved in the corruption at the Commerce Department in legal fund-raising — those are just two examples), and the senators themselves, when the hearings began over a month ago, didn't seem to be terribly prepared: they came in and asked questions in a random way, they brought witnesses before the committee gratuitously praising their honesty and integrity only to find out, much to their shock, that these witnesses weren't honest. Some of them developed lapses of memory. It was a rather embarrassing scene the first week, with witnesses called by the Republicans, that were exonerating the Democrats. It took someone even like Senator Torricelli (who's not one of the more honorable individuals of that committee — he took money from John Huang and the Lippo Group) to say something for once that was somewhat true. He crowed that perhaps the first witness, Richard Sullivan, exonerated the Democrats; he couldn't understand why the Republicans called him as a witness.
So I was understandably critical — not because we didn't want the hearings to succeed, but because we wanted to send a wake-up call to the Republicans that they had to roll up their sleeves and do their job. And it did improve. Going into week two, they divided the witnesses up among different senators. We heard testimony from individuals from the CIA and from other parts of government that shed light on John Huang and what he was doing at the Commerce Department. But it was very, very sporadic. Even after that they didn't keep a continuity, and by the end of week two, they ran out of witnesses again because they weren't prepared.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Is that why they brought on Haley Barbour, the Republican chairman, at that point?
LARRY KLAYMAN: I don't think they will admit that, but I think it was because the Republicans simply had gone through Act One, and finished the play so to speak, and turned it over, incredulously, to an investigation of their own party when in fact any alleged wrongs against the Republicans are minute compared to the huge corruption in the Clinton administration. I think that was puzzling for Americans to understand the shift.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: The only logical explanation is that Senator Thompson may have wished to demonstrate his personal bipartisan spirit. I don't whether he planned it in advance or rather it was spontaneous, but he managed to beat up on Haley Barbour for not fully repaying a loan that was made to the National Policy Forum. But certainly his conduct at that point in the hearings, led to the conclusion that the pudding had no theme.
Do you think before this is over the pudding will have a theme? Do you think the investigative staff of the committee knows where it is going?
You and I both recall the Watergate hearings in 1973 and 1974, and the Democratic staff — Bernie Nussbaum, Hillary Rodham, and others knew exactly what they wanted to accomplish — Sam Dash, etc. They knew who was in their sights and they knew how they were going to get it. They explored every opening, every unlocked window or door was opened. But there seems to be no such pattern or strategy here.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, there's a couple of problems. Number one, you look at the Democrats on that committee: three of them have taken money from John Huang. You have Senator Glenn, Senator Torricelli, Senator Levin. They are more than tainted, they shouldn't even be on that committee — perhaps to the extent they should be before the committee, it is as witnesses, not as senators.
You have others on there who have had problems here and there. You even have some Republicans that have had some problems. Senator Specter was recently fined for campaign finance violations.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: And, of course, he also recently arranged for a Federal subsidy to go to an organization associated with the movie producer, Steven Spielberg, and shortly thereafter Spielberg put on a major reelection fund-raiser for Mr. Specter against whom he had worked in his previous election campaign.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, Senator Specter is quite flexible in his political inclinations. But you also have some others on there, and I think there is a reticence to dig too deep, because when you talk about campaign fund-raising and the corruption in that system — basically influence-peddling — all senators have some scrape with that at some point in time.
So they're worried that if they put on some major witnesses, let's say you had Harold Ickes. He should have been one of the first witnesses. Well, Harold, as he's affectionately called, could challenge one of these Republican senators and say, "but, senator, here's what you've done in that campaign; here's what you are investigated for". So I think you can now understand why they've come forward with secondary witnesses: those who don't know too much. And it may also explain, somewhat humorously, why they went light on Haley Barbour: Haley knows where all the bodies are buried with regard to all of them.
And you have situations where Senator Lieberman wound up praising him profusely (and, certainly, he didn't do anything terribly wrong), but it created a confusion among the American people similar to the confusion that you would have if you had a court case before a jury and the opening statement was incoherent.
Because, as you know, Howard, in most cases if you don't make a convincing opening statement, you're not going to get the jury and you are not going to win the case. And that is the problem with the Thompson hearings: the first few weeks were not convincing, the American people don't understand the full impact, and I hope they can recover after a month off, because we do wish them well.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Well, I think your observation is very astute and appropriate. I can speak with some personal knowledge about Senator Robert Bennett, the Republican of Utah. During the Nixon years, he was himself the object of scrutiny. Some people thought that he was "Deep Throat", others cast aspersions on him in other ways. He ran a company called the Mullen Company which had official connections with the CIA (or at least actual connections with the CIA). He was involved in some fund-raising activities which would not stand the light of day even in today's context. So, it's therefore understandable that he pulls his punches, and, after some very damaging testimony is given, can tell a witness, "gee, that's wonderful; everything is fine, you're doing great, there's no problem here".
Is it possible that all of these problems will, nonetheless, be overcome by Senator Thompson's desire to make a name for himself, to wind up as a media hero, and a Republican hero looking toward the year 2000?
LARRY KLAYMAN: I hope so. Senator Thompson is a nice man. He, perhaps, is well-intentioned — there's no reason to believe otherwise.
But the problem here is that you can't gratuitously get up in front of these committees and give the American people a false impression. If a witness comes in front of you, and let's say, Michael Cardozo of the President's legal defense fund (and this will tell you how they weren't prepared); Michael Cardozo ran this fund — it was a way to pump money into the President. This was our first lawsuit against the Clinton administration three years ago — you cannot, as a Federal government official, accept money from the outside — and Cardozo set this up with a group of trustees, mostly Democrats, some moderate Republicans that were trying to curry favor, like Elliot Richardson and others. And this was an invitation to people like Charlie Trie, who we just found out, from China, pumped $600,000 of Communist Chinese cash right into the President's account.
Well, we go through some testimony on this, and not one of the senators asked Michael Cardozo what Webster Hubbell was doing in his office while he was under indictment at the same time that he was running this fund (and this is when Hubbell was receiving all that cash which we think was hush money from Lippo Group and others) — why weren't they aware of that?
Michael Cardozo was the last one who was seen with Vince Foster the weekend before Vince Foster died. Vince Foster was at his home [BREAK IN TAPE of approx 5 seconds] honest, because in fact he never would have been doing this. It's a violation of law to even have a legal defense fund.
So, this posturing — and that's what concerns me — that somehow these Republican senators feel that the way to get reelected — the way, perhaps, to be President of the United States — is to play to the so-called "middle America" that the pollsters tell them they have to play to, to move on to bigger and better things. I think that if they get beyond that and just do their job, we'll be fine.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Larry, when we come back after this break, I want to ask you if you would make the same observations about Ken Starr in his role as Independent Counsel, and I also want to work with you in getting to the bottom of the Ron Brown scandals.
Please stay with us. We'll be right back after these messages.
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HOWARD PHILLIPS: Welcome back. I'm Howard Phillips with Judicial Watch chairman Larry Klayman.
Larry, we were talking about how the Republicans in the Senate investigation of the Clinton administration don't seem to be very well organized — they're going through the motions. Would you make a similar comment about Ken Starr and his work as Independent Counsel?
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, it would appear, given the fact that he was about ready to leave for Pepperdine six months ago, that Ken Starr was never really a full-time Independent Counsel. Now if you layer on top of that all of the investigations that he was assigned to do from Travelgate to Whitewater to Vince Foster — you name it. You can't be part time and expect that he's going to be very effective.
Now, he got a wake-up call (I was critical during that period, you were, others were) — and I hope that he's doing the job now, but frankly I'm skeptical particularly seeing the report on Vince Foster — it's just simply not credible that he would come out with the conclusion similar to Fiske.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: None of the hard questions about the suspicious death of Vince Foster seem to have been addressed by Starr. He seemed simply to have rubber-stamped the previous whitewash by Fiske. Yet the media is now able to use that to dismiss further inquiry, and I think that is a tremendous disservice that Mr. Starr has done.
Larry, I'd like to focus the rest of the broadcast on the pioneering work which you have done with respect to Ron Brown, the Commerce Department, and his role in all of these scandals.
Let me get right to the heart of the matter. There are many people in America who believe that Ron Brown's death was all too convenient for Bill Clinton, that, had he lived, the testimony he would have been required to give, the focus of investigation on his activities would have brought down Bill Clinton. Many people think that the plane crash in which he perished was not an accident. What do you think?
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, I think it wasn't an accident either, but, what is unfortunate is that you need an investigative agency like the Justice Department and the FBI to really look into it and find out what happened.
We knew that Ron Brown was a scandal waiting to happen. That's why, back in 1995 I brought a lawsuit in January on behalf of Judicial Watch because it seemed to me that, if you are going to look at the Clinton administration, the Commerce Department where Brown was Secretary, was the first place to look.
You had the all time leading Democrat fund-raiser. You had someone who had been accused of accepting the $600,000 bribe from the government of Vietnam to push trade relations — and that mysteriously ended just a day before we opened up trade relations (there was this grand jury in Miami). Someone who had represented, in his private practice, Baby Doc Duvalier, one of the worst dictators in American history (America being the whole region), who persecuted Brown's own people in effect — somebody who was just completely amoral. Brown was the kind of person who got himself involved in business deals profiting off of government service, or public service. So that's why we focused on him.
We were making headway, we brought a lawsuit. The judge, in fact, had allowed us to take discovery, we had noticed his deposition, and, ironically, he asked for a postponement because he had to go to Bosnia during that trip, no one was more disappointed (obviously I didn't want to see him die, from a humanitarian standpoint). We wanted to get the information out of him. He had a tremendous knowledge of what went on in that Clinton administration.
Now, moving forward, of course, months later, we came upon John Huang and that was the spark that rekindled this whole scandal. But since then, we've met with someone that he was in business with, and this was his latest Independent Counsel grand jury investigation at the time that he died.
That person's name: Nolanda Hill. She opened a company called First International. It was alleged that he received $500,000 of defaulted government loan money from that company under the table which he never reported on his disclosure forms when he became Secretary of Commerce, and perhaps not on his income tax returns.
Nolanda Hill is in a position to know what happened with Ron Brown, and we were fortunate enough to convince her to meet with us. She told me and she told our investigator, Andy Thibault, that she believes Ron Brown was killed — which is an incredible statement.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Killed intentionally, not by accident.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Killed intentionally, by the Clinton administration. I asked her "how did you come to that conclusion?"
She said that two weeks before that plane went down, Ron Brown had gone to the White House and met with the President. Typically, he was walking around in bare feet; he sat down on his couch, put his feet up on the stool, and Brown said to him, that he was going to have to plea to some type of plea bargain to end that Independent Counsel investigation that concerned First International; that it was closing in on him, it was closing in on his son, Michael, who was alleged to have taken a bribe on his behalf from these lums? [hoodlums?] who ultimately have gotten into trouble.
And the reaction of Clinton was, with his hands crossed: that's nice, no comment, kind of like an organized crime figure, she took it.
And when the plane went down two weeks later, she received a call from the Secretary of the Army that said they were looking for the bodies in the water — and, of course, we know the official alibi is that the plane hit a mountain. And, from that, she kind of comes to the conclusion that there is something obviously very suspicious here. She says that Brown always had a difficult relationship with the White House; it was a marriage of convenience, and she thinks he was killed. And that is, perhaps, her motivation in coming forward and now talking to the authorities (she's talked not just to us, but to the Thompson committee, perhaps to Dan Burton's committee), she's trying to arrange for some type of immunity to testify. We hope and pray for her health, because she is in a position that she could tell the entire story. And, although she admits to wrongdoing, she says she now wants to set the record straight. So here is somebody, the closest person to Ron Brown (perhaps even closer than his wife) who believes that he was killed by someone in the Clinton administration, perhaps the President himself.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: And, of course, there were other people traveling with him who went down in the process of Mr. Brown's death in that plane crash.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, you know, ruthless people will do ruthless things. Some of those people actually had knowledge about Ron Brown's doings. For instance, this person, Chuck Meissner, who we heard about during the Thompson committee hearings, and who we've received a lot testimony about — Meissner was John Huang's boss. Meissner was the guy who, according to Jeffrey Garten [Undersecretary of Commerce for international trade during Clinton's first term], didn't heed instructions in keeping Huang just in certain areas. This is somebody who, conveniently, also went down in that plane crash, who might have a lot to say today.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: So it was like shooting fish in a barrel for those who found Mr. Brown's continued existence un...
LARRY KLAYMAN: That's a good way of putting it, Howard. You know, after Ron Brown died there was also someone else who turned up dead at the Commerce Department — a Miss Wise — this was somebody who worked in the same division as John Huang who perhaps knew that documents were being destroyed.
We had taken the deposition — that is when we get oral testimony as lawyers — of John Huang's secretary, and she was forced to admit at our deposition that Huang handed her cables from overseas (who knows where from — perhaps even Communist China) and told her to shred them on a daily basis.
Now this person who was found dead worked in that section, and maybe she had information, maybe she was willing to come forward — you don't know. But what we do know is that she was found naked in her office, dead, on a Monday morning after a long holiday — and mysteriously, no one has really followed up on that. This is something that came and went.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: What was the cause of death that was reported?
LARRY KLAYMAN: They claim natural causes, but I don't think you're found naked, dead, in a Commerce Department office, of natural causes — that doesn't sound too logical.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Not even if she was trying ... to promote tourism.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Any reasonable person ... right.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: What have you found that can you talk to us about in the depositions which you have taken in connection with the Department of Commerce?
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, we've found a number of things. There was only one deposition that was taken under controlled circumstances which I can't discuss and that was of the CIA agent Dickerson, but the rest are all public depositions — they're on video. In fact, we've offered them to Thompson to use if he's unable to get witnesses, he can show videos. And it might also be helpful to show John Huang lying at our depositions, which he did, and then put on witnesses to prove that so the American people could see the deceit.
But, what we've learned is the following: 1) that Commerce Department people have shredded documents that were called for in our case, they've hidden documents, that Ron Brown's secretary was never searched in response to our lawsuit (document that were requested). In fact, after he died, his office was like Grand Central Station with Michael Brown, his son, going in and out, his daughter, Tracy, his wife, Alma, Department employees — they basically sanitized that office.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Sounds like Vince Foster all over again.
We have to take a break now. We'll get the rest of the story right after these messages.
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Right now, there's no money in the defense budget to keep our U.S. bases in Panama, and even as we reduce our defense spending, Red China boosts theirs with $40 billions each year coming from us as the result of the MFN (Most-Favored-Nation) status.
We, the people, along with our leaders in Congress and at the White House have a duty to preserve, protect, and defend America's vital interests.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Welcome back. Our guest for this broadcast has been attorney Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch. Larry, if people want to learn more about Judicial Watch, what's the phone number, the address, et cetera.
LARRY KLAYMAN: They can reach us at toll free number 888-JW-ETHIC, and they can write to us at P.O. Box 44444, Washington, D.C. 20026, and we have a website now, Howard: www.judicialwatch.org
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Larry, why don't you, in the couple of minutes left, finish what you were telling us about your investigation into the Commerce Department.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, it's fascinating because what we really uncovered, as much as what we found — and we found evidence that Commerce Department trade missions were being sold for large campaign contributions. People would write in to the Secretary of Commerce saying "my client gave $100,000, he's a close friend of Hillary Clinton, we want him on the trip". Jude Kearney, who is now under investigation — even by Reno. I mean this was so blatant, even she had to look into it. He was the one who had Charlie Trie in his office, and he made have had classified information at the time at the Commerce Department. He said "I only pick those that are politically connected". I mean this is how our tax dollars are being spent as a telethon to raise money for Bill Clinton's reelection.
But now we've gotten beyond that. We've gotten into issues of John Huang and Charlie Trie coming in and out of Commerce like a ...
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Tell us again briefly who John Huang is, and who Charlie Trie, the restauranteur, is.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, I'm so close--thanks for stopping me.
John Huang is an individual who worked for a group called the Lippo Bank, owned by Chinese interests out of Indonesia, and he took a pay cut of millions of dollars just to come to work for the Commerce Department, and was put in a position where he had access to certain information--national security type information. So, it's very serious, and people need to know what he was doing there. And Charlie Trie, of course, came in and had similar information.
But what's doubly troubling is the fact that the Commerce Department was being used as a staging ground for literally any conceivable illegal activity in the Clinton administration being run by Ron Brown, and then when he died, Mickey Kantor. And now we have another political "glad-hander" in there, Bill Daley. All of these people are master fund-raisers, master crooks so to speak, who have made their livelihood shaking down people for money. And this is an agency which the Republicans, many years ago, talked about eliminating--and yet, now we have supplemental funding going into the Commerce Department. So we're working hard to get more and more information to expose this scandal, so perhaps we may also...
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Larry Klayman, thanks very much for being with us.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Welcome to Conservative Roundtable. I'm Howard Phillips. Our guest for a second broadcast is Larry Klayman, an attorney who is the founder and chairman of Judicial Watch, which has been uncovering and following up on many of the scandals associated with President Bill Clinton and his administration.
Larry, in our previous broadcast, we talked about the degree to which people like John Huang and Charlie Trie and others compromised the Clinton administration with cash that had as its source the People's Republic of China.
To what degree do you believe that the government of Communist China had a conscious, coordinated strategy to cause the Clinton administration to change its policies in return for contributions to Clinton's reelection campaign?
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, what we know is that much of the transfer of cash came from the Bank of China. It came through someone by the name of Mr. Wu who was tied in with the Communist Party apparatus in China (he was bankrolling Charlie Trie). We know that the Lippo Group, which contributed millions and millions of dollars to the Clintons over the years going all the way back to Arkansas, owns part of the arms trading company of the government of China — they're half owners right now.
This type of linkage obviously confirms the Chinese Communist involvement, but last week, for instance, during the Thompson hearings, a few documents were produced which showed that Charlie Trie, John Huang's cohort (they did know each other), had pumped about $700,000 into the legal defense fund within 24-48 hours of the President answering the letter that Charlie Trie wrote — now, he's not a terribly literate person in English, and it's written in fairly good English — and it asks for a series of responses to certain questions. This occurred during a time when Communist China was going through military exercises in the Straits of Taiwan, firing off missiles right over the heads of the Taiwanese...
HOWARD PHILLIPS: And, indeed, threatening to bomb Los Angeles.
LARRY KLAYMAN: ...and threatening to bomb Los Angeles. The United States sent the 7th Fleet into the area, and these questions went to U.S. intentions — in other words, how would the U.S. react to these Chinese exercises?
Now Charlie Trie runs a restaurant out of Little Rock, Arkansas. He's not someone who gets involved in strategic issues of China and the United States. The President sent this letter that Charlie Trie forwarded at the same time this cash came into the legal defense fund to the National Security Council. The response was written by Anthony Lake, and, in fact, Clinton signed the letter...
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Lake being the top man at the NSC.
LARRY KLAYMAN: ...the top man at the NSC. Clinton signed the letter, giving the Chinese reassurances that the United States was not going to go to war. Now if this isn't Chinese involvement at the top level at the same time that hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash is coming in from Chinese sources, what is? You don't have to be a...
HOWARD PHILLIPS: This would seem to be a treasonous act, if you'll pardon the expression, on the part of Bill Clinton, where, in effect, he compromised the national security of the United States by giving the most private intelligence information of the greatest moment to a foreign government with which we were in a state of hostile communication at a time when that government was, seemingly with his knowledge, transferring substantial sums of money for the benefit of his political operations.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, that's right, and not only did it happen at that time, but the head of the legal defense fund that we talked about during the first show, Michael Cardozo, was over in the White House meeting with White House officials — Lindsey, Ickes, Hillary Rodham Clinton — at the same time. So it clearly looks like it was coordinated, this cash coming into the legal defense fund.
Now, obviously, Clinton has had a lot of links with China. You have John Huang, you have Charlie Trie, you have Melinda Yee at the Commerce Department, who's been very active in that area (who destroyed documents in our case, incidentally — clear cut example of obstruction of justice), Ginger Liu, the general counsel.
And Ginger Lew left the Department of Commerce, went to work under Erskine Bowles during this John Huang period...
HOWARD PHILLIPS: What was Bowles' job at that time? Was he then Chief of Staff?
LARRY KLAYMAN: He was then the administrator of the SBA [Small Business Administration]. And this was something, Howard, that we uncovered in our case, and this is yet to be investigated by either Janet Reno, the Thompson committee, or any committee on Capitol Hill. We learned through a confidential source that satellite documents were taken out of the Commerce Department by an assistant of Ginger Liu, taken secretly and put in a safe at the Small Business Administration where Miss Lew was then working under Erskine Bowles.
When we found out about this, we asked Judge Lamberth in our district court case to slap a subpoena on those documents. They are now under court order. The judge required that the contents be generally listed — no one has seen these documents — but what they involve are confidential CIA reports on China, Russia now (previously the Soviet Union), and India. They also contain what appears to be satellite encryption information. Commerce Department's authority is to regulate export controls on telecommunications software and how satellites communicate with each other.
These documents walked out of the Commerce Department. This may be the first fruit of actual espionage against the United States; they're documents the Chinese would love to have. We were taking a deposition today where we confirmed that an Assistant Secretary of Commerce, Lauri Fitz-Pegado, went to work for a company which is in part owned by the Chinese. In fact, this company is involved in telecommunications networking, and would necess...
HOWARD PHILLIPS: She is the young lady who formerly was involved with Angola. Am I correct?
LARRY KLAYMAN: Correct. And she was involved with Ron Brown concerning Haiti; she helped him do lobbying.
So there may be a linkage here between actual classified information which left the Commerce Department, John Huang, Chinese satellite communications — the sky's the limit.
It's a very, very troubling situation at a minimum, and certainly these are very major issues.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Would it not seem to be appropriate for the House Judiciary Committee to launch an inquiry to determine whether the impeachment of President Clinton might be appropriate on grounds of high crimes and misdemeanors, bribery, and treason?
LARRY KLAYMAN: At a minimum. We already have evidence of crimes being committed, and this gets us into the area of Janet Reno, the Attorney General, who refuses to appoint an Independent Counsel.
But, let's just look at the evidence as we have it right now: * selling off government services like trade missions; *overnight stays in the White House; *seats on Air Force One — there are actual brochures of the Democratic Party (which Clinton knew about) which confirm it — you don't even know a lawsuit to figure that out. And Janet Reno could be indicting Clinton, could be indicting Harold Ickes, who was in on it, could be indicting people in and around Ron Brown who are still alive, under 18 U.S.C. §600 of the criminal code — you can't sell government services for cash.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Of course, it is not likely that a woman who, herself, is potentially subject to investigation for various reasons, and who's political visibility and tenure depends entirely on the President, it's unlikely that she would take action in this area.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, it's unlikely because she was reappointed, and we have a lawsuit (it's another one of our cases against the Clinton administration under very suspicious circumstances) — the White House was basically, if not explicitly, tacitly telling her that we don't want any more Independent Counsels (this was all over the press), and they were dangling in front of her the possibility of whether she would be reappointed as Attorney General. And it's clear that she cut a deal.
So we have filed Freedom of Information Act requests with Justice. They failed to respond. We filed another lawsuit. We want to get the underlying documentation of what was going on during that period to expose potential obstruction of justice on her part.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Now, at one point she had a deputy named Philip Heyman? who resigned very discreetly without setting forth the reasons for his departure, and, of course, his departure preceded all of this.
The young lady who succeeded him as Deputy Attorney General has also departed and the visible reason was — Jamie Gorelick — that she did not get a cabinet post at a time that she wanted it.
Have you considered deposing either of these two individuals to see whether, from the perspective of past events they might be able to shed some light on what's been happening with regard to these investigations?
LARRY KLAYMAN: We ultimately will seek to do that.
We also have Eric Holder, who was the U.S. Attorney for the District Columbia. He has been the lawyer who supposedly was in charge of defending the Commerce Department in our Commerce Department case. The Justice Department lawyers in that case have been sanctioned on two occasions for obstructing the flow of information, and yet Holder (who admits that he got his job through Ron Brown as U.S. Attorney) has now been put into the position of Jamie Gorlich. Jamie Gorlich leaves. Philip Heyman leaves. And they put in place a Ron Brown confidant and friend who has been sanctioned for inequitable conduct in our lawsuit. This is part, we believe, of a huge coverup at the Justice Department to keep the truth from coming out.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: We are going to go into more detail when we come back, but one of the questions I have for your Larry, is why have the Republicans taken a dive? Another very close friend of Ron Brown was Alexis Herman, who was confirmed virtually without opposition. She was a "bag lady" for the Democratic Party and the Clinton administration and Ron Brown, and had some tales to tell which were not required of her. Without opposition, virtually, they confirmed Eric Holder, and Orrin Hatch, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, went out of his way to tell Holder: Oh, I'm a friend of Ron Brown, too.
We're going to take a break. When we come back, the chairman of Judicial Watch, will have comments on these and related matters. Please stay with us.
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HOWARD PHILLIPS: Welcome back. This is Howard Phillips with Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch.
Larry, I think it's clear from what you've said that the government of Communist China knew what it was doing as they tried, without much opposition, to corrupt the Clinton administration. One of the key players is, of course, Janet Reno. And the question is: Has Janet Reno been compromised? Talk to us a little bit about a recent unanticipated meeting you had with Janet Reno, and your general observations.
LARRY KLAYMAN: It was bizarre. I was sitting with one of our advisory committee members at a restaurant very close to the FBI. I had just had a court hearing that morning in our Commerce Department case, and we were sitting there having dinner, and in walked Janet Reno with two women. She sat down next to us, and at the same time Senator Thompson walked in...
HOWARD PHILLIPS: This is Fred Thompson, the chairman of the hearings.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Right. And our advisory committee member said to me before I went over to talk to Mr. Thompson, she said: Why don't we send Janet Reno a martini? (she was drinking martinis). And I said, what a great idea! I took out a card, and I said "Courtesy of Judicial Watch" and we sent her over a martini.
And I went over to talk with Senator Thompson and walked over to her, and I said: Attorney General Reno, my name is Larry Klayman. Perhaps you've heard of me.
And she grabbed my hand like this, with this tremendous warmth, and looked me in the eye and said: Yes, Larry, I know all about you. You're doing a great job, keep it up! She said, But, of course, I can't accept the martini.
I said: Why not? You realize that I'm your staunch adversary.
She said: I know that; I just can't do it.
It was the most bizarre experience I've seen. It was either she had one too many martinis, or she was completely disingenuous and insincere, and that's certainly the way I wrote it off.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Or maybe she was really rooting for you, Larry.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Or, maybe she really can't stand Clinton and hates his guts, and in fact she is being blackmailed, and hopes that someone else can get him.
But, you should have the integrity, if that's the case, to resign — being Attorney General isn't everything. She stayed in that job; she's compromised — she hasn't done her investigation. Every deposition that we have taken against the Commerce Department, except for two, we find that she has not even questioned these people. Even John Huang's secretary has not been questioned or called before a grand jury, yet she's out there crowing about her "vigorous investigation". Well, where is it?
And, of course, this week Senator Thompson and his committee found out that she's stonewalling with grants of immunity, with games with documents. We've seen it recently again — we want John Huang's diary; the court has ordered that it be produced; and she's refusing to produce it. We're now in front of the judge with a motion to compel. So, she needs to be removed. That's why we brought the lawsuit.
And the Senate needs to stand up — Orrin Hatch, head of the Judiciary Committee, needs to look her in the eye and say: unless you do this by this date, we are going to start impeachment proceedings.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Of course, Orrin Hatch isn't going to do that. And one of the great disappointments of this Congress is the manner in which Orrin Hatch has rolled over and played dead for Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, Alexis Herman, whenever he's had the opportunity to do so. Why?
LARRY KLAYMAN: Orrin Hatch was reported to be involved in the BCCI scandal. This came up (for the people who don't know what that is, that's about an Arab-owned bank that pumped a lot of money, not just into the U.S., but around the world — it was the money-laundering operation of a number of different regimes, including the Carter regime during our history. In fact the owner of BCCI built President Carter's library, incredibly enough, where I went to school — Emory and I'm not terribly pleased when I walk in and look up on the wall...
HOWARD PHILLIPS: And Bert Lance was heavily involved in it as well.
LARRY KLAYMAN: And Bert Lance. If you ever want to know why Carter was so favorable to certain interests in the Middle East, that may have had something to do with it.
Well, to make a long story short, Orrin Hatch was somehow involved in this scandal. It came up during the time when Janet Reno was Attorney General, and he was let off the hook, and we fear that perhaps he's beholden to her in terms of his own well being in the future. And that may explain comments why he's a great friend of Ron Brown at the Holder confirmation hearing, it may explain why he will gratuitously praise the Attorney General for being a woman of great integrity (I guess having let him off the hook she's a woman of great integrity) — I hope these things aren't true. I hope that Senator Hatch is not involved in this. But, when he fails to take action, when he sits by and presents a good show for the American people without doing anything, you can't come to any other conclusion. I hope he proves us wrong.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: It may also explain why he's been so helpful with Clinton's judicial nominees. He really greased the skids for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He's greased the skids for other Clinton appointees — not just Stephen Breyer, but other Federal court nominees — and it's hard to explain why a man who presented himself to the public as a conservative favoring judicial restraint supposedly in opposition to abortion and other policies favored by these nominees would just roll over and play dead — and I think that the theory that you've described is one that has to be considered.
But you know it isn't just politicians who've let us down — it's private companies. I was outraged, Larry, to see the part that State Farm Insurance Company has played, in effect seeking to use the money of its policyholders to curry favor with the Clinton administration.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, it's interesting that you raise that because this is part of the scandals — and they all fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
You see, in Washington, D.C. there are some very big lobbies. There's no bigger lobby than the insurance industry. There is no more crooked industry than the insurance industry. We've seen a lot of scandal lately with regard to vanishing premiums: that people are sold insurance policies that never ripen and mature. And, of course, State Farm is part of that insurance industry.
The insurance industry was trying to keep the banking industry out of its sector. The banks would like to come in with products that compete with life insurance, and annuities, and offer an alternative. They came up with a product called "cash deferred certificates of deposit" which are Federally insured — they're actually more secure than annuities.
It just so happens that State Farm found a way to pay the President $1 to $2 million — Chubb Insurance Company is also involved — at a time that they were seeking to exclude through regulation the banking sector from competing with it — we're talking about billions of dollars. They paid Bill Clinton $1 to $2 million to defend himself against the Paula Jones case. Now we believe this was a paper transaction to get him money, because the President discovered (now he's a lawyer and so's his wife) that all of a sudden he was insured for sexual harassment and libel thirteen months after he was sued. Now would a lawyer forget that he carried an insurance policy for thirteen months? And would you and I, Howard, have an insurance company pay for our car if it was dented thirteen months after we gave them notice? That's how long it took.
And we also know that you're not insured for intentional acts — sexual harassment and libel are intentional actions. I wouldn't be insured as a lawyer for an intentional act under my professional liability coverage.
Not only that, who do they hire? They hire Bob Bennett, who's a criminal defense lawyer. He's not an expert in insurance defense. And what's his hourly fee? $495 an hour. And what do they hire him to do? To try to delay a case until after President Clinton leaves office. Now that's a political consideration. That's not a consideration which benefits the policy holders of State Farm.
So we had a State Farm policyholder seek us out — his name is Tom Flocco — he's a music and gym teacher at Penn Valley School in Philadelphia where I went to school, ironically, when I was a kid. He came to us (very brave guy) and said: I want to sue State Farm. And we brought the lawsuit on his behalf. It's going to be a fascinating case because not only are we going to look into the inner workings of what State Farm was discussing with Clinton when they miraculously decided that he was covered (and who ever heard of an insurance company so easily rolling over to pay a million dollars to a covered person, as Clinton claims), but we are also going to look into the legal billings of Bob Bennett to see what he has been charging for.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: So this is one of the most incredible bribes in modern political history — we're talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars being given to the President of the United States at a time when he was considering a decision involving hundreds of millions of dollars directly affecting the entity that provided the money to him.
LARRY KLAYMAN: That's right. And tremendous stakes at issue, whether or not banks — which is very significant part of our economy — can come in and move into a sector and compete. It's ironic that it occurred at a time when Clinton was unwilling to consider any type of change to Social Security. These products give the American people a private means to support themselves as an alternative to Social Security. So it's also a scandal in terms of the American people being deprived of this product. In fact, the Clinton administration has taken actions which shut down this alternative retirement fund. So it appears that they got something for their money.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Tell us, if you can in 30 seconds, what the residual impact of "Filegate" may be.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, Howard, we've been pretty active these days, and we have a lawsuit — class action — on behalf of the Reagan and Bush people, and we have sued Hillary Clinton, among the FBI, and the White House, and Nussbaum, Marceca, Livingstone. The judge rejected the motions to dismiss. We're going to be taking depositions of Hillary Clinton very, very soon.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: So, in October of 1997 Hillary Clinton will be no further from you than I am, perhaps, and you will be asking her some of the questions that I've been asking you?
LARRY KLAYMAN: Right. And we're going to be taking Dick Morris, too, who's the one who implicated in this. So it may be the first opportunity to see on video — and I'm confident that the court will allow it to be videoed — we'll be very respectful, but we're going to ask tough questions. We're not going to let her skate out, and I hope it gives us answers to a lot of the questions we've been asking.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: We have a little bit more video after these messages. Please stay with us. We'll be right back with Larry Klayman.
ANNOUNCER: In every major war of the Twentieth Century, control of the Panama Canal has been strategically crucial to America's military. Now the great U.S. Navy is no longer a two-ocean navy, and the Red Chinese military knows very well that control of the isthmus is more important than ever. That's why Red China now seeks control of the two crucial ports on each side of the Panama Canal. If Congress fails to give our military the funds to maintain U.S. bases in Panama, Red China will fill the vacuum, giving the Communist superpower a hammerlock grip on the path between the seas.
Right now, there's no money in the defense budget to keep our U.S. bases in Panama, and even as we reduce our defense spending, Red China boosts theirs with $40 billions each year coming from us as the result of the MFN (Most-Favored-Nation) status.
We, the people, along with our leaders in Congress and at the White House have a duty to preserve, protect, and defend America's vital interests.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Welcome back. Our guest has been Larry Klayman, the attorney who is the founder and chairman of Judicial Watch, which has been comprehensively pursuing a legal inquiry into the various Clinton administration scandals and apparent violations of law.
Larry, how can people get more information about Judicial Watch? We have a newsletter, and they can reach us at 888-JW-ETHIC — that's toll free — or write us at P.O. Box 44444 (that's five "4"s), Washington, D.C. 20026. We're also on a website: www.judicialwatch.org
We do look forward to support, and, of course, we do have volunteers helping us. So if you'd like to volunteer, and roll up your sleeves and come into our office, that's how we get our resource.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Larry, we've got two minutes. One word: drugs. Drug money is involved in some of the Clinton scandals. One of Clinton's closest associates was Dan Lasiter, who was a drug dealer who did serve time in prison for pushing drugs. He was the drug dealer to the Clinton family — Roger Clinton has admitted that. There is some indication that Bill benefitted from those transactions. Bill Clinton, as governor, insofar as the state charges were concerned pardoned Lassiter. In addition, he provided hundreds of thousands of dollars for management of bond issues and other things for Lasiter through the Arkansas Development Finance Administration. Then he named a person who had run Lasiter and Company while Lasiter was in prison — Patsy Thomasson — to be the White House Director of Administration.
How has this story been suppressed for so long? What are its implications? What can be brought to the table? — in one minute or less.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, it's part and parcel to everything being suppressed. Eventually we're going to have somebody come forward. We talked about Nolanda Hill in the first segment. She confirms that Ron Brown was snorting cocaine when she saw him. This is an administration which is totally lawless, but the so-called mainstream press has protected it because they fear that conservatives coming back into power is the worst thing that could ever happen to them. They are, in fact, willing to make a pact with the devil, so to speak.
HOWARD PHILLIPS: Somehow, tobacco upsets them more than hard drugs.
LARRY KLAYMAN: Well, I think that's probably the case. But it's going to come out. They can't ignore it. They like to sell papers and they like to have TV shows. There will come a point in time when the evidence is so great that this administration will come down.
Thank you, Howard.
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