Mark Middleton, The Clintonista Shielded by Pres. Bush's Executive Privilege Claim

The AP reported today that President Bush is "prepared" to invoke Executive privilege to block the House Government Reform Committee from obtaining the following documents from the Justice Department:

"Conrad Memorandum (Clinton Campaign Task Force Chief Robert Conrad declination originally subpeonaed last year on August 24, 2000) Two Declination findings:(1)investigation of former DEA Special Agent in Charge Ernest Howard, and (2) investigation(s) of Clinton White House aide Mark Middleton."

I've pulled some excerpts from Alamo-Girl's archive on Mark Middleton so that we would have a better idea of why Chairman Burton wants to review the Janet Reno DOJ documents explaining why she and her lackeys chose to not prosecute Middleton.

Please note that these records have not been updated to include Charlie Trie's statements to the FBI that he gave Middleton several cash payments involving tens of thousands of dollars while Middleton worked in the Clinton White House and gave other favors for him.

Also, one of the questions Middleton took the Fifth in front of Burton's committee was if we was an agent of influence for Communist China or any other foreign government, asked by Rep. Bob Barr, who still serves on the committee.

Salon 6/21/99 David Horowitz "...The Riady relationship extended beyond the Clintons themselves to their friends and to Hillary's associates at Rose, including its head, Joe Giroir, and a White House aide named Mark Middleton, who later invoked the Fifth Amendment when he was called before a congressional committee. It was the Riadys who provided a $100,000 "job" for the indicted Web Hubbell, at the moment when he had indicated to the Starr prosecutors that he might be ready to talk. After the payment from Riady and others, Hubbell changed his mind and chose jail instead.

Opening Statement Chairman Dan Burton Committee on Government Reform 5/11/99 "...He [Chung] said that Liu Chao-Ying told him that Mark Middleton got half a million from a Singapore group. We checked Mark Middleton's bank records. They show that he received over $1.75 million from Asian businesses. One of the payments he received was a half-a-million payment from Indonesia. We don't know what money Liu Chao-Ying was referring to. If we could go to Hong Kong to interview Liu Chao-Ying, maybe we could find out. We have a copy of a letter from Mark Middleton to one of his associates in Singapore. It mentions someone named Liu. It says, and I quote, "Thank you for the update on Ms. Liu. I know that she must be concerned with nepotism but I'm not sure how that affects us." We don't know what Mark Middleton meant in this letter. He's taken the Fifth, so we can't ask him...."

Washington Times 8/5/99 Jerry Seper "...Mark Middleton, former confidant of Charles Yah Lin Trie, John Huang and Johnny Chung, all of whom confessed to making illegal donations during the 1996 presidential election, is the highest ranking administration official to refuse to cooperate in the campaign-finance probe. Mr. Middleton, a longtime Clinton confidant who raised more than $4 million during the 1992 election, was called to appear before the House Government Reform Committee, which will ask him about his ties to Trie, Huang and Chung and his financial connections with the Lippo Group, a $6 billion Indonesian real estate and banking conglomerate controlled by the Riady family -- also Clinton supporters...."

Washington Times 8/5/99 Jerry Seper "...Chung testified before the committee that Liu Chao-ying, a lieutenant colonel in the People's Liberation Army and a China Aerospace Co. executive with whom Chung had a business relationship, told him that Mr. Middleton received $50,000 in PLA funds to do "good things" for Mr. Clinton. Mr. Middleton has denied the accusation.

8/6/99 Susan Roth Arkansas Democrat-Gazette "...Middleton, 36, has been linked with former Little Rock restaurateur Charlie Trie, California businessman Johnny Chung and others indicted by the Justice Department for illegal fund-raising during the campaign. Middleton, who now lives in Little Rock but owns a Washington-based company that arranges international business deals, has acknowledged that he met with some of the major figures in the campaign-finance investigation in 1994 and 1995. He has also acknowledged that investigators could have legitimate questions about these contacts. But he maintains that he did nothing wrong. Chung told the committee in May that a Chinese military official had told him that Middleton had received $500,000 from a Singapore business group to "do good things for China or to benefit China." Middleton has said in a written statement that the allegation was "absolutely false" and that he never received any money directly or indirectly related to the Chinese government...."

8/6/99 Susan Roth Arkansas Democrat-Gazette "...According to committee documents, Middleton received at least $275,000 in retainer fees for unspecified work from July 1995 to April 1997. The money came from the Riady family of Indonesia, which runs the Lippo Group financial conglomerate, has business ties to Arkansas and President Clinton and has been implicated in campaign-finance irregularities. Middleton also met with Trie and Macau financier Ng Lap Seng at the White House many times, according to the committee. Ng has also been implicated in illegal contributions to the 1996 campaign...."

Wall Street Journal 8/6/99 "...Vanessa Weaver had her hearing yesterday. As we noted editorially yesterday, she's the White House aide who made 23 calls to the mysterious fundraiser John Huang and who Bill Clinton just nominated to the Ex-Im Bank. She told the committee that when she called Mr. Huang in October 1996, she didn't know he was a fugitive. Meanwhile, former White House aide Mark Middleton took the fifth Amendment before Rep. Dan Burton's committee. The questioning had to do with weather (sic) Mr. Middleton was involved with raising money from the Chinese and other foreign interests for the Democratic National Committee. By coincidence the Ex-Im Bank to which Ms. Weaver aspires counts China among its biggest clients. Somehow these Clinton friends with memory-deficit disorder don't inspire confidence in the way a relatively normal Democratic administration would. Now for a bit of news that has not been reported in the media: Vanessa Weaver's appointment to the Ex-Im bank did not go through! ...." Washington Weekly 8/9/99 Marvin Lee "...Burton asked Middleton about a statement attributed to Liu Chao-Ying, an agent of the Chinese intelligence, that Mark Middleton got a half-million dollars through a group in Singapore to "do good things for China." "We've received testimony that you were doing something clandestine with agents of the Chinese military -- the daughter of the PLA's most senior general. It was very cryptic. But since you haven't spoken to us, it's all we have to go on," Burton said. What is known is that Middleton was instrumental in buying the silence of Whitewater witness Webster Hubbell with money from China. James Riady and John Huang met repeatedly with Middleton in the White House before wiring $100,000 from a Hong Kong bank partly owned by Chinese intelligence to Webster Hubbell. And when Chinese Triad Mobster Ng Lap-seng entered the U.S. with a suitcase containing $175,000 in cash, he went to see Mark Middleton at the White House. Ng Lap-seng is a friend of Clinton crony Charlie Trie and has been suspected of carrying cash between the Chinese government and the White House. The White House has never accounted for the source of or the spending of these suitcases full of cash, and neither Ng Lap-seng nor Middleton are willing to talk...."

Atlanta Constitution 8/15/99 Rebecca Carr "…Wang first caught the eye of congressional investigators when he visited the White House on Feb. 6, 1996, with Charlie Trie, a former restaurateur and friend of the Clintons from Arkansas…. When news of Wang's trip to the White House first surfaced, President Clinton went out of his way to say that it was "clearly inappropriate" for a Chinese arms dealer to appear at the White House. At the time, Clinton aides said they had no prior knowledge of Wang's gun dealing background, nor did they know of his close ties to the Chinese army. But Collins said he gave top White House aides detailed information about Wang at a private White House luncheon in early May 1994. Collins was asked to speak to a small gathering of business leaders at the White House luncheon after escorting Deng Xiaoping's son, Deng Zhifang, to some of America's premier corporate centers. At the gathering, Collins said, were former White House Counsel Thomas "Mack" McLarty and former senior aide Mark Middleton, who later became a target of the campaign fund-raising probe…."

Atlanta Constitution 8/15/99 Rebecca Carr "…After the lunch, Collins said, Middleton called for more details about Wang. Collins said he told Middleton that Wang is the son of former Chinese Vice President Wang Zhen and that his companies were connected with the Chinese military. "He grilled me and grilled me. . . . It's hard to believe that they didn't know who he was," Collins said. If White House aides didn't know then who Wang was, they soon would learn. Wang's visit drew sharp criticism from lawmakers, including some Democrats, who said it was an example of the lengths the White House would go to raise a campaign dollar. If the White House had simply reviewed Poly's annual report, it would have found that the report lists its defense system sales….. However, Wang used Poly to arm Third World countries and funnel American military technology back to China, internal company records and interviews show. "Wang's Poly Group is Communist China's worst worldwide proliferator of deadly weapons, having brokered the sale of cruise missiles to Iran and nuclear weapons to Pakistan," Cox explained. Congressional investigators believe that Poly also sold M-9 nuclear-capable missile technology to Syria and arms to both sides of the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Burma was another customer. …"

The Washington Times: 8/20/99 "…A former White House official invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 28 times yesterday in refusing to testify during a rancorous House committee hearing on campaign finance abuses during the 1996 presidential election. Mark Middleton, an Arkansas lawyer and longtime confidant of President Clinton, steadfastly refused to answer questions by House Government Reform Committee Republicans on whether he conspired with government officials in China or elsewhere to illegally funnel contributions to the Democratic National Committee or the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign. …The committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, derided Mr. Burton and other Republicans for what he described as a "malicious and misleading hearing." He said Mr. Middleton was called as a witness by the GOP after he said he would refuse to cooperate only so that he could be "punished." ….Meanwhile, Attorney General Janet Reno yesterday denied that the Justice Department was stalling its campaign finance task force probe to block congressional Republicans from conducting their own inquiries. She said it was "certainly not true" that the department has marked some probes as "ongoing" to halt efforts by the GOP to investigate the accusations…."(bold added)

The Washington Post Magazine's Inside the Loop: 8/20/99 "…When we last checked, Mark Middleton, a former assistant to former White House chief of staff Thomas F. "Mack" McLarty, was being criticized for entertaining his potential business clients from Asia in White House dining facilities long after he left the White House. And House investigators wanted to talk to the native Arkansan and business partner of Yah Lin "Charlie" Trie about Asian campaign contributions--but Middleton, who left the White House in early 1995, took the Fifth. Just a few weeks ago, Middleton, looking very blond and boyish, showed up in--where else ?--Beijing, where he was seen shepherding around officials of a Little Rock investment company called Talisman Capital, including managing director Geoffrey Tirman. We're told they are involved in a deal to invest several million dollars, along with the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post…"

Apparently, the Bush administration is willing to cover up treason and corruption at the highest levels of the previous administration in order to keep the tool of "deliberative process" so that it, too, can use the Justice Department for political purposes.

Sometimes movin' on means keepin' on with the same old tricks.

Plus, it wouldn't be wise to embarrass the Attorney General whose decisions are in question in this matter when she's running to take the job of the President's brother, would it ?

"Plus, it wouldn't be wise to embarrass the Attorney General whose decisions are in question in this matter when she's running to take the job of the President's brother, would it ?"

Could it be that Reno is running in order to shield herself...???

Perhaps if they didn't do this, Janet Reno would say it was because she was running against his brother? The media would join in that chorus, I can see it all now. Good grief, the media is already carrying water for Janet! Renos' campaign, helping her out by reminding voters of all the reasons they should be angry at Jeb Bush.

One of the saddest things I have had to witness was not the criminality by Clinton and company for a group like them was bound to come along eventually, it was the lack of repudiation, prosecution and incarceration for the major players. We were sold out by our own boys. Nothing could be clearer than watching Bush join the cover-up.

Remember when the Republicans wouldn't execute a full prosectuion in the Senate? Welcome to reality folks.

I should have added one more sentence. If there was any doubt left it's gone, both parties are as corrupt as they could possibly be.

Are you absolutely certain of this AND that it is the only possibility?

There has been no mention by the Ashcroft DOJ that these documents are being withheld because it would compromise an ongoing investigation. These investigations are closed. The only investigation to be made is why they were closed--and Burton's doing that, not Ashcroft.

Dan Burton deserves our thanks for pursuing this when just about everyone else in D.C. wants him to stop.

Janet Reno avoiding prosecution and running for Florida governor so soon after her corrupt reign as Attorney General is worse than if John Mitchell had not been prosecuted and instead ran for governor of New York after Watergate.

Justice is blind; equal justice under law; no man is above the law. Unless, it is politically inconvenient to abide by those maxims of American justice.

Thanks for an interesting post, kristinn. I thought Middleton somehow fell through the cracks. This will be an interesting 15 months.

"Who's going to touch her ?"

Frankly, I could do with a little justice, myself.

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