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July 20, 1997
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 The investigation is big news in Washington, but how's it playing around the country.  The Online Explainers take your question on the investigation.  The NewsHour's coverage of the Congressional Investigation.  The inside stories on the political fight behind the public investigation.  A closer look at the issues really under scrutiny by the Congress.
|  My reaction to the campaign reform hearings that are now ongoing in Washington is twofold. On the one hand, I find the revelations shocking. It is pretty clear from the testimony to date, including written documents, that John Huang made illegal contributions from a U.S. shell subsidiary of the Indonesian Lippo Group. He was even bold enough to request reimbursement in writing from Lippo. His chief in the Commerce Department testified that Huang was completely unqualified to hold his post, that he received intelligence security briefings on China despite the chief's instructions that Huang be walled off from such information, and that Huang was continually contacting his supposedly former employer the entire time he was receiving briefings on a country in a significant corporate relationship with Lippo. The evidence is compelling and yet the Democrats on the committee, particularly John Glenn, continue to try to sidetrack the investigation to avoid getting the truth about illegal attempts by a foreign government and corporation to corrupt American elections and foreign policy because they are afraid of political damage to their president and party. The respect I had for John Glenn as an American hero have totally evaporated. Republicans who were on the Watergate Committee acted in the best tradition of public service when they broke with President Nixon and worked with the Democrats to get the truth of what happened, regardless of the possible damage to the Republican Party. Those Republicans understood the importance of protecting the democratic principles on which this country was founded, specifically that we are a nation that upholds the rule of law and that it applies to all citizens, even the president. The president's response that his problems (about which he cannot recall any details) prove that we need campaign reform reminds me of a bank robber who, being caught in the act, claims we need to change the law to make sure he does not do it again.
My final disappointment is the way in which, with the exception of the NewsHour, this story has been minimized by the major networks. I was astounded this week to watch on a major network evening news programs (NBC) the day of the revelations regarding John Huang's $50,000 contribution. This was almost the last story on the news program. The top stories were the death of a fashion designer and the extortion case involving Bill Cosby; it was as if I was watching celebrity news on Entertainment Tonight. This campaign contribution investigation is vitally important to rooting out abuses of our system and preserving our democratic election process and yet network news executives are not covering it. |
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Most of the Democrats such as John Glenn are trying to protect their party, not the country, and I find it extremely disappointing. What is worse is their attempts to try to say that Republicans engaged in the same type of behavior and therefore this is not a serious issue. There has been no evidence that the Republicans engaged in any actions which in any was approach the same scale or breadth as Clinton's actions. The testimony has shown that Clinton sold posts in government to the highest bidder (who was bidding with illegal contributions), bidders who were unqualified for their positions yet were given access to secret intelligence information with absolutely no background investigation of any kind because of their importance to Clinton's reelection efforts.