The Real Case Against Bill Clinton: Chinese Bribery

(Washington, D.C.): Not since Al Capone was prosecuted for tax evasion has there been a
more
bizarre judicial pursuit of criminal activity than President Clinton’s impending trial for misdeeds in
connection with the Lewinsky Affair. As with the notorious Chicago gangster, if truly despicable
behavior could be brought to an end with the successful prosecution of nothing more than charges
of presidential perjury and obstruction of justice, so be it.

In the matter of President Clinton’s impeachment, however, it appears that he may “walk,”
thanks
to what are seen by at least one-third of the U.S. Senate to be inadequate grounds for his removal
from office. This prospect demands that prosecutors from the House of Representatives be
allowed not only to call witnesses. They must be permitted to make a larger case: Mr.
Clinton
has engaged in a crime specifically cited in the Constitution as an impeachable offense —
bribery.

Year of the Rat

The evidence for such a case is already before the Senate. In fact, it is has been submitted to
the
American people over the past four months in the form of a best-selling book, Year of the
Rat, by
two veteran and highly respected congressional staffers — Ed Timperlake and
Bill Triplett.

Year of the Rat documents three of the four conditions required under the law for
the prosecution
of a bribery charge: 1) actus reus, a voluntary action involving the acceptance of at
least one
bribe; 2) menes rea, culpable intent; and 3) concurrence causation, the connections
between the
bribes and actions they engendered — in this case to the considerable detriment of the national
security.

The Bribes

With respect to the voluntary action, Timperlake and Triplett document the myriad
ways in
which Mr. Clinton’s 1992 and 1996 campaigns were the beneficiaries of “contributions” from
individuals and organizations associated with Chinese military/intelligence. These included: “a
massive cascade of illegally laundered foreign funds” injected into key states in the general
election of 1972; “a multimillion-dollar loan from an Arkansas bank under the…influence [of
Chinese agents]”; “Chinese agents became the number one donors” to the Clinton campaign in
1992; “leaders of a Thai conglomerate that is in business with…China’s biggest arms smugglers
had a White House meeting with Clinton at which they were illegally solicited for campaign
donations”; “a People’s Liberation Army partner sat next to Clinton at a Democratic National
Committee fund-raiser and contributed thousands of dollars in illegal campaign funds to the
Democrats”; and “the officers of an American defense contractor in business with China’s missile
builders became the number one contributors” to the President’s reelection campaign in
1995-1996.”

Intent

Under the law, culpable intent can be established if the suspect has engaged in “reckless
endangerment.” This test is amply satisfied by the President’s surrounding himself with
individuals with ties to Beijing. These include his decades-long friendship with
Mochtar and
James Riady and with Charlie Trie. The former run a
Chinese-Indonesian empire which
funneled at least a million into Clinton and Democratic coffers in 1992. According to Messrs.
Timperlake and Triplett, the latter is a member of the Chinese “Four Seas” Triad gang. At the
very least, he behaved in a gangster-like fashion when, on 21 March 1996, he delivered nearly
simultaneously $460,000 to the President’s legal defense fund and a written demand that the U.S.
not interfere in China’s campaign of intimidation against Taiwan.

There are, as well, a gaggle of relative newcomers like: John Huang (a
Chinese expat and Riady
employee for whom Mr. Clinton secured a Top Secret clearance and senior position in the
Commerce Department); Johnny Chung (a struggling California businessman
whose more than
$350,000 in contributions to the DNC were believed to have come from foreign sources); and his
associate and apparent paymaster Liu Chaoying (a Lieutenant Colonel in the
PLA, alumna of its
spy school and daughter of the PLA’s former senior officer, General Liu Huaquing).

It is equally damning whether Mr. Clinton knew about and chose to ignore these
individuals’ connections to the PRC or was so indifferent to the danger they represented as
to seek no information about their troubling ties.

The Consequences

Then, there is the matter of what the Chinese appear to have gotten
for their bribes. The
transactions appear to fall into three categories: First, the Clinton Administration actively
appeased China. For example, there was Clinton’s explicit embrace last year of
the Chinese
position on Taiwan; his repeated, personal intervention to secure the former U.S. Navy base at
Long Beach for COSCO — Beijing’s package express service of choice for arms- smuggling,
drug-running, etc.; and his fomenting of ill-advised U.S.-PRC military-to-military ties.

Second, the Administration’s has deliberately failed to enforce anti-proliferation
laws —
including, incredibly, one named for Vice President Al Gore. Pursuant to the Gore-McCain Act,
Chinese sales of advanced cruise missiles to Iran (that may well be used to execute deadly attacks
against American naval vessels in a future conflict in the Persian Gulf) should have resulted in
sanctions against the PRC. Mr. Clinton finessed this legal requirement by ignoring, suborning and
misrepresenting the relevant intelligence. Under U.S. statutes, Chinese sales of nuclear
technology to Pakistan and Iran should also have triggered retaliatory measures.

Third, the Clinton team rewarded Beijing with a variety of initiatives that have enormously
abetted China’s longstanding efforts to secure military and dual-use
technology. The
indictment in this area includes: the Administration’s dismantling of the U.S. and international
export control regime, the assistance it permitted American aerospace firms to provide the
Chinese military space program; and access to advanced supercomputers, machine tools, jet
engine technology, etc.

The Cox Committee’s Finding

The fourth element necessary for a successful bribery prosecution has only become
available after the House voted to impeach President Clinton. On 30
December a bipartisan
select committee empaneled to look into the last of these areas unanimously concluded, according
to its chairman, Rep. Chris Cox (Republican of California), that real “harm has been caused” by
the sorts of policies governing Chinese access to U.S. technology embraced by Mr. Clinton.

Unfortunately, the Cox committee’s 700 pages of documentation of this harm is classified at
this
juncture — and will remain so until such time as the Clinton Administration sees fit to “sanitize” a
version that could be published for general consumption. If past experience is any guide, the
Clinton team should not be expected to cooperate in building the public case for the President’s
removal from office.

The Bottom Line

In short, the Senate must have a full-fledged trial to examine whether President Clinton has
engaged in “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The Senate will immeasurably compound the
damage Mr. Clinton has done to the national interest and security as a result of his bribery by
China if it refuses to seek testimony and act upon this most patently impeachable of crimes.