U.S. Post for Huang Called ‘Priority’

A California Asian American political activist told the White House in early 1993 that John Huang was the “top priority for placement” in the new Clinton administration by a well-connected Indonesian business conglomerate, according to newly available documents.

Huang, who was then the chief U.S. executive of the Jakarta-based Lippo Group headed by Mochtar and James T. Riady, “is the political power that advises the Riady family on issues and where to make contributions,” the Democratic activist, Maeley Tom, told the White House in her letter. She added that the family “invested heavily in the Clinton campaign.”

The Riadys have been longtime friends and financial supporters of President Clinton dating back to his days as the governor of Arkansas.

The Tom correspondence, sent to then-deputy presidential personnel director John Emerson, is expected to be released by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee today as the panel begins its second week of hearings into campaign finance abuses. This week’s testimony is expected to focus heavily on Huang’s placement at the Commerce Department and his continuing relationship with the Riady family while working in Washington.

The Feb. 17, 1993, letter may heighten suspicions by some that Huang, now the center of the political fund-raising scandal, was a Riady agent who provided inside influence and information to Lippo while at the Commerce Department in 1994 and 1995. Tom, a former California state Senate aide, was a member of the Democratic National Committee’s executive committee at the time she wrote the letter and later became a contract employee of the Riadys.

It has been reported that Huang, who raised money for Clinton’s 1992 campaign and other Democratic races, actively sought an administration job after the election, and that several senators and the Democratic National Committee strongly recommended him. However, Tom’s letter--written on the official government stationery of then-California Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys)--is the first documented suggestion of Lippo-related pressure being applied to the administration on Huang’s behalf.

Huang was deemed a “priority” candidate by the White House personnel office, according to documents provided to Senate and House investigators.

Huang’s hiring was “based on his qualifications, including his business experience, his support from the Asian American community and his support from state and federal officials,” White House Special Counsel Lanny J. Davis said Monday. “His candidacy received no preferential treatment.”

At the same time, White House officials acknowledged that Huang’s “longtime political support for the president” was a factor in considering him for an appointment.

Huang was ultimately hired as a principal deputy assistant Commerce secretary in the international economic policy office.

Tom’s letter was copied to Bruce R. Lindsey, a close associate of Clinton’s and then-director of the White House personnel office. Lindsey, like Clinton, got to know the Riadys when they invested in a Little Rock, Ark., bank.

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White House officials said that by the time Huang’s appointment was finalized in December 1994, Lindsey had left the personnel office and his successor, Phil Lader, approved the White House recommendation. A senior Senate investigator said Monday that Lindsey had signed off on Huang’s hiring.

Tom’s letter was one of many that the White House received on Huang’s behalf. Glowing recommendations were received in 1993 from Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Paul Simon of Illinois and Tom Daschle of South Dakota and California Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy and Treasurer Kathleen Brown as well as from various Asian American groups.

The DNC included Huang in its “must consider” lists for positions in various agencies.

Tom’s letter, which called upon the administration to appoint numerous Asian Americans, was the one that made reference to the Riadys.

The Riady family “invested heavily in the Clinton campaign,” Tom wrote. “John is the Riady family’s top priority for placement because he is like one of their own.”

Nancy Luque, Tom’s attorney, said Monday that Tom did not act at the Riadys’ behest, nor was she suggesting that Huang’s appointment might result in future campaign support from them.

“The letter, when read in context, supports her long-held view that people should be rewarded for their efforts in grass-roots political organization,” Luque said.

The following year, Tom wrote to the DNC chairman that James Riady, the son of Lippo’s founder, wanted to arrange meetings between “business leaders from East Asia” and Clinton administration officials “as a vehicle to raise [campaign] dollars from a fresh source.” Luque said that Tom was referring to soliciting money from Chinese Americans, not Asians who might be illegal donors.

Huang moved to the DNC as a fund-raiser in 1995 and subsequently raised $3.4 million in donations, mostly from the Asian American community. About $1.6 million of the money, much of it foreign-linked, has since been returned by the DNC because it was illegal or suspect.

Earl J. Silbert, attorney for James Riady, Huang’s mentor, said he could not address whether the Riadys backed Huang for an administration job.

Emerson, who has left the White House and returned to his former home of Los Angeles, said he had no recollection of Tom’s letter.

The Senate committee is scheduled to hear testimony from more than a dozen witnesses this week, among them former Lippo employees and Commerce Department officials, as well as John Dickerson, the CIA officer who provided Huang regular secret intelligence briefings.

Before Huang went to the Commerce Department, he served as president of Hip Hing Holdings Ltd., a Lippo subsidiary that owns real estate in Los Angeles. Through the testimony of former Lippo employees and documents, the committee will attempt to show that much of Huang’s business expenses, as well as Hip Hing’s $65,000 in contributions to the DNC in 1992 and 1993, actually were paid through Lippo headquarters in Indonesia, committee sources said. This would make the donations illegal.

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In addition, Republican senators will present evidence suggesting that the Lippo Group maintained close ties to Huang after he came to Washington in mid-1994 to join the Clinton administration and then the DNC as a fund-raiser. The Times previously reported that Huang made at least 150 telephone calls to Lippo and Lippo associates while a Commerce employee.

A committee staffer said Monday that investigators have also learned that, even as Huang was working for the DNC in March of last year, he was registered to attend a World Bank seminar in Washington as an advisor to the Lippo Group.

“Nearly two years after he left the company,” one Senate investigator said, “he still thought of himself” as a Lippo associate.