ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 3, 1997 TAG: 9701030067
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
PRESIDENT Clinton has attracted negative attention, rightly so, for the unseemly access to his administration and to the White House enjoyed by foreign campaign contributors. It is well that Congress plans full-scale probes.
But just as important, Congress needs to ride public outrage about these revelations to reform campaign financing generally. The Clinton administration's sins - at least those so far revealed - are probably worse more in degree than in kind, compared to what goes on every day in Washington.
To be sure, Clinton has taken the sale of political access to new lows. It has come out, for example, that Charles Yah Lin Trie - Little Rock restaurateur, international businessman with ties to Beijing and fund-raiser extraordinaire for the Democratic National Committee - once brought to the White House, for an intimate get-together with Clinton, a Chinese business official backed by the Chinese military and notorious as an international arms dealer.
Trie also dropped off bags containing hundreds of thousands in checks and money orders, both at the DNC and Clinton's legal defense trust, most of which had to be returned because of their suspicious origins. The DNC and legal defense team deserve credit for returning the gifts (before they became public). But Trie was rewarded with a presidential appointment to an Asian trade commission. Not good.
Trie is only the latest case in an assortment of businessmen who apparently used campaign contributions to the DNC to gain White House access, which then could be used to enhance their status in Asian capitals and international business dealings. The sordid story began with John Huang, a former associate of Indonesian billionaire James Riady. Huang worked both in a sensitive trade job at the Commerce Department and then as a fund-raiser for the DNC. Not good.
Keep all this in context. President Bush sold ambassadorships for $100,000. That Clinton sold nights in the Lincoln Bedroom for the same amount may reflect as much on inflation as on the presidents' relative propriety. Even so, Clinton's campaign machine raised cash with a zeal that ought to chill any citizens not consumed by cynicism. It took a loophole discovered by Republicans - the lack of limits on so-called "soft-money" gifts to political parties - and drove convoys of cash-filled trucks through it. Legally.
Apart from allegations that they were in some instances violated, the campaign-finance laws themselves constitute, in their current state, a scandal.
LENGTH: Medium: 51 linesby CNB