Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, is that because the union dues could not be used directly for Mr. Carey's election?

Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, as my colleague has pointed out repeatedly in other issues, there really is not a Federal Government. That is your people in the district of Michigan and mine in Indiana that paid for that election. You are telling us that the Justice Department decided that we were going to pay for the Teamsters election.

Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, I want to make sure that I and those listening understand this. Was it Congress' intent to pay for that election?

Mr. SOUDER. Then the President says it is old news. ``They already proved I did this immorally and illegally.'' What is news about this?

Mr. SOUDER. That is something we just recently learned in these hearings.

Mr. SOUDER. They have done our field work for us.

Mr. SOUDER. That is good to know, if I ever make one.

Mr. SOUDER. That is a good point, I never thought it as helping to balance the trade. Get some of our money back.

Mr. SOUDER. And then after, in effect, deciding for us that without a vote that we were going to pay for the election, they were overseeing the election that they now say is corrupt?

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona once again.

Mr. SOUDER. If the gentleman will yield for a second, I need to make a brief point before yielding to the gentleman from Colorado. Earlier the gentleman mentioned the White House coffees and the $50,000 for the coffees and mentioned Starbucks. Starbucks is $1.27 for me. I did not want people to think coffee at Starbucks was the same as coffee at the White House.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, maybe it was Bill Cosby.

Mr. SOUDER. Maybe it was supposed to have a P in front of this one.

Mr. SOUDER. Or Boston College. We should not be so judgmental.

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I have found few things as ridiculous since I have been elected to Congress in 1994 as the headline that I saw last week in the Washington Times, repeated in various publications around the country in different ways. That headline says ``Clinton Threatens to Recall Lawmakers to Hill. Campaign Finance Vote Demanded During Session.'' Madam Speaker, I was trying to sort this through. My basic understanding of this was that the President of the United States, Mr. Campaign Finance himself, is threatening to call us into session for campaign finance reform; this, the President who has made more from Air Force One, the plane, than Harrison Ford made from the movie? He wants us to have a session on campaign finance reform? Tonight, Madam Speaker, we are going to talk a little bit about this President and some of his friends. Additional Members will be joining me as we go through this. But I have been soliciting some information about different people's opinion on this, and what their reaction was to this headline. Madam Speaker, I have a couple of comments that I want to share with the Members. We will be going through a number of these tonight. I think that principle No. 1, and if I can, I am going to move down to the other microphone here so I can use these posters, rule No. 1, before we pass a bunch of new laws, is, how about we start in this campaign finance reform with follow the current law. Because it does not do a lot of good if in this country we pass a bunch of laws but then we ignore those laws. As I suggested the other day, if the President wants to have a special session, maybe we could have the first day with his friends who are in jail; the second day with his friends who have already been released from jail; maybe the third day would be his friends who have been indicted and are headed to jail. Then we could have a couple of days for his friends who have pleaded immunity, 1 day for those who pleaded partial immunity, 1 day for those who pleaded full immunity. Then we could have a couple days for his friends who pleaded the fifth amendment. There are I think 56 of those right now. Then we could have 3 days for his friends who have fled the country, possibly 1 day for each continent. Madam Speaker, it is ridiculous. They are not following the current law. Why does he want us to come in and pass a bunch of new laws if we cannot get people to follow the current law? We have the Vice President of the United States, and we will get into this more later, but who said that he was not following the existing law because he was not clear on the controlling legal authority. Madam Speaker, that is quite the explanation, that he was not sure of the controlling legal authority. The sale of access by this administration is unprecedented. To be fair, the President does not discriminate where they are going to take the money from. If the money is green, they will take it. They have taken it from drug dealers, international fugitives, from arms dealers. Hey, it is an equal opportunity administration. There are some things that you can buy, for example, if you tune into the Clinton Shopping Network. For $100,000 you can become a managing trustee of the Democratic Party, which entitles you to two meals with the President, two with the Vice President, issue retreats, private impromptu meetings with administration officials, and your very own DNC staffer to assist with your personal requests. For $300,000, you can bypass the national security aides and get directly to the President, even if you are an international fugitive like Roger Tamraz. In his case, it was $250,000 or $300,000 to be able to talk to the President about a pipeline, and he did not even get it. I do not know what it would have cost if he was going to get the pipeline. We cannot even make up a cast of characters like the contributors who wound up at the White House coffees, overnight in the Lincoln bedroom, or posing for photographs with the President. It is something like out of the bar scene from ``Star Wars.'' It is such an odd conglomeration of different types of people. The key, driving thing was, how can we raise more money so we can put more ads up. Do not worry about the details. Drop the background checks, in spite of the advice they were getting from different people regarding individuals that were coming. The key thing was, can they bring in money, will they give the party money. One other thing in looking at this cast of characters, it is not clear because we have not at least found a memo regarding this yet, whether or not all these people who have been bringing the funds in, whether we have seen the exhaustive list. For example, what exactly does it cost if you want to see the President and somebody from the Department of the Interior? Does that cost more money? What if you want to see the President and somebody from the Department of Treasury? What if you want to see two cabinet officials? What if you have a case pending in front? What if you are from a foreign country that maybe has minerals that you want an international exclusive on, and maybe you would like a wilderness area? It is not clear how these things interrelate, and a lot of documents are missing or have yet to come clear. Hopefully we will have some people with the courage that we had under the Nixon administration, when clearly they were attempting to cover up. Democrats and Republicans joined together to try to find the truth. It was not a partisan event. Sure, the Democrats were very partisan against Nixon. We would expect them to be partisan against Nixon. Members might expect me and other Republicans to be partisan against the President. But where are the Democrats speaking out against President Clinton, like the Republicans did against Nixon? Where are the staffers whose conscience goes to the country as opposed to their boss? Are they so intimidated? Are they so dulled to the sense of decency that they are not coming forth? Or have people learned so much from Watergate that maybe they did not leave as many messages as they did in the old days? Quite probably they did not tape the conversations at the White House like they did under Nixon. But we need to have ways to find out, because it certainly is clear that the administration did everything they could to get as much money as they could. They backed off of the clearances of the people that were coming in. They clearly had coffees, for which they had a going price. They took the Lincoln bedroom from the days of just a few people going there, friends, other dignitaries. I think, if I recall right off the top of my head, President Bush had maybe 8 to 10 major contributors there. And they took it to a system, a production line of people who could give the money to the President of the United States, and get to stay in the Lincoln bedroom. They took all these things to a new high effort. In the foreign contributors, there is a lot of debate about what the lines are in foreign contributions. Can you do this? Can you do that? But there are some lines that are crystal clear. Foreign governments cannot put money into campaigns. Furthermore, you definitely cannot have somebody who is not wealthy give money on behalf of somebody else. That is law violation No. 1. Law violation No. 2 is if that person then gets refunded their money from somebody who is not an American citizen, from an overseas thing. And it is clear that that is what happened to this administration, because it had to give the money back. For example, we have seen the concerted efforts by foreign contributors and governments to generously support Clinton-Gore. We have watched them use executive branch officials and fact-finding to raise money overseas. It is against the law, and it was supported with taxpayer dollars. President Clinton and the Democratic Party received more than $75 million in Federal funds during the 1996 campaign, and the infusion of Federal matching funds provided additional fuel for their fundraising obsession. We have never seen this level of use and abuse of the system. A friend of mine who is a historian, a former history professor, made a list for me of 10 reasons for a special congressional session on campaign finance reform to determine whether the Clinton administration has set a record for the largest number of officials under investigation in American history. Runners-up, Grant, Harding, and Nixon. Harding just appeared not to know what was going on. He never claimed to be a detail-type person. General Grant had good days and bad days, depending on other things in his personal lifestyle. So while they were accountable for what went on under them, they did not claim to be micromanaging, like our current President and Vice President, who said they were going to reinvent government and were going to be hands-on President and Vice President. Of course, Nixon we all know about. And maybe Nixon was as bad as Clinton, but he does not have or did not have quite that number of people under investigation. No. 2, of the 10 reasons for a special congressional session on campaign finance reform, to find out if the American timber industry is large enough to handle the paper needs of the special prosecutors, grand juries, and congressional committees looking into the deeds and misdeeds of the Clinton officials. After all, as an environmentalist, he needs to be concerned about all the paper we are using and all the trees that are being chopped down for all these investigators. Maybe he could call a special session to enable Paula Jones to address us on sexual harassment at the workplace. That would make about as much sense as the President calling us into session on campaign finance reform. No. 4, to commission Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. to conduct a government funded survey in which noted historians assess ``distinguishing characteristics'' of the 42 men who have been President. No. 5, to ascertain why the administration has had such difficulties in persuading witnesses to return from safe havens in Beijing and other places committed to MFN, religious freedom, and human rights. No. 6, to learn at long last who hired Craig Livingstone and who is paying the fees of his attorneys. I sit on the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. I got to actually ask questions of Craig Livingstone and ask him who hired him. It was quite the experience. He did not come in for a tour at the White House. He did not even come in to work at the receptioninst desk. He came in to be charge of security at the White House. Yet he doesn't know who hired him. He said under oath that it was the goal of his life to some day work at the White House, that he worked in many low level campaigns, got what a lot of people would consider to be dirty jobs in those campaigns in order to some day have a chance at working his way up and maybe working at the White House. So he finally gets to the White House and he does not know who hired him. I asked him, because he had been saying all day he did not know what all of us know, who our early supporters were, especially if it was your dream to get to the White House, I said, who did you say thank you to. Are you so ungrateful that you never told thank you to anybody who hired you? And he hung his head down. And I want to say that I believe he felt badly. I do not know what intimidation was on him. I do not know why he would not give up the information. He just said, I do not know who hired me. My next question was relatively simple as well. The American people are watching and they know, as visitors in the gallery know, that if you go to the White House and want to take a tour, they do checks on you. If we, as Members of Congress, want to go over, they do checks on us, if we take somebody through, they run background checks on us. He was coming in to be head of White House security and he did not know who hired him. I said, who let you in the door. He gave me the name of the receptionist. I mean this is a joke. This is absolutely ridiculous. We kept the questioning up. And later one of the former counsels at the White House ventured that maybe Vince Foster hired him. Do you know what? Every time we came to a tough point in the travelgate hearing, every time we came to a tough point in whatever investigation we were going through, the FBI files, who hired Craig Livingstone, whenever the pressure got toughest, they blamed it on the dead guy. Either Vince Foster was carrying tremendous baggage or some people are really abusing Vince Foster, who is no longer with us to defend himself. So maybe we could learn in a special session who hired Craig Livingstone. No. 7, to charge the civil Rights Commission with investigating whether Gennifer Flowers was actually retained as an Arkansas State employee at the expense of a more qualified minority applicant. No. 8, to permit Roger Tamraz to fuel all the automobiles retained by Members of Congress and their staffs in return for attending all the receptions held in the Rayburn building for a year with an overnight stay in Statuary Hall. No. 9, to commission the printing of the motto ``no controlling legal authority'' on all letterhead charged to the House Ethics Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Department of Justice. No. 10, present the Congressional Medal of Honor to Mary Heslin, lately of the National Security Council, for daring to attempt to preserve the honor and integrity of the presidency from the corrosive clutches of its present occupant and to ban all Georgetown bar bouncers from obtaining access to her FBI file. It is really scary, when we go through. In the Nixon administration, Chuck Colson went to prison because he had one FBI file. When we went through the FBI files in our committee and we started asking, I remember one of the early questioners asking one of the former attorneys at the White House if he knew Craig Livingstone and he looked around and said, I met him once. He reported to me but I did not really know him. Then they asked him if he knew Anthony Marceca. He looked down the thing, no, never met him, never saw him. He later, to another question, said, yes, the FBI files were under my office. The FBI files were never looked at by anybody. Nobody looks at these, these were under Livingstone and Marceca's control. So former Congressman Bill Martini asked the question, Mr. Nussbaum, under oath, you earlier said that you had met Craig Livingstone one time. You never met Anthony Marceca; you did not know him. Yet you also said under oath that all these files were never violated, nobody looked at them and does not that seem to be a contradiction? And Mr. Nussbaum said, the reason I can say that is I know nobody in our administration would stoop so slow as to look at any of those files. It is like, come on, guys. If you have hundreds and hundreds of files scattered through various staffers, they had interns having these files with background information that they had checked on Republicans, people they had no business even investigating in the first place yet alone looking at their file. They do not know who hired the national security advisor who most of his qualifications were that he had been a dirty tricks person in large part in different campaigns. They have in Travelgate, when we got into that, you look at that and see that what the whole deal there was is first you have a girlfriend of a staffer getting a deal. Then you realize that a friend from Arkansas is trying to get, without White House security clearance, is wondering around trying to get the contract for the travel office. What he really wants is the contract for travel for his agency for all the different branches of the Federal Government which, rather than just the small travel office budget, is now millions and millions of dollars. And we see this unfold first in the Travelgate. Because we are looking at the Travelgate, we find out about the files. And we are looking at the files and we find out about Craig Livingstone. It is just like what is now starting to happen, when we start to unravel the money, part of the reason this is so confusing to the American people is you start, you go, wow, there is money from China here and some arms dealer and such-and-such, and the next thing you are over in Indonesia and next thing it is happening from Thailand. Oh, Taiwan, too. And pretty soon you have people confused because it is coming from about every major country in the world that has any business. You have all these different people pouring money in left and right. It is no wonder the American people are confused as to the particulars. I have a couple of other charts here. This is a list of witnesses who have fled the country. Charlie Trie was last seen in Beijing, China. He is a former restaurateur and old friend of President Clinton who tried to give $640,000 in suspicious contributions to the President's legal expense trust. Part of the reason it is hard for our committees to lay this out is it is not like China is cooperating and it is not like the banks in China are cooperating, and it is not like Charlie Trie is cooperating. So it is a little hard to get all this information. I think you will see, as the House investigations start this fall and go through next year, that we will hopefully get more of this. Pauline Kanchanalak, in Thailand, had $235,000 in DNC contributions returned because she could not verify that she was the source. In other words, we are already seeing this money being sent back. It is not like it is a dispute whether the funds were legal. He is telling us he wants campaign finance reform when rule No. 1 is this, follow the current law. The current law seems to be, in the eyes of this administration, if the Senate investigators or the House investigators turn up the funds, send it back fast. That seems to be what is happening. We are seeing very little money sent back until we uncover it in one of the committees. Then they send it back. That is not the law. The law says, do not take the illegal money and send the illegal money back, not until Congress discovers it. Third, Ming Chen, a businessman in Beijing, China, runs Ng Lap Seng's restaurant business in that city and is the husband of Yue Chu. Agus Setiawan, Indonesian employee of Lippo who signed many of the checks to the DNC drawn on Lippo affiliates. Subandi Tanuwidjaja, in Indonesia, gave $80,000 to the DNC for a dinner with Clinton, which may have come from wire transfers from his father-in-law, Ted Sioeng, who lives in China. Arief and Soraya Wiriadinata, Indonesian couple who gave the DNC $450,000 after the receipt of a $500,000 wire from Soraya's father, a co-founder of the Lippo Group. It knows no country. John H. K. Lee, South Korean businessman, president of Cheong Am America, Inc., DNC returned $250,000 to Cheong Am. Antonio Pan, ex-Lippo executive and friend of Charlie Trie and John Huang who delivered cash to individuals for conduit payments. And then there is Ted Sieong, father of Jessica Elnitiarta, who donated $100,000 to the DNC. He is reportedly connected to the Chinese intelligence community. Then there are the witnesses who have pled the fifth amendment to the House or Senate committees. John Huang, former DNC fundraiser, Commerce Department official and Lippo Group employee who solicited more than $1 million in questionable contributions. Jane Huang, wife of John Huang, her name appears on DNC documents as a solicitor of some DNC donations while Huang was at Commerce. Mark Middleton, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, who became an international businessman, worked with the Riadys and Trie. Maria Hsia, Taiwan-born consultant who helped Huang organize the temple fundraiser. Manlin Foung, sister of Charlie Trie, was given thousands of dollars to donate to the DNC in her name by Trie. Joseph Landon, Manlin Foung's friend, was given thousands of dollars to donate to the DNC in his name by Trie. David Wang, made $5,000 contribution to the DNC at Trie's request. Nora and Gene Lum, fundraising couple who pled guilty to violations of Federal election laws. These are people to pled the fifth, remembering that rule No. 1, before we do campaign finance reform, is follow the current law. Do you know what? Generally speaking, I am not an attorney. I know some of my friends here tonight are attorneys. It does not mean you are guilty because you plead the fifth. But it means you are not being very cooperative in trying to find out the truth, and it does not look particularly good. The next name on here, Webster Hubbell, already is coming out of jail, former Associate Attorney General, not the kind of person you want to see go to jail or that kind of ups your confidence in the President that he would put in an Associate Attorney General who goes to jail, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Lippo after leaving the Justice Department. Hsiu Luan Tseng, a Buddhist nun at a Hawaiian temple who contributed to the DNC at the Hsi Lai temple event. Judy Hsu, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event. Yumei Yang, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event. Seow Fong Ooi, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event. By the way, either nuns make a lot more money than I thought they did, or we have a serious problem here. Jen Chin Hsueh, gave $2,000 to DNC, listed address as home owned by the temple but does not live there. Jie Su Hsiao, Buddhist nun who contributed at the temple event. Gin F. J. Chen, DNC donor at a fund-raiser at Washington's Hay Adams hotel who may have been reimbursed by Hsi Lai. Hsin Chen Shih, DNC donor at a fund-raiser at Washington's Hay Adams hotel who may have been reimbursed by Hsi Lai. Bin Yueh Jeng, Taiwanese national who, at John Huang's urging, gave $5,000 to the DNC. Hsiu Chu Lin, employee of Hsi Lai, who gave the DNC $1,500. Chi Rung Wang, a California man who gave DNC $5,000 at the temple fundraiser. Noland Hill, business partner of the late Secretary Ron Brown. Yogesh Ghandi, while receiving $500,000 in wire transfers from a Japanese bank, contributed $325,000 to the DNC. These are people who pled the fifth amendment. They do not want to talk to us about it. Jane Dewi Tahir, college student related by marriage to the Riadys who received $200,000 in wires from the Lippo bank and gave $30,000 to the DNC. Duangnet Kronenberg, sister-in-law of Pauline Kanchanalak, attended a coffee at Vice President Gore's residence. Maria Mapili, employed by Trie, familiar with wires he received from Ng Lap Seng. Jou Sheng, gave DNC $8,000 listing a Maywood, CA, Buddhist temple as his address but does not live there. I want to make it clear that these people at the Buddhist temple, they may or may not have known what the American laws are. That is the responsibility of the people soliciting the money. It is the responsibility of the Democratic National Committee, the Vice President of the United States, the President of the United States to know the law. And I personally want to make it clear that it would be very easy to make this seem like somebody is anti-Asian or anti these countries. That is not the case here. The question is what were the leaders of this country doing when they know the law, as every one of us know the law, soliciting money and taking advantage of people who think that that is how the U.S. Government works? It is an insult to our Nation and a shame on our Government that they would use these other countries, use how they may have to deal in other parts of the world to let them think they have to give money to the President's campaign committee and the President's party in order to do business with the United States. They should be up front and say, we do business fairly here. We do not have things for sale in this country. We have a different standard than the rest of the world. And instead, we abuse people who may not have known, who had always looked to America as a country different in the world, a country that was not corruptible. And they went and used these people, even in their own Buddhist temple. They used these people to get their money and to then use it for campaign purposes to stay in power. It is very difficult, I feel bad if I mispronounce these names but there is a whole bunch more from there. I could go on, but I see I have been joined by a few of my friends here. I will yield to the distinguished gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg].

Mr. SOUDER. It depends on how you define the Great Lakes. As a police Midwesterner, those are big lakes to us.

Mr. SOUDER. Reclaiming my time, I guess it kind of counters the point that the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg] was making earlier about the balance of trade. We were getting money in illegal contributions, but we were taking taxpayer dollars to pay for elections overseas. My colleague would know this more than I, but my understanding was that the losing candidate actually carried the Midwestern States, where we are from, and lost the Canadian vote which we funded.

Mr. SOUDER. We will probably discover it after the statute of limitations runs.

Mr. SOUDER. It is against the law. They would not do that.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, there is one here that says HRC was making calls, too, which I assume is the human resources counsel. I would not want to jump to the conclusion it was Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. SOUDER. Did the gentleman mention the HRC?

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I will be talking later, and I know the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Shadegg] wants to talk about this, too, but the gentleman has been kind of a national math teacher to this country, going through the budgets, going through the appropriations bills, going through the tax bills. I appreciate the gentleman calling my attention to this article and the fallacy of these national tests, because if we do not have a country that can defend themselves, they are going to get run over by the Washington bureaucracy. I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

Mr. SOUDER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Madam Speaker, as both a former math teacher, which the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] is, and as a former homebuilder whose whole business depends on being able to, if not directly, at least understand the computation of 6 times 7 equals 42, otherwise you are likely to be having ridiculous prices on the homes that you are trying to build, how do we expect the American people in the future to be able to read charts like the gentleman has in front of him, or be able to understand how to calculate capital gains taxes if this man, and to reiterate one other point that the gentleman said, he is not only on the National Math Board, he serves as a consultant to the Connecticut Department of Education, sits on the board of the $10 million National Science Foundation math program, and advises the standard-setting project funded by the Pew and MacArthur Foundations. It is not just this kind of one-man kind of weirdo sitting there, he is on a whole bunch of boards, driving this whole dumbing-down sense of America. And then people want to know how, well, we cannot quite understand your chart. This is too complicated. They want to feel things through. If we do not have a basic understanding of math, we are basically going to get ripped off.

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I wanted to briefly join in here, because the gentleman called my attention earlier this evening to an article that ran in the Wall Street Journal today, and Congressman Shadegg from Arizona cited it in particular, and then I actually read it. The gentleman has been a leader in our class and in Congress in doing budget numbers, tax numbers, appropriation bill numbers, and has been somebody we all look to, and now I realize that the gentleman is completely politically incorrect. The article in the Wall Street Journal today from Lynn Cheney about the National Commission for Education Testing was talking about math, and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] asked me earlier this evening, ``Did you see this absurd statement in the Wall Street Journal?'' Steven Leinwand, this is quoting from the Wall Street Journal today, Lynn Cheney's article, who sits on the committee overseeing President Clinton's proposed National Mathematics Exam, has written an essay explaining why it is downright dangerous to teach students things like 6 times 7 is 42, put down 2 and carry the 4. Such instructions sorts people out, Mr. Leinwand writes, anointing the few who master these procedures and casting out the many. That is a quote. As Mr. Leinwand tells it, there might have once been an excuse for such undemocratic goings-on, but we can now, because of technology, throw off the ``discriminatory shackles of computational algorithms.''

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?