Hillary Rodham Clinton’s involvement in illegal foreign campaign contributions have been revealed with the disclosure of Clinton’s 11,046 pages of White House activity calendars.
With a large charitable donation in hand, Indonesian businessman Mochtar Riady flew to Little Rock to dine with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton at a 1993 gala honoring her as an “Arkansan of the Year” at a time his company, a multibillion dollar banking conglomerate, was seeking an end to a 30-year trade embargo with Vietnam.
Five days after the March 4, 1993, dinner at the Excelsior Hotel, Mr. Riady took the embargo question directly to President Clinton, saying in a four-page letter that its demise would bring political reforms in that communist country.
By that time, Mr. Riady’s banking conglomerate, the $12 billion Indonesia-based Lippo Group, its subsidiaries and its employees, including his son James and executive John Huang had funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to Mr. Clinton’s 1992 presidential race and had guaranteed a $3 million last-minute loan to a cash-short Clinton campaign just before the crucial New York primary in 1992.
Within six months of the dinner, the Lippo firm opened its first offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, and a further five months later Mr. Clinton signed an executive order lifting the embargo, which had been in effect since 1964.
The close proximity of Mrs. Clinton’s contact and Mr. Riady’s Little Rock donation to his efforts to lobby for an end to the embargo were never disclosed at the time and only became public with the release last week of 11,046 pages of Mrs. Clinton’s White House activity calendars.
The calendars, released in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based watchdog group, show that Mr. Riady and his wife were among nine people who sat with Mrs. Clinton at the head table. His name is listed next to the notation, “**giving large donation**.”
Hillary Campaign likely response: Let’smove on… That’s old news.
Yeah, and you sat next to a thief on that last airplane ride or a homicidal maniac at the movie theater. The list goes on and on. How many people have you sat near, spoken to, or had relations with who weren’t exactly who they said they were? How many people have you supported without knowing some of their positions on issues or their intentions? You have no case with this.
This is nonsense. Normalization of relations with Vietnam and the opening of its financial sector to outsiders was a long time in coming and was a good thing for many reasons. I attended a conference of the U.S. -Vietnam Business Council in the 90s and saw many players from different companies and fields excited about the country’s transition to a modern economy (and higher standard of living). If you truly think this one incident/donation etc. controlled the decision to normalize relations with a foreign country, you are sorely revealing your ignorance of history, foreign affairs, and politics. Pathetic.