Big Brother and the money tree

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 30, 1996 | by Paul M. Rodreiguez

Overlooked in the current fury surrounding John Huang and the fund-raising activities of the Democratic Notional Committee has been the use of a sophisticated White House computer known as 'Big Brother' to facilitate political moneygrabbing - perhaps illegally - at the highest levels of the American government.

As developments continue to unfold daily concerning donations to the Democratic National Committee, or DNC - and, by extension, the reelection coffers of President Clinton - a pattern has emerged that links Clintons tangled money tree and a taxpayer-financed computer system at the White House that helps monitor, propagate and nourish its political roots. To evaluate the timber of this Clinton forest, one must dig into the purpose of the White House Office Data Base, or WHODB, also known as Big Brother, and the role this $1.7 million-plus computer has played in helping to produce what administration sources say is a sophisticated scheme designed to cultivate and harvest huge sums of money for the president and, in turn, for the Democrats.

So far, Clinton has evaded blame for the so-called Indogate scandal, whose central figure is John Huang. The press has reported the various links between Huang, a since@terminated DNC employee, and large donations from powerful and not-so-powerful Asian nationals in the United States and overseas. As a result, serious questions have been raised about possible improper and illegal fund-raising activities through which the president and his party have benefited. Throughout most of the reporting, however, little attention has been given to who or what was involved in the behind-the-scenes actions that led to bizarre fund-raising activities by political operatives at the center of the media storm - and, for that matter, to how the tangle of donations, events, people and orders for various fund-raising activities were executed and managed.

Of course, it has not helped the press - and by extension the public - that officials at the White House and the DNC have been less than forthcoming about their operations. For example, they might immediately have provided complete documentation when questions first were raised about how a Budhist nun who had taken a vow of poverty was able to donate $5,000 to the Democrats during a "non-fund-raising" event at a temple in California attended by Vice President Al Gore, or how an Asian gardener and his family were able to donate nearly $500,000 to the Democratic Party.

At least 11 congressional committees are looking into allegations of wrongdoing, as are the Federal Election Commission, or FEC, and the Justice Department. As Congress begins the first half of its 105th session, the number of committees engaged in these probes undoubtedly will be reduced to avoid duplication. So far, it appears that the government-affairs panels of the Senate and House, to be chaired respectively by Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, will take the lead in the GOP-controlled Congress. The two chairmen will be given considerable latitude to pursue the plethora of questionable campaign fund-raising tactics by the DNC and, of course, by all the presidents men.

It nonetheless was a private citizen - Larry Klayman, chairman and general counsel of Judicial Watch, a non-profit watchdog group - whose work catapulted Huang to national attention as a senior Commerce Department employee involved with Clinton fund-raising activities and an Indonesian banking conglomerate called Lippo U.S.A. Klayman was on a crusade to discover how the Commerce Department put together various government-sponsored trips overseas that included American titans of industry who politically and financially were close to the administration. It was this that ignited brushfires of interest for congressional and press investigators looking into all that smoke in the corridors of power.

"This scandal will likely lead, in my opinion, to an expose that persons inside this administration were not taking actions solely to enrich the coffers of the Democratic Party, but also to enrich themselves personally," says Klayman. "It's really unprecedented."

The issues surrounding the current money scandal, however, involve more than allegedly improper activities. They also deal with a new level of tactics and sophistication.

Enter Big Brother. Designed at the personal request of the president and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, this computer system not only is a super-sophisticated rolodex and planning organizer capable of keeping track of the thousands of people and events touched by the White House - but it can and does coordinate the Clintons, hold on patronage and political power. From the time of its creation, the White House has tried to keep the system a secret. Since news of its existence first was reported by Insight, presidential aides have demurred at giving a full accounting of its various uses beyond the compilation of annual Christmas-card mailings. And, based on newly obtained internal documents from sources within the White House, they had reason to be nervous. Big Brother is, in fact, a political machine operated by the government with taxpayer dollars-if not a direct violation of federal law then certainly one which raises serious ethical issues.