& which bank was Riady CEO? Hmmmm? Is gold mined there(with banking & military supports) outside even their lax environmental laws?
Congressman focuses on Gore videotape comment
WASHINGTON -- (AP) -- A Republican committee chairman wants the Justice Department to investigate whether Vice President Al Gore advised that Clinton friend and Indonesian businessman James Riady be shown Democratic TV ads during a visit to the White House.
According to the lawmaker, Gore can be heard making the suggestion about Riady on a White House videotape.
``It would indeed be extraordinary for the vice president to suggest showing political issue advertisements to an Indonesian billionaire who lives in Jakarta, Indonesia,'' Rep. Dan Burton wrote Attorney General Janet Reno on Tuesday.
Riady, one of the central figures in the campaign fund-raising scandal of 1996, is under criminal investigation by the Justice Department's campaign finance task force.
Burton, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said that on a Dec. 15, 1995, tape of a White House coffee with major political donors, Gore is heard off-camera making the comment ``We ought to show Mr. Riady ... some of the ad tapes.''
Burton said the Justice Department has ``chosen to ignore'' the information about Gore's comment which the congressman supplied the department ``a very long time ago.''
Gore spokesman Jim Kennedy made light of Burton's letter.
``Maybe if Mr. Burton has Oliver Stone as a witness we can truly get to the bottom of this,'' said Kennedy. Hollywood moviemaker Stone's ``JFK'' propounded a conspiracy theory for the president's assassination.
Gore apparently made the comment to a Riady acquaintance, Arief Wiriadinata of Indonesia, whose donations to the Democratic Party were returned amid questions about their legality, said Burton.
The vice president has been questioned three times in the Justice Department probe of fund raising, but has never been asked about his apparent comment regarding Riady.
``Your Justice Department is completely disinterested in asking a single question about what appears to be a suggestion by the vice president to show illegally funded political advertisements to ... Riady,'' Burton wrote.
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