Speaking of the 90's and corruption, I found this gem from the Times:
David Rosenbaum, July, 1997:
Senate Inquiry Offers More Inconclusive Hints on Huang - New York Times:
Winding up a three-day examination of the activities of John Huang, Senate investigators offered new circumstantial evidence today that he might have solicited money for the Democratic Party and conducted business with his former employer, the Lippo Group, while working at the Commerce Department.
The investigating committee also heard testimony that Mr. Huang, a central figure in the fund-raising inquiry, had regularly left his Commerce Department office and gone across Pennsylvania Avenue to use a spare office in the suite of an Arkansas-based investment company.
Senator Fred Thompson, the Tennessee Republican who is chairman of the panel, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, said the evidence collected about Mr. Huang indicated ''a common scheme or plan to raise illegal campaign funds.''
But today's evidence was far from conclusive, and the Republicans running the investigation were accused by the White House and Democratic senators of weaving a fabric of conspiracy out of innocuous threads.
...
But looking irritated, Senator Thompson rejected the Democrats' complaints out of hand. He declared:''You've seen the very skillful drawing of some more inferences that there's nothing unusual about Mr. Huang having this office, that Mr. Huang is not guilty of espionage, Mr. Huang is not guilty of compromising national security.
''Those are inferences. That's what makes public hearings, and those are things that people are free to draw. If a person wants to draw those inferences from the body of information that we've even heard so far, a person is free to draw those inferences. On the other hand, a person, in light of all the testimony that we've heard, is free to draw other inferences.'
...
Similar situations occurred in August 1994 and in October and November 1995 and involved Kenneth Wynn, former president of Lippo Land Ltd., a Lippo Group affiliate in Indonesia.On the first occasion, Mr. Wynn and his wife, Sihwarini, each contributed $5,000, and John Huang was listed as the solicitor. On the second occasion, someone named K. Wynn donated $12,000, and Jane Huang was listed as the solicitor.
Mr. and Mrs. Huang were also listed as solicitors of donations from Arief and Soraya Wiriadinata during the time Mr. Huang held his Government position. Soraya Wiriadinata's father, Hashim Ning, is a wealthy Indonesian partner of the Riady family, the principal owners of the Lippo Group, the international financial conglomerate for which Mr. Huang worked before he joined the Commerce Department.
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