It's Howdy Barbour Time

It's "Howdy" Barbour Time

Haley Barbour
Tuesday, July 22nd, 1997 -- I can't remember the town in Mississippi from where Haley Barbour hails, it's something like Wazoo, or Kazoo -- or maybe Bozo.

But don't be fooled into thinking Barbour is a Yahoo.

As the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigation turns its guns on the Republican National Committee (RNC), this week promises to be more entertaining than the past two.

The star witness? Haley Barbour, the errant former chairman of the Republican National Committee, who is going to have a very tough time explaining his "think tank" -- National Policy Forum -- which appears to be more of a "laundry" for illegal foreign campaign contributions that the RNC could not take itself for fear of prosecution.

Democrats feel it's one thing to take money from people without adequately understanding the source, but quite another to actually set up a formal mechanism -- in this case, the National Policy Forum -- in order to change the character of the political donation.

Here was Barbour's plan, a plan he carried out according to several sources:

Barbour organized the National Policy Forum as a "non-profit educational corporation." On its face it appeared to be divorced from the RNC itself, but internal memos, including the resignation of a dissident top RNC official, point to the fact that one of the prime, if not the only reason, the National Policy Forum was established was to launder foreign contributions.

The big sucker in Barbour's game was a Hong Kong businessman called Ambrous Tung Young. Young loaned Barbour's Forum millions, through bank guarantees, which Barbour then turned over to the RNC for campaign purposes. It appears that Young knew the money wouldn't be used to "explore policy alternatives" in the traditional think-tank style, but rather would be used to influence U.S. elections.

What makes the plot more interesting is that a top advisor to Newt Gingrich, Joe Gaylord, was paid a whopping sum to raise money for the National Policy Forum. Gaylord, not a well-liked man, delivered a $50,000 donation from the daughter of an Indonesian businessman, Ted Sioeng -- who is being investigated by Republicans as a possible conduit for Chinese government money to the Democrats.

What a table-turn!

Also, it seems the Taiwan government was the go-between for another $25,000 contribution from a foreign foundation, and Haley Barbour, constantly switching hats, wrote to Taiwan's chief government affairs officer in Washington thanking him for the money (documents to follow).

But don't count Barbour out. He wouldn't be testifying if he didn't feel he had a chance to wriggle out of the charges. Count on Haley to come up with some irrational and folksy explanation as to why he took it upon himself to fly to Hong Kong and convince Mr. Young to put up the loan guarantees and then host Young at meetings with several top Republicans including Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich.

If Dole had been elected President, Young may not have called in his chips, but alas -- Big Bob fell to defeat -- and Young wanted his money back! Barbour didn't have the $2.1 million, and Young became angry -- very angry.

Thus, the story broke.

Now the documents clearly show that Young and Barbour's attorneys negotiated a "deal" which got Young off the hook for nearly two-thirds of the money, but left a big $750,000 net in RNC coffers in 1996.

As with the Democrat roast last week, Republicans will find that Americans don't really care if some Hong Kong businessmen were giving money to Haley Barbour.

The important question is: just what was Barbour, Gingrich and Dole selling?

One good guess would be a promise to deny China most favored nation trading status. But that's only a guess.