Huang, Riady Gave To '93 Clinton Inauguration

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, Nov. 26) -- A new White House list of donors to Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration shows a $100,000 donation from John Huang and James Riady, central figures in the Democrats' questionable campaign fund-raising this year.

At the time of the 1993 donation, Riady and Huang were both executives of Indonesia's Lippo banking conglomerate. Huang later went to work at the Commerce Department and then the Democratic National Committee, where he served as a fund-raiser.

The Huang-Riady joint donation was contained in a list of donors released by the White House at the request of The Associated Press.

Donations to the inaugural committee are not covered by campaign finance rules. Critics say it's another way for special interests to offer large donations and gain access.

"The inaugural has sort of become a metaphor for the whole political process and how money has distorted it," Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a Washington-based government watchdog, told AP.

"We basically have a situation with two classes here: a sort of political and economic class, intermingling with each other at their megabucks-level inaugural galas, and the average citizens, who at best get to watch the inaugural from hundreds of yards away," Lewis said.

Organizers of Clinton's first inauguration collected more than $2.5 million in donations and an additional $17 million in interest-free loans as seed money for the January 1993 celebration, according to the White House documents .

Other donors on the list obtained by the AP were:

Merrill Lynch, $250,000

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,$100,000

Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc., $100,000

United Food and Commercial Workers International, $100,000

American Federation of Teachers, $100,000

Federal Express, $100,000

The Limited, $100,000

Union Pacific Corp., $100,000

D. Inez Andreas $100,000

Panhandle Eastern Corp., $100,000

Richard Park, president of U.S. Woopon Corp., $100,000

Guess, Inc., $100,000

Communication Workers of America, $100,000

AT&T, $50,000

Michael A. Caddell, $50,000

The Capital Group, $50,000

Georgia Pacific, $50,000

Richard L. and Delores A. Hutcheson, $50,000

MCI Foundation, $50,000

Pacific Telesis, $50,000

Preen Realty Inc. $50,000

Salomon Brothers Inc., $50,000

Tenneco Inc., $50,000

Textron Inc., $50,000

Apple Computer Inc., $35,000

Manor Care Inc., $35,000

Duracell Inc. $34,000

Blum-Kovler Foundation, $30,000

Amgen Inc. $25,000

Jon S. and Joanne D. Corzine Foundation, $25,000

Enron Corp., $25,000

Ernst and Young, $25,000

Federal National Mortgage Association Foundation, $25,000

Gibson Dunn and Crutcher law firm, $25,000

Lou O. and Helen Ann Harding, $25,000

Pfizer, $25,000

Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Fund Inc., $25,000

R&S Associates, $25,000

Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation Inc., $25,000

Service Employees International Union, $25,000

Alejandro and Lida Zaffaroni, $25,000