What-Me Guilty?
York, Byron
e Labor Secretarg Alexis Herman is the latest Clintonile to have an independent counsel of her very own. White House spinners sag she s the innocent victim of a had law. must mean (as indeed it...
...It had neither...
...But it is the law, and the fact that it is misguided does not mean Alexis Herman is innocent...
...The Commission says it had new room available for another licensee...
...Love and Moneg—and The case involves three main players: Herman herself, Vanessa Weaver, a Maryland woman who is one of Herman's closest friends, and Laurent Yene, an African businessman who was Weaver's live-in boyfriend and business partner from mid-1995 until the two (and their company) broke up in September 1996...
...Again, they involve Vanessa Weaver...
...Reno's decision," said a Chicago Tribune editorial, "is—at this point—more a reflection of a flawed law than Herman's guilt...
...In addition, investigators have discovered that in a brief period of time both before and after the dinner, Vanessa Weaver and her sister Caryliss, who is vice-president of Alignment Strategies and also a friend of Herman's, made a series of large political contributions...
...Barcella says the sisters spread their money around several states —California, New Jersey, Georgia, and Kansas—where they felt there were issues of importance to African-Americans...
...The paper also reported that Rahman promised to pay Yene/Weaver $loo,000 if they could help him get the license...
...several weeks later, Herman invited Mireille Lissouba, Weaver, and Yene to lunch in the White House...
...Details of the story are not entirely clearYene has disappeared from sight and could not be found for an interview, while Rahman at one point agreed to an interview, only to back out later—but it is possible to sketch the outlines of what happened, based on interviews with others involved in the case: Rahman owns a company called Global Aero Design Center...
...Several years ago, he represented Reagan adviser Lyn Nofziger when independent counsel James McKay convicted Nofziger on charges of illegal lobbying (the verdict was later overturned...
...Then, in the fall of 1994, Weaver met and fell in love with Laurent Yene...
...Yene: Absolutely...
...In her referral to the court that oversees independent counsels, Reno went out of her way to suggest Herman is innocent...
...We have never paid him any money...
...Even though there was no evidence that Herman had done anything wrong, the Justice Department was unable to prove that conclusively—to dot all the i's and cross all the is—by the deadline...
...The coming investigation will likely give us new insight into the world of a Washington operator—and the shady financing of the 1996 Clinton re-election campaign...
...And not only is there significant evidence, the Department says the explanations offered in Herman's defense have in some cases been contradictory and changing...
...To make the project go, it needed two things—money and a license from the Federal Communications Commission...
...According to the independent counsel referral, Yene said Weaver told him Alexis Herman "was to receive ten percent of any business she helped develop for International Investments and Business Development...
...According to Barcella, Yene introduced Rahman to Weaver a few days later, on May 21...
...And Herman hasn't just talked...
...82 July 1998 The American Spectator...
...Yene told Justice Department investigators that someone else was also involved in the business...
...Indeed, Herman and many in the White House have used the investigation as a weapon with which to attack the independent counsel law...
...Rahman agreed to pay Yene/Weaver $15,000 a month...
...So Mobile stepped up its search for investors...
...It was, by Barcella's account, an ugly split, and it appears there is a large amount of enmity on both sides...
...And that's just the beginning...
...The independent counsel referral says the sisters, "who had no significant prior history of campaign contributions, made approximately $240,000 in campaign and other political contributions in late 1996...
...While Yene made many of his other accusations during interviews with the press last year, he The American Spectator • July r 9 9 8 never mentioned the in-person payoff until January of this year, when he was interviewed by ABC News reporter Brian Ross: Yene: I went to her house and give her this envelope...
...In short, there is a real case against Alexis Herman...
...Rahman was looking for a way to open up an area of the world...
...In 1993, with the new administration moving into power, Herman got a job in the Clinton White House, becoming director of the Office of Public Liaison...
...She funded it....He basically ran it while she was maintaining her business at Alignment Strategies...
...right-hand woman at the Democratic National Committee, helped Weaver get started...
...Herman, who not only ran a business of her own but served as Chairman Ron Brown's 37 ht W and The nerd eaverYene introduced Herman 6 Rahman at a PIA, Entertainment Television recephion at the tour Seasons Hotel...
...One potential client Yene and Weaver tried to woo was Pascal Lissouba, at that time president of the Congo...
...On some occasions, Weaver took prospective Alignment Strategies clients to the White House to meet Herman for lunch and the grand tour...
...Barcella says Weaver poured lots of money into the business—more than $15o,000 of her own funds...
...Herman arguably knew more about African-American political organizations than anyone in America, and it seems likely that she and her friends discussed that topic...
...When asked to describe Yene, Barcella answers, "You mean, other than the fact that he's a lying gigolo...
...The Justice Department says Alignment Strategies received more than $250,000 "from or on behalf of [Rahman] during the last quarter of 1996...
...She didn't need the guidance of a sophisticated Democratic operative," he says...
...Reno's words sounded persuasive...
...Several other factors could also have been at work...
...So the attorney general was forced to ask for a counsel in a case that clearly did not merit one...
...It was a five-minute, 'Hi, how are you' conversation," he says...
...Yene and Weaver broke up during the Labor Day weekend in September 1996—in the middle of all these events...
...According to Barcella, much of that was in the form of a $200,000 retainer that Rahman gave Weaver when the two negotiated a new contract after the breakup of International Investments and Business Development (prior to that, Rahman had never made a payment of more than $15,000 to Weaver...
...Potentially more hazardous are allegations that place Herman squarely in the middle of the Clinton/Gore/DNC 1996 fundraising scandal...
...The two stayed in close contact...
...not long after the referral, she took action...
...elections...
...He later told Radio Communications Reports, a telecom industry newsletter, that there was nothing unusual about his actions...
...Ethics rules required that Herman sell her business when she joined the White House staff, so in October 1993, nearly ten months after joining the administration, she sold A.M...
...must mean (as indeed it does) that e Berman investigation involves serious charges of perso corruption—with strong lints to the Clinton fundraising scandal...
...That was part of my agenda...
...Then he set out to do just that...
...According to Weaver's lawyer, Lawrence Barcella, the two met at a Washington reception held on behalf of an African charity...
...Herman, echoing statements made many times by the president during the Whitewater probe, vowed that the investigation would not distract her from "doing the work of the American people...
...But a careful reading of the Herman referral shows that there is another side to the story...
...while explanations for these transactions have been provided, these explanations have varied over time and either cannot be independently corroborated or doubt is cast on them because they are inconsistent with other known facts...
...The Campaign Connection Whatever Yene's motivation, the allegations of personal corruption he has leveled against Herman are quite serious—especially the charge that she had an interest in International Investments and Business Development...
...When both went sour because he was stealing money from her and philandering with other women, he vowed that he would somehow get back at her...
...Also, Herman and other campaign operatives in the White House and at the Democratic National Committee actively encouraged donors to give to charitable organizations —like the National Coalition for Black Voter Participation—that helped the party and allowed contributors to take tax deductions...
...Many of the questions center around a fundraising dinner held on October 23, 1996...
...And the attorney general apparently didn't have the investigative courage to put this thing to an end...
...Blame the Law "I don't believe that for a minute," Bill 81 Clinton told reporters after ABC broadcast Yene's allegation that he had paid off Alexis Herman...
...We can't get involved...
...If he did not find any financing, he would get nothing...
...Herman's lawyer, former White House associate counsel Neil Eggleston, declined to comment on the case...
...It was, the experts said, a textbook example of the law's basic unfairness...
...The statute sucks," Barcella says in his characteristically frank way...
...The next night, Weaver and Yene introduced Rahman to Alexis Herman at a Black Entertainment Television reception held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington...
...In July 1997, the Commission waived the financial requirements and granted the license...
...Herman and Weaver have known each other for more than a decade...
...Finally, in mid-November, Vanessa and Caryliss Weaver contributed $50,000 to the DNC —apparently to pay for the October The American Spectator • July 1998 23 dinner, which was $25,000 a plate...
...Herman and Associates to Weaver for $88,000...
...Our investigation," she wrote in one widely quoted paragraph, "has developed no evidence clearly demonstrating Secretary BYRON YORK is an investigative writer with TAS...
...The American Spectator July 1998 Herman's involvement in these matters, and substantial evidence suggesting that she may not have been involved...
...Yene: Personally...
...Remember that in recent months the attorney general has repeatedly refused to call for a counsel to investigate the campaign finance scandal, saying she had not found the "specific and credible evidence" of wrongdoing required to trigger the act...
...Specifically, Rahman was looking for help with a business project in Africa...
...Despite such protests, the chronology of contracts, payments, and donations is suspicious on its face, certainly enough to at least arouse the curiosity of prosecutors...
...In the Radio Communications Report interview, Simon said he told the Mobile Communications team, "This is a licensing process at the FCC and we don't get involved...
...Barcella says the payoff accusation and all of Yene's other charges are the result of personal bitterness...
...One of those corporations was Procter & Gamble, where Weaver worked when she got to know Herman...
...Nothing ever panned out," the spokesman says of Rahman's finder's agreement with the company...
...Weaver was no longer with Yene, and she didn't want to go alone, so she asked Rahman...
...At the time he met Yene, Rahman had a deal with a Washington company involved in establishing what is known in the telecommunications business as a global mobile personal communications system...
...Rahman was getting her services for marketing and business introductions in sub-Saharan Africa...
...in return for the donation, the tycoon would receive help with a problem before a government agency...
...This is a guy who had both a business and a personal relationship with Weaver," Barcella continues...
...But the law forbids lobbying the FCC for license approval...
...For a while, it looked as if nothing else would work out, either...
...if Herman brought any business to the firm, she would pocket ten percent of the fee...
...Lawrence Barcella says there is a simple explanation for the contributions: the success of Alignment Strategies meant that for the first time in their lives, the Weavers had come into money...
...The letter was sent in late August 1995...
...He also says the donations are "hardly a classic conduit campaign contribution," because in some cases the contributions were made before the money from Rahman came in...
...The Commission said Mobile did not have adequate financial backing for the project (at that time, the FCC granted licenses to other companies for similar systems: Loral, Motorola, and TRW...
...In an interview last year with reporter Edward Pound of USA Today, Yene said he sent a business proposal to Lissouba's daughter Mireille...
...I can only assume that the attorney general felt that she had to make this decision because of the [independent counsel] statute...
...Specifically, transactions occurred at times and in amounts that could be consistent with Yene's story...
...But Herman—and the president—are newcomers to the role of legal critic...
...Of course most conservatives would agree with Herman that the independent counsel statute is a bad law...
...A New York Times headline called the decision "A Difficult Call Based On the Law, Not the Evidence...
...These allegations have been false from the very beginning...
...It seems unlikely that Herman's action alone could have caused the FCC to change its mind...
...anet Reno's decision to seek an independent counsel to investigate alleged kickbacks and campaign finance violations by Labor Secretary Alexis Herman seemed to signal a turning point in the debate over the independent counsel law...
...I'm obviously very disappointed and extremely baffled by this decision," she told reporters on May ii, the day Reno called for a counsel...
...Not long after that meeting, Weaver introduced Yene to Alexis Herman during a Halloween party at Weaver's suburban Maryland home...
...The accuser also said Herman used the friend's company to solicit $25o,000 in illegal campaign contributions from a Singapore tycoon...
...But the conventional wisdom saw the case this way: The law gave Reno just 90 days (with one extension) to decide whether to call for a counsel...
...Simon agreed...
...It was the first major election cycle that the Weavers had the funds to be able to make those contributions," he says...
...Yene told Justice Department investigators that Herman "encouraged" Weaver to solicit campaign contributions from Abdul Rahman, who is not an American citizen and is forbidden by law from contributing to U.S...
...But Yene told USA Today they discussed Mobile Communications' license application with the FCC...
...The contributions were complex and sophisticated...
...It was an unprecedented move...
...It was also unsuccessful...
...Less serious, in the eyes of the Justice Department, is another allegation in which Yene said Weaver gave him an envelope full of cash with instructions that he deliver it to Herman...
...The Justice Department referral notes that "just prior to the time this contribution was made, Alignment Strategies received a payment of $50,000 on [Rahman's] behalf...
...the court refused, declaring that the law does not give judges the power to second-guess the attorney general's decision to ask for a counsel...
...The discussions between Herman, Weaver, and the [Congo] president's daughter," he says, "didn't have anything to do with business!' But Yene told USA Today the government of the Congo signed a $7oo,000 public relations deal with International Investments and Business Development...
...The company, Mobile Communications Holdings, Inc., planned to launch a series of satellites—seventeen in all—that would be stationed over various strategic points of the earth, making it possible to make satellite phone calls from portable telephones anywhere on the planet...
...She entertained an IIBD client at a White House luncheon, and attended a dinner, met at a reception, and planned to drive to a fundraiser with Weaver and her clients...
...Barcella says the lunch was strictly social...
...President Clinton attended—flying in after a day of campaigning in Florida...
...When Yene met Rahman in mid-May 1996, the Singapore businessman described his work for Mobile Communications—and the company's problem with the FCC...
...Ross: To Alexis Herman...
...At about the same time—the last days of May 1996 —Herman, who was still director of the Office of Public Liaison at the White House, went to see Greg Simon, at the time a White House telecommunications policy adviser...
...At the same time, the judges appointed Ralph Lancaster, a partner in a Portland, Maine law firm, as the Herman independent counsel...
...At about the time of the reception, Rah-man began to pour unprecedented amounts of money into Weaver's business...
...It was serious stuff...
...In 1991, Weaver left Procter & Gamble and formed her own consulting firm, Alignment Strategies, Inc...
...They met in the 198os, when Herman owned A.M...
...Barcella says the new deal was for "a separate and expanded series of services...
...The deal later fell through, and no payments were ever made...
...As the Weavers focused on African-American issues, Alexis Herman was in the White House organizing the African-American Working Group as part of the Clinton re-election campaign...
...She has tremendous contacts down there...
...For example, they contributed to the unsuccessful movement to defeat Proposition 209 in California...
...The Justice Department's independent counsel referral called it "an amount very difficult to trace, especially if the payments were in cash...
...In early 1995 the FCC turned down Mobile Communications' license application...
...Barcella says Alignment Strategies also gave $50,000 to a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) voter registration group called the National Coalition for Black Voter Participation...
...On May 18, one week after Reno's referral, Herman filed a sealed motion with the court that would choose the independent counsel...
...If Yene is to be believed, Herman got ten percent of that, or $4,500...
...Thanks to her friendship with Herman, Weaver became a familiar presence around the White House, visiting at least twenty-nine times during the first Clinton administration...
...At some point—a spokesman won't say precisely how—the company entered into a "finder's agreement" with Abdul Rahman...
...In July 1995 Weaver helped Yene begin a business, which they named International Investments and Business Development (IIBD...
...She asked Simon to meet with Mobile Communications officials about their licensing problem...
...It is also true that Mobile Communications was represented by a lawyer who is a major fundraiser for the Democratic Party...
...They [Yene and Weaver] were going to be assisting him 38 July 1998 The American Spectator Potentially more hazardous are allegations that place Alexis Herman squareig in the middle of Ike Clinton/Gore/MC 1996 fundraising scandal...
...It gave Yene something to do, but International Investments and Business Development had no paying clients—until May 1996, when Yene met a man named Abdul Rahman, an entrepreneur from Singapore with an interest in the global telecommunications business...
...The referral goes on to say that Herman took an active interest in the business: Herman met with IIBD clients and potential clients...
...Barcella has some bona fides in his criticism of the independent counsel law...
...Standing alone," the referral says, "this allegation would not warrant further investigation...
...if Rahman lined up investors for Mobile, he would get a cut...
...And there is more circumstantial evidence that tends to support the Justice Department...
...In any event, the FCC later changed its mind on Mobile's license application...
...But Rahman still paid International Investments and Business Development—$45,000 in all...
...Whatever the case, after the introductions, the business deal was born...
...Rather than the scarcity of proof described by Reno, investigators have actually found significant evidence to back up several of the allegations against Herman...
...Yene wanted something that he could run that would be theirs," Barcella says...
...Herman and Associates, a Washington-based firm that did "diversity consulting" for several large corporations...
...But the Justice Department concluded that "it is not plausible that Weaver would have set out in late 1996 to make substantial campaign contributions to benefit the Democratic Party for the first time in her life without consulting with her close friend, a politically active Democrat" Barcella denies that, too...
...Judging by the evidence the Justice Depaitnient has gathered so far, it seems likely that even without an independent counsel statute, a serious prosecutor would decide to continue pursuing the allegations...
...The Justice Department did nothing to discourage such analysis...
...Barcella says Weaver set up and supplied the money for the new company...
...Barcella says the talk was purely social...
...Ross: You gave her an envelope of cash...
...A bit less eloquently, a Boston Globe reporter appearing on television said the Herman investigation was so unfair that "even the Republicans on Capitol Hill have just gotten to the point where they say, 'Isn't this, like, enough is enough?'" A former associate had accused Herman of having a secret deal with a friend who owned a consulting firm...
...Yene told investigators that Rahman "paid $25o,000 in political contributions through Weaver's primary business, Alignment Strategies, Inc., to help with obtaining a Federal Communications License and to meet President Clinton...
...Barcella was criticizing the law back then...
...Yene told her that he had met this fellow at a reception," Barcella says...
...Mobile Communications called its plan the Ellipso system...
...She asked the judges to just say no—to refuse Reno's request to appoint a counsel on grounds of lack of evidence...
...And the very fact that Reno took action at all speaks more loudly than the phrasing of the referral...
...In the Herman case, Reno chose to request a counsel, meaning she has found specific and credible evidence of illegal acts...
...While we developed no evidence that Herman took any steps to influence any government decision on IIBD's behalf, there is evidence that IIBD sought to and did benefit from its access to Herman, and through her, the White House, in impressing its clients...
...But a spokesman for Mobile says Rah-man was not a reason for the new license, because he never brought in any new investors...
...Her contributions were related to areas where African Americans had a particular interest...
...The event was held at Merrywood, a McLean, Virginia mansion that was once the childhood home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and is now owned by millionaire (Continued on page 8i) 39 York/Herman (Continued from page 39) developer Alan Kay...
...Parcel], sags the tall a was purelg social, a five-minute, Hi, how are go, conversation...
...A few months later, he told her that if she didn't give him money, he would get back at her through her friendship with Alexis Herman...
...The referral makes it clear that the cash payoff allegation, even though it was Yene's most dramatic accusation and one that attracted widespread press attention, is not the most serious issue facing Alexis Herman...
...The Labor Secretary herself professed to be dumbfounded...
...This charge was a bit different from the others...
...Weaver was there—and so was Abdul Rahman, who got to rub elbows with Democratic bigwigs and have his sought-after face time with the president "It turned out Rahman was in town at the time," Barcella explains...
...Reacting to the news, many journalists and commentators made it clear they had finally had enough—not of corruption, but of the law itself...
...It's a totally flawed law with a really silly level of evidence required before an independent counsel is triggered...
...I have an open door, so people can talk about all sorts of things," Simon said...
...In another place she wrote, "I reach this conclusion not because we possess affirmative evidence that Secretary Herman actually received money—we do not—but because we have not been able to answer all of the questions...
...But the Department added: While a review of the financial records provided to us does not conclusively corroborate Yene's story, at the same time, the records are not inconsistent with what he told us...
...Again, they involve Herman's friend, Vanessa Weavers in marketing the Ellipso system," says Barcella, who adds that Weaver was an especially important part of the deal...
...But they might ultimately prove the least of her problems...
...Both Herman and Weaver denied the allegation, and the independent counsel referral says Justice Department officials have been unable to find any evidence to corroborate the charge...
Vol. 31 • July 1998 • No. 7
