Hearings Impaired

OPENING the second week of his Asiagate hearings in the Hart Senate Office Building hearing room, Sen. Fred Thompson remarks dryly: “Today we’ll hear from some of the few people who worked for Lippo who have remained in the United States.” Sitting at the center of a raised semi-circular dais draped in red velvet, Thompson has his own gravitational field. Whenever he stands up or sits down, cameramen whirr and click around him. Whenever he speaks, it’s in a low, grave voice that commands attention. This morning, his 6’5″ frame hulking behind the microphone, Thompson announces: “I call Juliana Utomo, please.”

And nothing happens. Juliana Utomo is one of the few Lippo employees still in the country because she was just a bookkeeper who briefly had an office on the same floor as John Huang. But where is she now? A minute or so passes, the committee room silent except for the rustlings of reporters and spectators. The assembled senators face an empty witness table, the three or four microphones pointing at unoccupied black, high-backed chairs. Finally the diminutive Miss Utomo is escorted from a door at the front of the room, but the brief delay raises the question: What if you held major Senate hearings and no one showed up?

About the Author

Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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OPENING the second week of his Asiagate hearings in the Hart Senate Office Building hearing room, Sen. Fred Thompson remarks dryly: “Today we’ll hear from some of the few people who worked for Lippo who have remained in the United States.” Sitting at the center of a raised semi-circular dais draped in red velvet, Thompson has his own gravitational field. Whenever he stands up or sits down, cameramen whirr and click around him. Whenever he speaks, it’s in a low, grave voice that commands attention. This morning, his 6’5″ frame hulking behind the microphone, Thompson announces: “I call Juliana Utomo, please.”

And nothing happens. Juliana Utomo is one of the few Lippo employees still in the country because she was just a bookkeeper who briefly had an office on the same floor as John Huang. But where is she now? A minute or so passes, the committee room silent except for the rustlings of reporters and spectators. The assembled senators face an empty witness table, the three or four microphones pointing at unoccupied black, high-backed chairs. Finally the diminutive Miss Utomo is escorted from a door at the front of the room, but the brief delay raises the question: What if you held major Senate hearings and no one showed up?