Campaign Economics Reporter - Page A1
January 26 1997 DNC/Clinton-Gore Campaing Funds
by Staff Writers, The Daily Republican Online
Traced to California DemocratsWASHINGTON DESK - Several of the Democratic National Committee's largest campaign donors poured nearly a half-million dollars into California and at least five other state Democrat party organizations last year. These contributions were solicited by controversial fund-raiser John Huang, according to state and party records, and are alleged to have been improper, illegal or both.
Some $482,500 donations to State Democrat Party Committees show just how deep the involvement of the Clinton White House influence peddling reached in financing last year's election.
The contributions, were solicited and channeled to the states by the John Huang at the Clinton-Gore Campaign. This involvement by Huang in state political organizations has not previously has been reported.
A CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN vice chairman, Huang worked primarily with the Asian American community obtaining improper contributions as part of more than $3.4 million for the CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN. Huang also requested that some donors give large amounts of money to states where Democrats faced tough 1996 election battles, like California.
According to Sunday's Washington Post, among the major donations Huang generated were $272,500 to five state parties from relatives of Thai businesswoman Pauline Kanchanalak and $150,000 to six state organizations from Little Rock lawyer C. Joseph Giroir Jr., a middleman in various deals involving Arkansas companies and Indonesian's influential Lippo conglomerate. Sen Jong Hsui, a wealthy Taiwanese American businessman, gave at least $60,000 in checks to Democratic parties in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania in October, state records and internal party documents show.
The Post reported that some of the donations, made in $20,000 to $35,000 increments, were made in order to gain exclusive access to president Clinton during CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN events put together by Huang.
It is illegal for foreign donors to give large amounts directly or indirectly to state political party organizations.
The cash contributions often transferred by the Democratic and Republican national parties to their state affiliates, including these raised by Huang, would not have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission. The financial records are maintained in California and the other state capitals, making it difficult to get information on the pattern of giving by major donors.
The contributions by individual donors to the California state Democrat party organizations, including those raised by Huang, add further serious doubt about the honesty and truthfulness of the Clinton administrations controlled CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN; illegal campaign-finance fiasco.
The Clinton campaign-finance debacle has embarrassed the Democrat Party for over a year. The CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN & Huang's activities are under federal investigation.
On Tuesday, the CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN attempting to side-step accusations stemming from its legal difficulties over foreign money contributions, set a $100,000 contribution limit and said that it would accept future individual donations only from U.S. citizens.
Democrat Party officials attempted to defend their practice of accepting donations from contributors channeled quietly without public disclosure to the states by the CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN. A spokesperson for the CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN told reporters Sunday the contributions are 'fully disclosed' in state campaign finance records.
Donations solicited by Huang that ended up in California ,Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Illinois was uncovered on Friday through a review of records kept by the California election commissions.
The review eventually was extended to Democrat Party records on file in eight states that were targeted by the Clinton-Gore Campaign for last-minute anti-Republican television ads sponsored by the Clinton-Gore Campaign in the closing days of the national election in November.
However, under the state law, those 'directed' contributions could not legally be used in the Clinton-Gore Campaign for that purpose.
Documentation has been piling up. For example, Pauline Kanchanalak, a major campaign contributor to the Clinton-Gore Campaign and a major figure in the Clinton-Gore campaign fiasco. The Clinton-Gore Campaign was chagrined when they had to return $253,500 in funds solicited since 1993 from Kanchanalak after she told CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN officials in November that the contributions on checks from "P. Kanchanalak" of McLean, Va., actually came from her mother-in-law, Praitun Kanchanalak.
In addition to those contributions directly to the Clinton-Gore Campaign, the committee's internal records contain a notation in July for a combined $50,000 in 'directed' donations from Pauline Kanchanalak to Illinois and Pennsylvania. State records do not show her making such contributions to state parties there, but do show donations totaling $142,500 from "P. Kanchanalak" of McLean, Va., to state parties in California, Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Pauline Kanchanalak's sister-in-law, Duangnet G. Kronenberg, of that same McLean, Va., address, sent checks totaling $130,000 to the same state parties. Contributions from Kanchanalak family members to the CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN and state parties total more than $650,000 since 1992.
Widespread stories have appeared in the pres in the past week about Kanchanalak's pursuit of Clinton administration influence to help her establish a business involving Thai and U.S. companies.
The New York Times last Wednesday reported that she was active last year in trying to get the U.S. Export-Import Bank to back financing for a chain of Blockbuster Video stores in Bangkok. The Times reported that the unusual deal, which did not materialize, would have benefited a Thai conglomerate, whose subsidiary was seeking the rights to operate the stores.
The Post has reported Sunday that Kanchanalak enlisted Huang's help in 1994 in getting the Clinton administration to back the U.S.-Thai Business Council, a group that promotes U.S. trade policies favorable to Thailand, at a time when Huang, as the senior Commerce official, was clearly in a position to order steps taken to provide Kanchanalak with a tidy profit.
White House Secret Service logs shown to the press reveal that she has been to the White House at least 26 times since the start of the Clinton administration, including a June 18 coffee with the president to which she brought five business associates. The Clinton-Gore Campaing showed an $85,000 contribution from her at around the same time.
Huang also played a role in directing Kronenberg's contributions to the five states, in addition to $70,000 she gave directly to the DNC last year, party records show.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier three weeks ago that tjhey had learned on July 30, 1996, Hsui, who has business interests in the United States and Taiwan, attended a small dinner with Clinton at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington. Other guests at the dinner, which was organized by Huang, included James Riady of Indonesia's Lippo Group, for whom Huang was once the top U.S. official, and Eugene Wu, head of a major Taiwanese business group.
Hsui contributed $150,000 directly to the Clinton-Gore Campaing in early September, and Clinton-Gore Campaign-DNC coding indicates the contribution was made in connection with the July dinner. Then in late September, two more more entries in DNC internal logs put Hsui down for another $150,000, again in connection with the Jefferson dinner, and again with Huang listed as fund-raiser.
The latter two entries also contain phrases showing how that $150,000 was to be divided in state contributions: "donor directed OH (20); PA (20)" and "donor directed: 30 each to: IL, FL, CA; 20 to MI," the log reads.
Records obtained from those states show that Hsui did contribute $20,000 each on Oct. 16 and 17 to the Democratic parties in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Available records do not show that he gave $30,000 to California,Illinois, or Florida.
The Clinton-Gore Campaign records contain an entry for a $25,000 Giroir contribution that says "donor directed: IL" and lists Huang as the fund-raiser and the code for the Jefferson Hotel dinner. Giroir, who has had business dealings with Riady's Lippo conglomerate, did not attend the dinner but did give in connection with the event, according to the DNC.
He contributed $25,000 to the Illinois Democrats in September and another $25,000 apiece -- for a total of $150,000 -- to the state parties in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio in June, and California and Florida in September. Giroir gave another $25,000 directly to the CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN last May, before the state contributions, and $23,000 to the CLINTON-GORE CAMPAIGN in 1995, according to FEC records.
A number of other donors have also made contributions to both the Clinton-Gore Campaign and multiple Democrat state parties. On Oct. 16, for example, the Pennsylvania Democrat Party received a total of $180,000 from six contributors, including the Hsui and Kanchanalak checks.
Two other contributors on that day gave $50,000 each -- Wall Street trader Paul Tudor Jones II and J. Richard Fredericks, an executive with Montgomery Securities in San Francisco. Each contributed more than $100,000 to the Clinton-Gore Campaign directly last year. Jones also gave $20,000 to the Democrats in Florida and spent millions of dollars there waging a battle to help pay for Everglades preservation with a sugar tax. Fredericks contributed $50,000 each to the Democrat parties in Florida and Illinois. Both men declined to comment on their contributions.
[AP, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times contributed facts in this story.]