“ Huang began involving himself in U.S. politics in 1988 while an official at LippoBank, working with James Riady, Hsia, and others to found the Pacific Leadership Council (“PLC”) , an Asian- American interest group and political fund-raising organ, which organized a trip to Taiwan (and the Fo Kuang Shan temple there) for then-Senator Gore. Huang’s colleagues at LippoBank -- where he served as President and Director -- never understood his corporate duties and described him as a “mystery man.” ”

“ For the U.S. political process as a whole, the DNC and White House’s reckless fundraising disregarded an obvious risk — the danger that powerful foreign nationals, or even governments, would attempt to buy influence through campaign contributions. ”

“ Simply put, 25 years after Congress passed election reform laws intended to insulate the President from an unseemly and potentially corrupting involvement with campaign money, President Clinton spent enormous amounts of time during the 1996 election cycle raising money. In the ten months prior to the 1996 election, President Clinton attended more than 230 fundraising events, which raised $119,000,000. The President maintained such a pace for over a year before the election, often attending fundraisers five and six days each week. ”

“ Worse, their campaign eviscerated federal fundraising laws and reduced the White House, key Administration offices, and the Presidency itself, to fundraising tools.
This increasingly mercenary approach also led the Democratic Party to view America’s ethnic communities as exploitable “renewable resources” for political fundraising. The DNC’s recklessness in raising money from their community unfairly burdened Asian-Americans with the stigma of lawbreaking by fundraisers such as John Huang, Charlie Trie, and Maria Hsia. ”

“ The Hudson casino matter is, if anything, more sordid than the Tamraz story, as political donations to the DNC apparently succeeded in purchasing government policy concessions. In light of the opposing tribes’ DNC contributions, the DNC’s lobbying effort against the casino, the involvement of Ickes’ staff in drawing Secretary Babbitt’s attention to this issue, and Secretary Babbitt’s remarkable comments to Eckstein, the Hudson casino matter raises serious questions about the propriety — and the legality — of the Interior Department’s decision. ”

“ When DNC officials raised concerns about the propriety of such a coffee, “some people that might be potential [legal] donors, [i.e.,] American citizens,” were invited at the last moment. It is clear that the coffee’s essential purpose was to sell the President’s time to Kanchanalak — who, with her mother-in-law, donated $235,000 in to the DNC the next day — to make her look good in front of her clients.6 Even worse, the only guests professing to have any memory of the event recall Huang openly soliciting DNC contributions, in the presence of the President. ”

“ Based upon the premise that these telephone calls raised only “soft” money, the Attorney General has rejected suggestions that she recommend the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate whether these calls violated a federal criminal law prohibiting the solicitation of campaign contributions on federal property. The Committee disagrees with her view that raising “soft money” on federal property is permitted, but significantly, even under the Attorney General’s view, the solicitation of “hard” money on federal property is a crime. ”

“ The Temple fundraiser was merely the most egregious episode in a longstanding pattern of illegal donation-laundering by Hsia and the Hsi Lai Temple that stretched back at least to 1993. In that year, Hsia and Huang apparently collaborated in laundering $50,000 to the DNC from the Hsi Lai Temple and from Lippo Group sources overseas in connection with a meeting between Vice President Gore’s chief of staff and the chairman of China Resources, a company linked in press reports to Chinese intelligence. ”

“ Ties between the PRC and prominent figures in the campaign finance investigation: The Committee has received information that several individuals who provided donations from foreign sources (principally in the greater China area) to the DNC and other causes have ties to the PRC. The Committee has learned that Maria Hsia has been an agent of the Chinese government, that she has acted knowingly in support of it, and that she has attempted to conceal her relationship with the Chinese government. ”

“ The All-Consuming Fundraising Effort In some ways, the most troubling result of the White House’s and DNC’s ceaseless quest for campaign funding is the great amount of time the President and the Vice President themselves actually spent raising money. As Vice President Gore himself noted, “we can raise the [necessary] money . ”

“ The DNC Raised Millions of Dollars in Illegal Foreign Funds Following the 1996 election, and in the wake of the growing DNC fundraising controversy, the DNC was ultimately forced to return $2,825,600 in illegal or improper donations.2 Of this total amount, almost 80 percent was either raised or contributed by two men — John Huang and Charlie Trie. Strikingly, both men were longtime friends of President Clinton, and both were in positions to raise large campaign contributions because of their personal relationships with the President. ”

“ In one of the more egregious examples of its dilatory document production, however, the White House did not reveal Ng’s still-unexplained visits until just hours after the conclusion of the Committee’s public hearing on the activities of Trie and Ng.5
Trie’s fundraising efforts won him numerous White House favors, including a Presidential appointment to the Commission on U.S. Pacific Trade and Investment Policy — an act requiring a new Executive Order to expand the size of the Commission. ”

“ In this stampede to use the White House for every conceivable variety of fundraiser, a number of alarmingly unsavory characters gained access to the President in return for campaign contributions. One was Chinese arms dealer Wang Jun. Roger Tamraz, a major DNC donor, was allowed to meet with the President on several occasions despite the NSC’s opposition and clear warnings that Tamraz might damage U.S. foreign policy interests in Central Asia. ”

“ In addition, the Committee planned to investigate whether political action committees evaded statutory limits on political contributions, and whether nonprofit organizations coordinated so-called “issue advocacy” advertising with political candidates to be considered inkind campaign contributions limited and regulated under federal election law. ”

“ The story of Huang’s move to the DNC, and the fundraising abuses that followed, began in the summer of 1995, when Lippo lobbyist C. Joseph Giroir began trying to persuade the DNC to hire Huang as a fundraiser specializing in the Asian-American community. On September 13, 1995, Giroir arranged a meeting between Huang, Riady, Fowler, and DNC Finance Director Richard Sullivan, at which they discussed the potential for DNC fundraising among the Asian- American community. ”

“ Between January 11, 1995 and August 23, 1996, the White House hosted 103 coffees. Most lasted at least an hour, and the President attended the vast majority of them. Approximately 60 of these were DNC-sponsored coffees, 92 percent of the guests at which were major Democratic Party contributors. These guests made contributions during the 1996 election cycle of $26.4 million, an average contribution of over $54,000 per person, with one-third of their total donations, some $7.7 million, given within a month of the donor’s attendance at a White House coffee. ”

“ As Sullivan told Huang, this training session was designed to ensure that Huang knew laws restricting contributions from foreign nationals. Sandler, however, denied that he was ever asked to provide such training.
However, the DNC never undertook the special “training” sessions for Huang that Sullivan had recommended. Making matters worse, despite its grave concerns about Huang, the DNC agreed to compensate him with an “unprecedented” incentive bonus plan clearly designed to encourage even more aggressive fundraising. ”