1996 United States campaign finance controversy
While questions regarding the U.S. Democratic Party's fundraising activities first arose over a Los Angeles Times article published on September 21, 1996,[1] China's role in the affair first gained public attention when Bob Woodward and Brian Duffy of The Washington Post published a story stating that a United States Department of Justice investigation into the fundraising activities had uncovered evidence that agents of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before the 1996 presidential campaign.
According to the U.S. Senate report, Chinese officials eventually developed a set of proposals to promote their interests with the United States government and to improve China's image with the American people.
U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher had previously assured his Chinese counterpart Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen that granting a visa would be "inconsistent with [the United States'] unofficial relationship [with Taiwan]"[3] and the Clinton Administration's acquiescence to the Congressional resolutions led China to conclude that the influence of Congress over foreign policy was more significant than it had previously determined.
Chung told federal investigators that $35,000 of the money he donated came from Liu Chaoying and, in turn, China's military intelligence.
[14] Chung was eventually sentenced to five years' probation and community service following an agreement to plea guilty to bank fraud, tax evasion, and two misdemeanor counts of conspiring to violate election law.
Born in 1945 in Nanping, Fujian, Huang and his father fled to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War before he eventually emigrated to the United States in 1969.
[18] Immediately prior to joining the DNC, Huang worked in President Clinton's Commerce Department as deputy assistant secretary for international economic affairs.
[19] Huang eventually pleaded guilty to conspiring to reimburse Lippo Group employees' campaign contributions with corporate or foreign funds.
[15] An unclassified U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs report issued in 1998 stated that both James Riady and his father Mochtar had "had a long-term relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency."
According to journalist Bob Woodward, details of the relationship came from highly classified intelligence information supplied to the committee by both the CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
[21] The most well-known of John Huang's fund-raisers involved Vice President Al Gore, Maria Hsia, and the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in California.
Taiwan-born Maria Hsia (pronounced "Shya"), a long time fund raiser for Al Gore, California immigration consultant, and business associate of John Huang and James Riady since 1988, facilitated $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions through her efforts at Hsi Lai Temple, a Chinese Buddhist temple associated with Taiwan in Hacienda Heights, California.
[24] Two other Buddhist nuns admitted destroying lists of donors and other documents related to the controversy because they felt the information would embarrass the temple.
[26]In response, the U.S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee that investigated the controversy said: The Vice President's staff ... knew that the temple event was a fundraiser.
The White House staff repeatedly referred to the event as a 'fundraiser' in internal correspondence, and assigned to it a 'ticket price' of '1,000–5,000 [dollars per] head'.
[27]John Huang's memo to Vice President Gore's assistant Kimberly Tilley specifically mentioned that the temple meeting was a fundraising event.
[32] Attorney General Janet Reno and the directors of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) told members of the Senate committee they had credible intelligence information indicating Sioeng acted on behalf of China.
It expanded its internal investigation to include activities related to President Bill Clinton's legal defense fund in December 1996.
[43] President Clinton announced in February 1997 that he thought there should be a "vigorous" and "thorough" investigation into reports that the People's Republic of China tried to direct financial contributions from overseas sources to the Democratic National Committee.
According to The Washington Post, Senator Fred Thompson (a Republican from Tennessee) and chairman of the committee investigating the fundraising controversy, said he believed the Chinese plan targeted presidential and congressional elections while Democratic Senators Joe Lieberman and John Glenn said they believed the evidence showed the Chinese targeted only congressional elections.
The Committee, chaired by Republican Fred Thompson, adopted a Republican-written final report (the Wikisource referenced and appearing herein) on a straight party-line vote, 8 in favor and 7 opposing, in March 1998.
"[48] Considerable acrimony was displayed during the hearings between Thompson and the ranking minority member, Democrat John Glenn, with the public disagreements between the two leaders reaching a level seldom seen in recent years in Congressional committees.
[49] A House investigation, headed by Indiana Republican Dan Burton focused on allegations of campaign finance abuse, including the contributions channeled through Chung, Huang, and Trie.
"[53] Attorney General Janet Reno said in November 1997 that "It is difficult to imagine a more compelling situation for appointing an independent counsel.
"[54] In July 1998, the Justice Department's campaign finance task force head, Charles La Bella, sent a report to Janet Reno also recommending she seek an independent counsel to investigate alleged fundraising abuses by Democratic party officials.
[56] Robert Conrad, Jr., who later became head of the task force, called on Reno in Spring 2000 to appoint an independent counsel to look into the fundraising practices of Vice President Gore.
The same poll found that 47 percent of Americans believed a quid pro quo existed between the Clinton administration and the PRC government.
[59] In 1997 Bob Barr and eighteen other Republicans signed a resolution to impeach Bill Clinton for alleged campaign finance law violations and obstruction of congressional investigations.
[61] In addition to partisan complaints from Republicans, columnists Charles Krauthammer, William Safire, and Morton Kondracke, as well as a number of FBI agents, suggested the investigations into the fundraising controversies were willfully impeded.
The four FBI agents also said that Ingersoll prevented them from executing search warrants to stop destruction of evidence and micromanaged the case beyond all reason.
