Kim Assails Theft of Memo on Campaign Probe

Embattled U.S. Rep. Jay Kim (R-Diamond Bar) said Friday that he wants to “punch in the nose” whoever stole a sensitive memo from his Washington office that briefed him on a federal investigation into alleged campaign finance irregularities.

Kim said he did not know the 10-month-old, 12-page memo from his attorney was missing until excerpts were published this week.

“My question is, who stole it, how could it happen?” Kim said at the first news conference he has held since being elected to Congress in 1992.

“It is a strange, bizarre story, that somebody broke into [a] congressional office, stole a confidential memo, a privileged memo, protected under law,” Kim said.

Kim, whose 41st District includes parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties, has been under federal inquiry since 1993 because of allegations of misuse of funds by his 1992 campaign committee. The investigation began after The Times reported that he secretly used about $485,000 from his engineering corporation to finance his 1992 campaign. JayKim Engineers Inc. provided the campaign with free rent, staff and office supplies, despite a prohibition on corporate contributions to federal campaigns, according to internal company records and checks signed by Kim and obtained by The Times.

The congressman said he would ask Atty. Gen. Janet Reno--whose investigators are probing his campaign finances--to dedicate “just a fraction of the resources [already] committed to my activities” to identify the thief.

U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Dan Nichols said Kim’s office complained of the theft “of personal papers” Thursday. A uniformed officer took the report and referred it to the department’s criminal investigations division, he said.

Kim’s attorney, Ted Duffy, instructed Kim not to address any questions at Friday’s news conference about the federal grand jury investigation into his campaign finances or to discuss the contents of the memo that Duffy wrote to the congressman after he had met with federal investigators.

In a statement distributed to reporters, however, Kim said the theft of the memo was obvious because in an Orange County Register story published Tuesday, “you can read excerpts of the stolen memo--a personal, privileged communication to me from my attorney.”

Kim said he received the April 4 memo at his Diamond Bar home, read it briefly on an airplane flight to Washington, read it again at his office there and filed it in a desk drawer. He said he does not lock his desk or the door between his inner office and the reception area of his congressional office.

“I have no idea” who stole the memo, he said. “I wish I knew who it was. I’d punch his nose.”

He suggested that the theft was politically motivated. “This is nothing new,” he said. “I have been attacked, attacked, attacked.” Hyundai Motor America and Korean Airlines have admitted funneling $9,000 to Kim’s campaign through employees, and were fined $600,000 and $250,000, respectively.

Through spokesmen, Kim has maintained his innocence, contending that he did not know some of the campaign contributions were illegal and promising to cooperate with investigators.