Alleged Kim Campaign Plot Outlined

A scheme by South Korean-based corporations to funnel illegal campaign contributions to Rep. Jay C. Kim was hatched at a dinner meeting in Koreatown in the summer of 1992, according to a government document.

Although the Korean-born Kim was the featured speaker at the July 16, 1992, dinner gathering of the Korea Traders Club, the document does not specifically accuse him of taking part in any plot.

But it does outline for the first time the circumstances under which American subsidiaries of major Korea companies allegedly conspired to help bankroll Kim’s first campaign for Congress.

An account of the meeting and a subsequent letter to all Korea Traders Club members is contained in a plea agreement between the government and Daewoo International (America) Corp., the latest Korean-based corporation to plead guilty to federal campaign fraud charges.

As part of its plea Monday, Daewoo agreed to pay $200,000 in fines and cooperate with the FBI’s continuing investigation of Kim’s campaign fund-raising efforts.

Since December, the government has assessed fines totaling $1.2 million against Daewoo and three other Korean companies--Korean Air, Samsung America and Hyundai Motors--that admitted using employees as conduits for corporate donations to Kim.

All were members of the Korea Traders Club, a loose association of South Korean companies doing business in the United States.

According to the government document, Korea Traders Club members “devised a plan at the meeting by which the corporations and foreign nationals that were members of the club would make corporate and foreign-national contributions to the Kim campaign in a manner that would prevent them from being detected by U.S. government authorities.”

Federal law prohibits corporate campaign donations as well as contributions made on behalf of a third party and contributions from foreign nationals.

Kim, who is running for his third term in a heavily Republican district in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties, was not immediately available for comment about the Korea Traders Club meeting, but his office said he might issue a statement today.

The dinner meeting, held at the Kangnam Restaurant in the Koreatown section of Los Angeles, was attended by executives from 25 to 30 companies and covered by a reporter for the Korea Times newspaper.

According to her article, the meeting was called to discuss plans to raise $100,000 for Kim’s campaign, and the participants agreed to support Kim “by all lawful means.”

But the government contends otherwise.

A letter sent out to club members after the meeting over the name of its chairman, Byung Joon Lee, chief executive of Pusan Pipe America in Sante Fe Springs, summarized the scheme to funnel illegal contributions to Kim’s campaign committee, according to the plea agreement.

“The plan provided for the member companies to make their contributions to the Kim campaign through and under the names of individual United States citizens or permanent residents,” the document said. “Those employee conduits, who would appear to be making legal contributions, would be reimbursed by the respective member companies.”

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lee said he had nothing to do with the letter, although his name appeared as the author.

He said it was written by another club official and mailed to members without his knowledge while he was out of the country.

As for the dinner meeting, he maintained that no illegal campaign contributions were solicited.

He said he called the meeting because the Korean community was still reeling from the effects of the Los Angeles riots, aggravating its sense of political isolation.

Into that vacuum, he said, appeared Kim, who was vying to become the first Korean American elected to Congress, evoking pride among the 250,000 Korean Americans in Southern California.

A fund-raising drive was launched in the Korean community, Lee said, but by the summer of 1992 it appeared that the effort had fallen far short of expectations.

To make matters worse, Lee said, the Chinese American community was contributing far more to Kim’s campaign than his fellow Korean Americans.

“It was a matter of saving face” and a desire “to get closer to the Korean community,” said Lee, that prompted him to call the dinner meeting of the Korea Traders Club.

“There was nothing secretive about it. We even invited a reporter from the Korea Times, and she stayed to the end.”

Lee, a naturalized citizen, has not been charged in the case, but he has hired a criminal defense lawyer, fearing he could be indicted.

“They think I’m the one who gave this bad idea at the meeting,” he added. “It was not me. I emphasized that we should do things by legal means.”

Among the executives attending the meeting was Wan Suk Oh, senior vice president of Daewoo, who was described in the plea agreement as the person who steered the company’s illicit $5,000 contribution to Kim through three employees.

In return for the plea, the government agreed to forgo any criminal action against present or former Daewoo employees, with the exception of Oh.