Democrats Reimburse Temple for Fund-Raiser

The Democratic Party scrambled Friday to contain a spreading scandal, reimbursing a Southern California Buddhist temple $15,000 for hosting a campaign fund-raising event and asking federal election officials for a swift investigation of controversial donations to the party.

The Democratic National Committee also announced that embattled fund-raiser John Huang, hugely successful in soliciting money for the Democrats’ national campaign, was being removed from his fund-raising duties and asked to respond to numerous questions that have arisen about major contributions that he helped obtain from the Asian American community.

At the same time, the Commerce Department, where Huang worked before joining the DNC, acknowledged that it is trying to determine whether Huang violated federal law by engaging in political fund-raising before he left his government job.

Huang, who had responded to media questions previously only through a DNC spokeswoman, announced that he would no longer answer any press questions.

The moves came as the White House urged DNC officials to take action before the growing issue damages the president’s otherwise smooth-running campaign. The controversial donations have become a daily subject for the rhetoric of Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and a growing cast of GOP lawmakers and candidates.

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said that Clinton and Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta told Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, the Democrats’ national chairman, Friday: “If there’s a problem, let’s fix it.”

McCurry said that Dodd concluded: “If we did an internal review, the Republicans would immediately scream, ‘Cover up.’ Whatever we put out, everyone would immediately say was inadequate.”

McCurry said that the White House would like to see the Federal Election Commission complete its assessment by election day, Nov. 5, but acknowledged that is unlikely.

In a letter delivered Friday, DNC General Counsel Joseph E. Sandler asked the FEC to open an inquiry into a series of contributions made in the last two years that have been the focus of news accounts in recent weeks.

The DNC did not specify which matters should be reviewed but said it was referring to those raised in news accounts and columns it provided to the commission.

These included stories on $140,000 raised at the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple in Hacienda Heights, Calif., in April and large contributions from individuals and companies associated with the Lippo Group, an Indonesian conglomerate with ties to Clinton; $450,000 in donations from an Indonesian man and wife with ties to Lippo who gave much of the money after leaving the United States and two illegal contributions totaling $260,000 from a South Korean company and its chairman that subsequently were returned.

In addition to seeking the outside review of these and other donations, DNC spokeswoman Amy Weiss Tobe said that the party will “continue to review any contribution where there’s credible evidence of illegality.”

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Sources familiar with operations of the FEC said there is no chance that the bipartisan agency, whose investigations tend to take months or even years, could complete such an examination in less than three weeks. “If the commission decided to pursue this matter, it could involve a complicated investigation,” said FEC spokesman Ian Stirton. “It takes time.”

Among the most mysterious and potentially damaging matters is the April 29 fund-raiser at the Hsi Lai temple, where questions have surfaced about whether those listed by the DNC as donors gave their own money. Huang was among the organizers of the event, which was attended by Vice President Al Gore. Gore’s aides said he was not aware that money was being collected at the temple for the party.

Campaigning in Baton Rouge, La., Gore responded in a radio interview to the continuing furor over the temple fund-raiser. “The DNC set up the event,” he said. “If there was anything untoward about the event, the DNC will find out and make it right.”

The DNC, which acknowledged earlier this week that it was improper to conduct a political fund-raiser at a religious institution, said it had sent a $15,000 check to the temple to cover the costs associated with putting on the gathering, which is considered an in-kind contribution under federal election law.

“We don’t accept gifts or in-kind contributions from religious institutions,” Tobe said.

The party is also looking into a published report that a woman at the event was handed $5,000 in cash by someone who asked her to pass the money on to the party by writing a check, which she did. It is illegal, and possibly criminal, to channel a contribution through a third party to conceal the source.

Even as party officials sought to resolve those issues, new questions arose in Los Angeles about the event.

Though the DNC initially insisted that all of the donors had been confirmed as legal residents eligible to make contributions, an attorney for the temple said that the status of one donor listed at the temple address is uncertain.

“They’re not sure on one,” said Peter Kelly, who added that monks at the facility are gathering information about several donors. It appears that all of those who listed the temple address were monks, nuns or members living on the compound grounds, he said.

There were also conflicting accounts about who was responsible for lining up donors and verifying that their contributions were proper. One Washington source familiar with the event said that Maria L. Hsia, a prominent Democratic fund-raiser and temple spokesperson who helped organize the event, was responsible for checking the donors.

But Kelly, who attended the event and who also is representing Hsia, said that she had led him to understand that the fund-raiser “was basically a Huang show. It was my distinct impression that it was a Huang event and she helped out with a few phone calls.”

Kelly also said that Hsia could not recognize the English transliteration of several donors’ names who listed the temple address on reports filed with the FEC.

Required information on employers and occupations is missing from FEC reports on many of the donors at the April 29 event.

Questions also were raised about a $5,000 contribution made the same day by Jou Shen, who gave his address as that of a Buddhist temple in Maywood, Calif. But Penny Wong, an administrative volunteer familiar with that temple’s membership rolls, said there was no member or monk by that name associated with the facility. And members “are not supposed to use” the temple address, she said.

At the Commerce Department, the general counsel is examining whether Huang violated a law that generally prohibits federal employees from soliciting or accepting political contributions.

Huang said earlier this week that the matter arose from a bureaucratic problem that occurred after he left his post as deputy assistant secretary for international economic policy on Dec. 3 and began his new job as vice chairman of the DNC’s national finance committee the next day.

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Huang said, through Tobe, that he had cleaned out his desk and bade his colleagues farewell at Commerce only to learn later that he had failed to fill out all of the paperwork necessary to complete his resignation. As a result, his last day at Commerce was officially Jan. 17.

On Friday, however, Tobe said of Huang: “He’s no longer answering questions.”

The other issues under most intense scrutiny include the generous donations from Arief and Soraya Wiriadinata, who have given as much as $320,000 to the DNC since returning to their native Indonesia about nine months ago. The couple has a green card granting them legal residency status--which has been the sole test for contributing under the law--but Republicans insisted that they gave up their legal right to donate when they left the United States, raising a legal question that the FEC says it has never addressed.

The two contributions that the DNC previously has returned came from a South Korean company whose American subsidiary had yet to generate the funds in the United States, as required by law, and the firm’s chairman, John K. H. Lee, who is not a legal U.S. resident.

Several political analysts said that, despite the intense media attention devoted to Huang’s fund-raising operation, the flap appears to be doing little damage to Clinton’s candidacy. They attributed this largely to the complexity of the facts and issues involved and to Dole’s inability to frame the issue in an effective way.

“This is like another one of those difficulties facing the White House in that it is very difficult to translate to the American public,” said Catherine Rudder, executive director of the American Political Science Assn.

“Unless something much more substantive comes out, I don’t think it’s going to have much impact.”

Times staff writers Rich Connell in Los Angeles, Janet Hook and John M. Broder in Washington and Gebe Martinez in Baton Rouge, La., contributed to this story.