Ex-Clinton Aide Arranged for Taiwan Connection

Mark E. Middleton, a little-known, 34-year-old ex-White House aide from Arkansas, was responsible for arranging a controversial encounter between President Clinton and Liu Tai-ying, the chief financial manager of Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang Party, in September 1995, officials said Tuesday.

Middleton’s role came to light as White House officials acknowledged for the first time that the president had a brief, unscheduled meeting with Liu at a crucial juncture in U.S.-Taiwan relations.

The encounter between Clinton and Liu followed a meeting a month before between Middleton and Liu, according to a source who said he witnessed the talks. At the meeting, Liu offered to contribute $15 million from the Taiwanese ruling party to the president’s reelection campaign, according to the source, a Taiwan political consultant who requested anonymity.

Liu has denied offering $15 million, and there is no record that Liu or the Kuomintang Party made a contribution. Such a donation would be illegal under U.S. election law, which prohibits candidates from accepting contributions from foreign residents or foreign governments.

The allegation that Liu made the offer first surfaced last weekend in an investigative article published in a Hong Kong newsmagazine. It has since become a major news story in Taiwan, and Liu was swarmed by reporters today in Taipei after the weekly meeting of the Kuomingtang, where he again vigorously denied the allegation. “Everybody knows it is illegal,” he said. “I am not so stupid to do something like that. I didn’t give even a single copper coin.”

Mark D. Fabiani, a White House lawyer and presidential spokesman, said the president “shook hands” with Liu at a Democratic Party fund-raiser in San Francisco in September 1995. But Fabiani said there is “no indication” the two men held a private meeting to discuss policy.

Middleton escorted Liu to the fund-raising event, an American official said. Records of the event yield no evidence that Liu contributed any money to gain entrance to the affair, as is the custom at fund-raisers. Middleton was a fund-raiser for Clinton’s 1992 presidential drive, but not for the current campaign, according to the Democratic National Committee.

Middleton and Liu met in Taipei in August 1995, and Middleton told Liu that he had “a direct channel” to the White House, said the source who attended the meeting. According to the source, Liu then offered to make a campaign donation of $15 million, a sum that apparently startled Middleton.

Reports of the meetings added to a growing controversy over the Democratic Party’s Asian fund-raising Tuesday. Republicans called for the appointment of an independent counsel to determine whether the Clinton campaign accepted illegal foreign money.

The meeting between Liu and Clinton occurred at a particularly tense time in the balancing act that American administrations are forced to play in their relations with Taiwan and mainland China. As Taiwan prepared for its first presidential elections in March 1996, U.S. officials were fearful that China might be provoked to attack Taiwan.

Taiwan, which does not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States, has long sought broader recognition from Washington. Denied access to U.S. officials through normal forums, it has sought to bring its case through whatever channels are available to it. That has included extensive commercial ties with U.S. firms, sponsored trips to Taiwan for key U.S. legislators and their staffs and other sophisticated promotional efforts. Around the time of the Clinton-Liu meeting, the government in Taipei had just signed a $4.5-million contract with a Washington lobbying firm, Cassidy & Associates, to seek a change in U.S. policy.

Middleton could not be reached for comment Tuesday. He did not respond to numerous messages left at the office where his international consulting business is headquartered on Pennsylvania Avenue, near the White House.

As Taiwan sources tell the story, Middleton visited Taipei for the first time as a private businessman in April 1995, shortly after leaving the White House, where he had been deputy to top White House advisor Thomas “Mack” McLarty until February of that year. He appeared eager to make use of the contacts he had made during his time at the White House.

“I’m going to Asia, then the Middle East and beyond,” he told an Arkansas business publication before departing on his trip. “I’m going out to meet people I have built relationships with.”

The Taiwan consultant, who met Middleton on his first visit to Taipei, said the young Arkansan was still using his White House business card on that occasion, even though he was no longer a presidential aide. The source showed a card embossed with a gilded eagle which said, “Mark E. Middleton, special assistant to the president and deputy to the White House counselor.”

Middleton was accompanied on his trips to Taipei by Charlie Trie, a Taiwan native who had previously run a Chinese restaurant in Little Rock, Ark., that was frequented in the 1980s by then-Gov. Clinton. Middleton introduced Trie as “our best Asia expert,” a source said.

Trie could not be reached for comment Tuesday about the meetings, and his family members said they believed he was visiting Hong Kong.

Middleton’s first venture to Taiwan was apparently a disappointment because he went home without meeting the people he was seeking. When he showed up the second time in August, the Taiwan source said, he had already managed to arrange a meeting with Liu.

It was at that point, according to the source, that Liu abruptly offered $15 million, an allegation that Liu has denied. The source said Liu promised to reconfirm the offer when Middleton returned to Taipei later that month, but the follow-up meeting was canceled.

Middleton, a native of Bryant, Ark., holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Arkansas. He also studied for a year at the London School of Economics. Before joining the Clinton campaign as a Southern fund-raiser in 1992, he worked for a Little Rock law firm. John Selig, a partner at the firm, remembers Middleton only as “a bright young lawyer.”

Fritz reported from Washington and Tempest from Taiwan.