No Money Offered to Clinton Aide in Taiwan, Witness Says

A second witness to a 1995 meeting between a top official of the ruling Kuomintang Party and Mark Middleton, a former White House staffer, says he doesn’t remember an alleged offer of a $15-million donation to President Clinton’s campaign.

But the Harvard-educated lawyer, Fred K. Li, said Middleton, 34, presented himself as a political fund-raiser close to the White House.

“According to my recollection,” Li said in a statement issued late Saturday, “although Mr. Middleton brought up his experience of having raised funds for candidates in the past, no request or recommendations concerning ‘political contributions’ were brought up in the conversation.”

Li added that he didn’t hear all of the conversation because he received several calls on his mobile phone during the meeting.

Li’s carefully worded account partly corroborates an earlier description of events by another witness, political consultant C.P. Chen, but doesn’t provide any new evidence that Kuomintang official Liu Tai-ying offered a $15-million donation, as Chen alleged.

Both Middleton and Liu, the chief financial manager of the Kuomintang Party, have confirmed the meeting but strongly deny any donation pledge took place. Such a contribution would be illegal under U.S. law, which prohibits candidates from accepting funds from foreign residents or governments.

Li, who is also a former National Assembly deputy, said he accompanied Middleton to meet “outstanding business leaders” in Taiwan last year. The Aug. 1 meeting led to a secret tete-a-tete between Clinton and Liu in San Francisco on Sept. 22, 1995.

Liu said last week that he and the president discussed opening a “direct channel of communication” in the awkward U.S.-Taiwan relationship, and insisted “I didn’t give a single penny” to the Democratic National Committee.

Middleton also released a statement last week denying he was attempting to raise funds for the DNC or for any candidates. But others Middleton met in Taipei say he passed out a White House name card and told them he was trying to solicit funds.

In a meeting later that day with Lin Yang-kang, an independent Taiwanese presidential candidate, Middleton boasted of his close connection to Clinton and said he was trying to raise funds for Clinton’s campaign, according to Lin Yu-fang, an advisor to Lin Yang-kang who interpreted at the meeting.

* GORE’S TEMPLE VISIT

Fund-raising was an explicit function of Democratic event, principals say. A21