DNC Donors Contacted Commerce Appointee

On the afternoon of Oct. 18, 1994, a prominent Thai business consultant dropped by the Department of Commerce for a meeting with John Huang, then a principal deputy assistant secretary for international economic policy.

The businesswoman, Pauline Kanchanalak, said that she and Huang were acquaintances and that they discussed a personal matter. But two days later, records show, Kanchanalak donated $32,500 to the Democratic National Committee.

On Dec. 21, 1994, a Taiwanese American entrepreneur visiting the nation’s capital from Torrance, Calif., placed a telephone call to Huang at the Commerce Department.

The next day, the businessman, Johnny Chien Chuen Chung, who acquaintances say has a penchant for flashing photos of himself with President Clinton, contributed $40,000 to the committee.

Kanchanalak and Chung were among a small number of donors who gave large sums of money to the Democratic Party shortly after talking to Huang at the Commerce Department, according to a computer-assisted study of Huang’s office logs and federal election records.

The available documents on Huang’s activities at the Commerce Department provide only a glimpse of his contacts during the time he worked in the mid-level administration post from the summer of 1994 until December 1995. The logs listing the bulk of his office telephone calls are still under wraps at the department.

But the small sampling of records released so far through the Freedom of Information Act underscores the growing questions surrounding the 51-year-old former bureaucrat, who is now at the center of a controversy over the presence of foreign money in this year’s national elections. These include how Huang raised huge--and occasionally illegal--contributions from the Asian American community and whether he blended politics, public policy and private interests while doing so.

In his position this year as a $60,000-per-year vice chairman of the Democratic committee charged with recruiting Asian American donors, Huang’s money-raising role has been both official and highly successful. He is credited with bringing in a minimum of $2.5 million for the DNC.

But records indicate that, before Huang switched to the political committee from his position at Commerce, substantial sums were flowing into Democratic coffers from wealthy donors with whom he had kept in touch. Federal law prohibits government employees from soliciting or receiving political contributions of any kind.

In all, the names of nearly two dozen callers to Huang’s office at Commerce appear in federal election records as Democratic contributors, according to an analysis by the independent Campaign Study Group. The Commerce documents also show numerous contacts between DNC personnel and Huang, including calls from top Democratic fund-raisers.

In some cases, committee staff members called Huang at his Commerce office to ask for referrals for party fund-raising events, said DNC spokeswoman Amy Weiss Tobe.

A Legal Wall

The legal wall separating political fund-raising and government employment is intended in part to prevent the undue influence of financial interests on federal actions. In the case of Kanchanalak and her donation, questions about this issue could arise.

Kanchanalak confirmed in an interview that she told Huang in a series of phone calls about problems she was having arranging a White House meeting and ceremony for a U.S.-Thai business council that she helped organize. Government records and interviews show that Huang wrote a memo pressing for the presidential meeting. The session was later approved before the $32,500 check was sent to the political committee. Kanchanalak insisted that Huang’s help and the White House event were in no way connected to the political contributions.

“The incidents took place in such a way that this has the appearance of impropriety or something sinister,” Kanchanalak said from Bangkok. “But I can assure you there is no impropriety.”

Money From Relative

DNC records show that the party received $213,800 from Kanchanalak and her business. Kanchanalak said that the money actually came from a wealthy relative of hers who is a Thai citizen and a permanent U.S. resident. Permanent residents can legally donate to U.S. campaigns.

On Wednesday, Tobe said that the DNC had just learned of Kanchanalak’s contention that the source of the money was someone else. “We are treating this new information very seriously,” she said. “We are looking into it immediately.”

Misrepresenting the identity of a donor is a violation of federal election statutes.

John C. Keeney Jr., Huang’s attorney, declined to comment for this story. Huang testified last month at a hearing on another matter that he never raised political funds while employed at Commerce.

Investigators are trying to determine whether Huang was a leading player in a major, illegal fund-raising scheme, as some Republican critics have suggested, or part of an aggressive Democratic effort that failed to screen its large donors carefully enough in the heat of a national campaign.

Huang was suspended from his fund-raising duties in September pending an investigation by the Federal Election Commission and an internal review by the DNC. Since then, the Justice Department and various congressional committees have launched independent inquiries.

The DNC already has had to return about $700,000 in donations that were solicited by Huang and linked to improper foreign sources.

This week, the Commerce Department turned over to its inspector general complete records of Huang’s incoming and outgoing phone calls. The department said that those logs “appear to present questions” concerning Huang’s conduct at the agency. A department spokeswoman declined to describe the nature of the questions but one administration official suggested that they could involve improper political activity.

Because of the inspector general’s review, Commerce officials said, the department would no longer release those records to the news media under the federal Freedom of Information Act, as earlier promised. They also refused to comment about Huang, citing the ongoing inspector general review.

The records released thus far are limited to Huang’s daily appointment calendars and telephone messages left by callers to his office when he was away or unavailable. Though incomplete, the documents show parallels between Huang’s contacts in government and Democratic donors.

In the case of Chung, he continued to make substantial contributions to the Democrats after Huang left Commerce to become a party fund-raiser. Since late 1994, Chung donated $275,000.

The large donations by Chung and his firm put him in a league that includes major multinational corporations and titans of Hollywood. For example, Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. has given the Democratic Party $261,835 since 1991 and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. has donated $266,000.

Chung did not return calls to his office or respond to questions faxed to him.

Irene Wu, the general manager for Chung’s company, Automated Intelligent Systems Inc. of Torrance, said that Chung’s contacts with Huang at Commerce and his subsequent contributions were in no way related.

In another case, Mi Ryu Ahn, president of Pan Metal Corp. in Los Angeles and the daughter of the late South Korean copper mogul Yu Chan-Ho, called Huang at his Commerce office on June 5 of last year.

Ten days later, Ahn contributed $10,000 to the DNC. Ahn gave an additional $2,500 in September.

Kanchanalak said she first met Huang in the early 1990s in Los Angeles at an Asian American community outreach event. At the time, Huang, of Glendale, was the top U.S. executive for the Lippo Group, a $12-billion conglomerate based in Indonesia.

Kanchanalak is president of a Washington business consulting firm called Ban Chang International (USA). In 1994, Kanchanalak helped set up a business council to promote private-sector cooperation between Thailand and the United States.

The White House had expressed support for the U.S.-Thailand Business Council and tentatively agreed to host the group’s inaugural ceremony in October 1994, including a private meeting between the president and Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai. But other administration officials balked, saying that such a gesture would be better reserved for larger markets.

“Everything was falling apart,” Kanchanalak said.

Phone Records

Commerce phone records show that Kanchanalak called Huang at least three times during the month before the scheduled White House event.

“All he told me was to calm down and everything would be OK,” Kanchanalak said. “He did not offer to help at all.”

On Sept. 30, 1994--the same day he received a phone message from Kanchanalak, records show, Huang wrote a memo urging then-Assistant Undersecretary David Rothkopf to support the business council.

“My personal observation is that President Clinton will be very upset if he finds out what’s going on behind the scene,” Huang wrote. “It could really damage his personal relationship between him and Prime Minister Chuan; and the relationship between U.S. and Thailand if Prime Minister of Thailand cancels his visit to the U.S.”

The Commerce Department declined to say what happened next, but on Oct. 6 the White House ceremony took place. After a 30-minute meeting, Clinton and the prime minister greeted a group of Thai and American business leaders in the Roosevelt Room and expressed their strong support for strengthening bilateral business ties.

On Oct. 18, Kanchanalak went to Huang’s office for a personal visit. She said that neither the trade council nor political donations came up.

Kanchanalak could not explain why federal election records list her and her business giving $213,800 to the Democrats since 1993, including $32,500 received Oct. 20, when the money actually came from her affluent relative. “I have no idea at all. . . . It is horrifying for me because I have a business.”

She said it is possible that the relative, who she requested remain anonymous, may have donated to help Kanchanalak’s business interests in Washington.

Huang’s office records relating to Torrance’s Chung also show a short span between calls received at Commerce and checks received at the DNC.

On Dec. 19 and Dec. 21, 1994, the message slips show, Huang received telephone calls from the visiting businessman. On Dec. 22, Chung contributed $40,000, his second such donation that month.

Wu, the general manager for Chung’s company, said that Chung may have called Huang to set up a meeting with then-Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown about a trade mission to China.

On March 7 and 8, 1995, Huang received messages to call Chung at a Washington hotel. That same week, Chung and friends were present when Clinton delivered his weekly radio address in the White House. Chung presented Clinton with a heart-shaped piece of carved jade. On March 17, Chung gave $50,000 to the Democratic Party.

The calls to Huang were “probably to set up an appointment with someone in the Commerce Department,” Wu said. He said that Huang did not solicit any of Chung’s donations.

Chung, a 41-year-old former engineering student who reportedly was struggling just a few years ago to get his company off the ground, has emerged as a seemingly unlikely source of such large contributions. Records show that, the year before the large donations began, federal bankruptcy officials were still sorting out final details of the financial collapse of his previous company.

Asked the source of the nearly $300,000 in donations by Chung and his firm, attorney George Chuang said: “I can’t comment on that.”

Huang met Ahn in 1992, when he was in private business and raising money as a Democratic volunteer. She began contributing to the DNC through him, according to Democratic sources.

Last year, Ahn left telephone messages for Huang on at least five occasions when he was at Commerce, including twice on May 26 and once on June 5. Ten days later she gave the Democrats $10,000.

Ahn, who could not be reached for comment, shuns publicity, according to several Korean American sources who know her. Ahn was appointed by then-U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor to the Insurance and Services Trade Advisory Committee in October 1995.

Ahn’s Pan Metal Corp. is one of three U.S. subsidiaries of the Poongsan Group, which has a monopoly on bullet manufacturing in South Korea and exports bullets, cartridges and grenade launchers all over the world, including to the United States.

Times staff writers Rich Connell and Connie Kang in Los Angeles and Alan C. Miller in Washington contributed to this story.

Call-Donation Timeline

Partial records released to date show that nearly two dozen contributors to the Democratic National Committee called John Huang while he was a top official at the Commerce Department from July 1994 to December 1995 and barred from soliciting political contributions. The calls of three contributors illustrate the timing between the calls and the donations.

Shading (**) indicates donation came within three week of call of meeting.

Pauline Kanchanalak, Ban Chang International, Washington

*--*

DATE OF CALL DATE OF DONATION TO DNC AMOUNT Oct. 18, 1993 $300* Sept., 7, 1994 Oct. 22, 1993 $1,000 Sept. 26, 1994 March 22, 1994 $15,000 Sept. 30, 1994 April 22, 1994 $15,000 **Oct. 18, 1994 (meeting) Oct. 20, 1994 $32,500 17 in 1995 Feb. 29, 1996 $10,000 June 6, 1996 $5,000 June 19, 1996 $85,000 July 10, 1996 $50,000

*--*

****

Johnny Chung, Automated Intelligent System Inc., Torrance

*--*

DATE OF CALL DATE OF DONATION TO DNC AMOUNT Aug. 9, 1994 $1,000* Aug. 9, 1994 $10,000* **Dec. 19, 1994 Dec. 6, 1994 $40,000* **Dec. 21, 1994 Dec. 22, 1994 $40,000* **March 7, 1995 March 17, 1995 $50,000 **March 8, 1995 April 12, 1995 $125,000 June 14, 1996 $20,000

*--*

****

Mi Ryu Ann, Pan Metal Corp., Los Angeles

*--*

DATE OF CALL DATE OF DONATION TO DNC AMOUNT **May 26, 1995 (twice) June 15, 1995 $10,000 **June 5, 1995 Sept. 30, 1996 $2,500 July 15, 1995 Aug. 18, 1995

*--*

* donation came from corporation, not the individual

Sources: Federal Election Commission records, Commerce Department telephone logs and appointment calendars

Researched by D’JAMILA-FITZGERALD / Los Angeles Times