Records Show Donor’s Access to White House

President Clinton met with a Thai businesswoman and five associates at the White House one day before she made an $85,000 campaign contribution that the Democratic Party later returned after determining that it was improper, according to White House and Democratic officials and campaign records.

A senior White House official said Thursday that no money was solicited at the Executive Mansion meeting last June 18 between Clinton, businesswoman Pauline Kanchanalak and 11 others.

But the meeting, arranged by a fund-raising official for the Democratic National Committee, nonetheless draws the president more closely to Kanchanalak than the administration had reported previously and involves him more directly in the joint efforts of the committee and the administration to raise money by courting large donors with strong overseas connections.

The committee received a total of $253,000 from Kanchanalak during the run-up to Clinton’s reelection campaign. The party returned the entire amount last month because party officials said that Kanchanalak withheld the true source of the funds.

All told, Kanchanalak has visited the White House at least 26 times since Clinton’s 1992 election, attending 10 events when the president was present and two with Vice President Al Gore, according to Secret Service records made available Thursday by the administration.

She was invited to dinner twice, coffee twice and lunch once, according to the documents.

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The five associates who accompanied Kanchanalak to the June 18 meeting included three Thai businessmen. Although there is no record that the Thai businessmen also made campaign donations, such White House sessions were staged for supporters and donors to Clinton’s reelection campaign and to the Democratic Party, an administration official said. Party officials described them as informal “coffees.”

The White House provided no explanation of why Kanchanalak was permitted to bring the three businessmen to the session, which lasted less than an hour. The official said that the White House has not been able to establish that the guests were legally eligible to contribute to a U.S. election campaign.

Kanchanalak’s contributions already have proved embarrassing to the White House. The Democratic National Committee returned the money she had given after she told The Times that the funds came from her wealthy mother-in-law who lives in Virginia, and that the committee had listed her as the donor by mistake. She began contributing in 1994.

Duangnet Kronenberg, a businesswomen associate of Kanchanalak who did not attend the session, also contributed $50,000 to the committee a day after the White House meeting. Her money has not been returned.

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Kanchanalak heads a successful consulting firm, Ban Chang International, which matches companies in Thailand with joint-venture partners in the United States. She also helped organize the U.S.-Thai Business Council to promote private-sector cooperation between Thailand and the United States.

To the June 18 White House event she brought the president of the U.S.-Thai Business Council, the executive director of the council, chairman of the Charoen Pokphand Group, a large multinational corporation based in Thailand, and two other Pokphand executives, DNC officials said.

Also present were a New York oil executive and donor and his wife, another Democratic contributor, and three DNC officials: Chairman Donald Fowler, Finance Chairman Marvin Rosen and fund-raiser John Huang, who arranged the session, committee press secretary Amy Weiss Tobe said.

Huang’s presence again puts him in the middle of questionable events. The former DNC finance vice chairman solicited much of the $1.5 million in contributions that the Democrats have refunded as illegal or improper.

Clinton greeted his guests at the session with a statement about “what he stands for, his vision of the country” and then answered questions, said White House Special Counsel Lanny Davis.

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“The president answered questions no differently than he would have with any other group interested in his candidacy,” Davis said.

“No solicitation of funds, as far as we know, was made by anyone at the White House at these White House events.”

And, Davis said, “absolutely no governmental action ever resulted from receipt of a contribution by the president or the campaign.”

The Wall Street Journal, which first disclosed the June 18 session, reported that U.S. policy toward China was discussed. Charoen Pokphand has extensive interests in China.

Davis reiterated Clinton’s disappointment and concern over the DNC’s “lack of screening procedures” for donors.

The president vowed to tighten checks on those invited to the White House after the disclosure last week that a Chinese arms dealer had attended a reception last February at the invitation of a longtime Clinton friend from Little Rock, Ark., who has raised money for the Democratic Party.

Tobe said that Kanchanalak did not make her $85,000 contribution on June 19 in return for the White House invitation. “There’s no ticket price for White House events,” the party spokeswoman said.