White House, FBI Clash Over China Briefing

In an open display of discord within the Clinton administration over the latest campaign finance controversy, the White House and FBI clashed Monday over whether national security officials informed of alleged Chinese involvement in U.S. politics were told not to pass on the information to higher-ups.

White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said that FBI agents briefed two mid-level staff members from the president’s National Security Council on June 3 about suspicions that China was trying to funnel money to members of Congress. But, according to McCurry, the FBI agents specified that the “information not be disseminated or briefed higher up the chain of command.”

Directly contradicting McCurry, the FBI issued a statement Monday night saying that its agents “placed no restriction whatsoever on the dissemination up the chain of command” of the information provided to the NSC officials, one of whom was an FBI agent on loan to the White House.

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After hearing the FBI statement, McCurry reiterated his earlier version of the restriction attached to the briefing and said: “The White House considers the FBI statement to be in error.”

McCurry added that, in questioning by the White House legal counsel, the two NSC staff members “were adamant” that they were told to keep the FBI’s suspicions to themselves.

The highly unusual public battle between different parts of the government shows how complicated and divisive the unfolding campaign finance controversy has become for the White House.

Addressing the subject of the FBI briefing to NSC officials earlier in the day, Clinton said that he was trying to find out why he and other senior White House officials were kept in the dark about the alleged attempts by the Chinese government to meddle in U.S. politics.

“I believe I should have known,” Clinton said, stressing that he did not.

Clinton also said that if he had known about the briefing, the aggressive fund-raising efforts by officials helping orchestrate the president’s reelection might have been conducted with more caution.

“It would have provoked . . . a red flag on my part,” Clinton said.

Also on Monday, several more members of Congress stepped forward to say they were told last year by the FBI that they might be targeted by the Chinese for illegal campaign contributions. Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York said that they received vague warnings in mid-June, joining Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who had been named earlier.

The FBI also reported informing senior staff aides of the 33 House and Senate members serving on the two chambers’ intelligence committees, who in turn were to brief their bosses.

It is illegal for foreign governments to contribute to U.S. political campaigns, but there have been mounting allegations in recent weeks that China tried to influence U.S. foreign and trade policy through the campaign finance system. And the question of when top-level White House officials learned of the allegations has become crucial because three of the figures at the center of the fund-raising controversy had extensive business links to China--John Huang, a former Commerce Department official, Johnny Chien Chuen Chung, a Torrance businessman, and Yah Lin ‘Charlie’ Trie, a former Arkansas restaurateur.

The Chinese government is discounting the allegations that it sought to direct donations to U.S. politicians through foreign corporations.

In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called in the U.S. charge d’affaires to protest the allegations. “The Chinese side has never got involved in U.S. political affairs in any form,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted a senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official as saying.

Clinton termed the allegations “very serious” if true. But he added that it would be a “foolish error” for foreign governments to believe they could successfully influence U.S. elections.

“Anyone who understands the sort of interplay of American politics, the scope and scale of the issues, the amount of investment involved, I mean, it would just not make very much sense,” he said.

Rather than exhibiting anger, Clinton seemed calm as he was asked about the apparent failure to inform top-level White House officials of the FBI warnings but hinted that appearances can be deceiving. “Well, what I seem and what I feel may be two different things,” Clinton said in response to a question about why he was not angry about the situation.

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“The older I get, the more I become aware of the fact that there’s some things there’s no point of expending a lot of energy on,” he said. “It didn’t happen. It should have happened. It was a mistake.” he said.

McCurry said that he first learned of the FBI briefings to NSC officials and some members of Congress in mid-February in response to requests for information to illustrate a Washington Post story about a Justice Department inquiry into allegations that the Chinese Embassy in Washington was used to plan contributions to the Democratic National Committee before the 1996 campaign.

At that time, McCurry said, Clinton asked his national security advisor and chief counsel to investigate the question of why FBI agents briefed the NSC officials and why the information was not passed on to their superiors in the White House.

Other than its short statement about the briefings, the FBI declined to discuss the matter Monday.

Feinstein and Moynihan each called FBI Director Louis J. Freeh hoping to learn more about the alleged Chinese meddling, but Freeh offered no information, both of the senators said in statements.