GOP Leader of House Donor Probe Returns Questionable Contributions

Rep. Dan Burton, chairman of the House panel investigating alleged fund-raising abuses by the White House and Democratic Party, announced Wednesday that he would return two questionable donations to his own campaign, prompting renewed expressions of concern by Democrats about his fitness to direct the congressional inquiry.

The Indiana Republican, who already faces an FBI investigation of an alleged “shakedown” of contributions from a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan, said that he will return small donations he received in 1992 and 1993 from two Sikh temples. Religious groups are forbidden by law from donating to political campaigns.

Burton aides called the $646 in returned contributions insignificant--not in the same league with the roughly $3 million that the Democratic National Committee has been forced to return in the growing scandal over foreign-linked money in the 1996 presidential campaign.

“This is less than minuscule,” Burton’s attorney, Joseph DiGenova, said of the returned checks. “In comparison with the kinds of problems [President Clinton] has, this is not even on the radar screen.”

Nonetheless, some Democrats said that the questions swirling around Burton’s money-raising practices may make him the wrong person to lead the House inquiry, though they stopped short of calling for him to give up the chairmanship.

“If you took out the name Dan Burton and put in the name [Vice President] Al Gore or Bill Clinton in these current allegations, the Republicans would be out subpoenaing everybody in town and screaming about the egregiousness of the allegations,” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles, the ranking Democrat on the House investigative committee.

Waxman and other Democrats are still fuming over their failed effort last week to broaden the scope of the House fund-raising investigation. Burton intends to focus it on the Clinton administration, rebuffing Democratic efforts to include potential GOP improprieties. Democrats have charged that Burton’s approach could turn the proceedings into a partisan charade.

Burton, a prodigious fund-raiser, has found himself increasingly in the spotlight as he examines donations to the Democrats.

The eight-term lawmaker has used his position on the House International Relations Committee to champion the Sikhs’ struggle to win an independent homeland called Khalistan in India’s Punjab state. Hailed as a friend of the Sikh struggle, Burton has received significant financial contributions from Sikhs across the United States.

A report by the weekly Hill newspaper published Wednesday questioned $1,950 in Sikh contributions forwarded to Burton’s campaign in recent years by the Council of Khalistan, a foreign lobbying organization headed by Gurmit Singh Aulakh.

The Council of Khalistan is affiliated with the International Sikh Organization, which as a charity is banned by U.S. law from participating in partisan politics. The Hill newspaper suggested that the two groups are indistinguishable and that the Council of Khalistan played an improper role in soliciting and directing the Sikh money to Burton and other lawmakers.

In an interview, Aulakh, a retired scientist who is president of the Khalistani group, angrily denied that he had violated the law.

“The Council of Khalistan does not engage in fund-raisers for candidates for political office, nor does it direct anyone to make financial contributions to candidates for political office,” Aulakh said.

He said that as an individual U.S. citizen he sometimes serves as a middleman for donors who mail him contributions earmarked for particular candidates.

When the council was formed 11 years ago, Aulakh said, he knocked on the doors of members of Congress appealing for help to establish a Sikh homeland. Burton emerged as a champion of the Sikh independence movement, he said.

“We didn’t give [Burton] a single cent for four or five years. He always helped us. I think this man is doing it out of principal as a good American.”

Burton aides said that there was nothing improper about the donations forwarded by Aulakh. But they agreed that the congressman’s campaign should not have accepted contributions from two Houston temples--$345 from the Sikh Center of the Gulf Coast Area in 1993 and $301 from Gurudwara Sahib in 1992. In 1994, Burton had returned a third contribution for $250 from the Guru Nanak Sikh Mission in Livingston, Calif., aides said.

“It was an honest mistake,” said Kevin Binger, staff director for the Government Reform and Oversight Committee that Burton chairs. “There is absolutely no comparison with the DNC’s activities.”

But Burton’s critics see parallels. They noted that as the congressman returns contributions from the Sikh temples, he is investigating a controversial fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights attended by Gore last year. The Democrats have returned about half of the $166,000 raised at that event.

“I am not one to make a judgment that because an improper campaign contribution came in that Mr. Burton knew about it,” said Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.), another member of the House investigative panel. “But it does provide evidence that this is not just a problem of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.”

Even before the latest flap, Burton found himself on the defensive when Mark A. Siegel, the former lobbyist for Pakistan, accused the congressman of threatening to cut off his access to influential Republicans if the lobbyist failed to raise $5,000 for Burton.

Burton denied making any threats although he acknowledged asking Siegel to raise the money among Pakistani Americans and voiced disappointment to the ambassador of Pakistan when Siegel, a Democratic activist, failed to do so.

A Justice Department task force looking into fund-raising abuses has added the Burton matter to its investigation and Siegel has testified before a federal grand jury.

Times staff writer Mark Gladstone contributed to this story.