Ex-DNC Official May Pose Biggest Party Threat

For the embattled Democratic Party, the biggest threat in the Senate campaign contributions hearings this week may not be what Republican committee members do. It may be what a shy, boyish-looking former Democratic functionary has to say.

Richard Sullivan, the former Democratic National Committee finance director, will serve as the leadoff--and lone--witness at today’s hearing as the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee begins delving into fund-raising abuses on behalf of President Clinton’s 1996 reelection bid.

And unlike former DNC officials who have claimed memory problems, a committee source said, Sullivan will recite chapter and verse about sensitive behind-the-scenes operations in the Democratic camp, naming names and telling tales about top party colleagues.

Even before his hearing appearance, DNC officials attempted Tuesday to discredit the 33-year-old Sullivan as someone scrambling to save his own hide. One said Sullivan’s “recall is probably shaded by the fact that these problems occurred in his department on his watch.”

In any case, Sullivan’s testimony, which is expected to continue Thursday, injects a hint of unpredictability to hearings hampered by a lack of star witnesses, according to congressional investigators, DNC representatives and White House officials.

Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), the panel’s chairman, intends to use Sullivan to explore many of the themes that will be developed in coming weeks: concerns about the hiring and handling of controversial DNC fund-raiser John Huang; the use of White House coffees to court deep-pocketed donors, sometimes through the participation of foreign business executives; and the DNC’s willingness to put a Buddhist temple to dubious use as a site for campaign largess.

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Sullivan is expected to challenge the DNC’s previous accounts of its system for vetting donations, particularly those brought in by Huang. He has told investigators that, contrary to the party’s claims, a system for vetting checks by the counsel’s office was not dismantled in 1994. Party officials stood by their earlier statements on Tuesday.

Sullivan is being thrust before the television cameras because he was the most forthcoming of the current and former DNC officials who were privately deposed by Senate investigators, sources said.

“The guy is as credible as the day is long,” a Senate staffer said. “He is painfully truthful.”

By most accounts, Sullivan is emerging reluctantly from the shadows of the national scandal. The lanky South Carolina native has kept a low profile in the high-powered world of national fund-raising; his name has rarely surfaced in the myriad news accounts of the Democratic abuses.

Sullivan oversaw as many as 78 DNC finance staffers who brought in a record-setting $124 million in largely unregulated, so-called soft money donations during the 1995-96 election cycle. His staff included Huang, who solicited at least $1.6 million in suspect foreign-linked funds while concentrating on the Asian American community. Sullivan left the DNC in March.

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Like other witnesses, Sullivan has already provided considerable information to Senate investigators. Among the accounts that the Georgetown University Law School graduate has given--and that are expected to emerge in his testimony--are these:

* DNC officials, including Chairman Don Fowler, did not act on initial overtures by associates of Huang to hire him as a party fund-raiser in 1995 until Huang asked Clinton directly about joining the DNC at an Oval Office meeting in September 1995. The president had senior aides follow up on the request.

* Sullivan warned Huang that he could not hold a fund-raiser at a Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights in April 1996, but Huang assured him the event would be in the “temple’s community center” and that no one would be charged to attend. The luncheon, featuring Vice President Al Gore, took place in a dining room beneath the main shrine in the temple compound and raised $140,000, some of which was donated that day.

* Sullivan resisted efforts by Democratic fund-raisers Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie and Ernest Green of the Lehman Brothers investment firm to bring Chinese financier Wang Jun to a White House coffee with Clinton in February 1996. But DNC Finance Chairman Marvin Rosen approved Jun’s inclusion because Trie and Green were helping Huang raise money for an upcoming DNC fund-raiser, according to Sullivan. Sullivan has said he shared supervision of Huang with Rosen.

* Sullivan expressed misgivings when Huang requested that Democratic donor Pauline Kanchanalak bring three executives from a Thailand-based conglomerate with large investments in China to a coffee with Clinton in June 1996. But Huang became agitated because this was important to Kanchanalak and Rosen eventually signed off. Kanchanalak and an associate gave $135,000 to the DNC the day after the coffee.

Sullivan’s testimony about the vetting of large checks by the DNC and its scrutiny of Huang’s activities is at odds with the accounts provided by the DNC.

Sullivan has told investigators he had urged that Huang--who had no experience as a professional fund-raiser--be extensively briefed by DNC Counsel Joseph Sandler and work closely with him. Sullivan said it was agreed at a meeting with Rosen and Sandler before Huang was even formally hired that that Sandler would screen Huang’s donations.

Sullivan has said Huang repeatedly assured him he was consulting with Sandler. Sullivan’s story is supported by a DNC staffer, who requested anonymity.

A DNC official said, however, that Sandler gave Huang an initial briefing on complying with election law but otherwise did not have any special responsibility for him. Sandler is expected to testify later.

“Other people don’t recall [Sullivan] expressing early warnings about John Huang . . . ,” said another party spokesman.

In addition, Sullivan said in his deposition he believed the counsel’s office was reviewing all checks for potential problems.

The DNC has said it abandoned such procedures for the 1996 campaign and left it largely to the individual fund-raisers to make certain all contributions were legal.

“Other DNC officials have testified that the vetting was to occur within the Finance Department,” a party official said. “The buck was to stop there.”

The official said exceptions were contributions from U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations and any legal questions that arose with specific donations, which were to be checked by the counsel’s office.

Sullivan joined the DNC finance staff in mid-1993 and became finance director in May 1995. He was paid $115,000 in 1996. His wife, Caroline, raised money for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He is now studying to take the bar exam.