Letter Details Plan for Asian Businesses to Meet Clinton Staff

Indonesian financier James T. Riady wanted to arrange meetings in 1994 between “business leaders from East Asia” and Clinton administration officials “as a vehicle to raise [campaign] dollars from a fresh source,” according to a document released Wednesday.

The plan, drafted more than two years before the 1996 presidential election, was outlined in a two-page letter written by Maeley Tom, a fixture in California political circles and a member of the Democratic National Committee’s executive committee.

In the letter, sent to the DNC chairman, Tom also said Riady had offered her a business contract and wanted her to receive “a prestigious enough presidential appointment to enhance my role with the Pacific Rim businesses I will be introducing to the DNC.”

The document, disclosed in conjunction with the Senate hearings on campaign finance abuses, casts a critical light on the role of another California political figure and raises again the specter that Democratic overseas fund-raising may have been part of a systematic effort by some Clinton backers, rather than an isolated instance of abuse last year.

At the least, the correspondence is the latest example of what appears to have been a concerted effort by Riady--a close friend of President Clinton’s and a longtime financial backer--to raise large sums for the Democrats and, in turn, to use his access to the U.S. government to benefit himself and his associates.

The March 15, 1994, letter was disclosed by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee during its first day of testimony. Central to the panel’s inquiry is John Huang, the former Riady employee and DNC fund-raiser who has brought in $1.6 million in suspect foreign-linked donations that the DNC has returned. Tom and Huang have worked together in California politics.

A congressional investigator said of Tom’s letter: “I cannot read that in any other way than that James Riady is suggesting that this lady put the business leaders of East Asia together with key people in the administration through the DNC to raise money from a fresh source.

“I would assume that most of the business leaders of East Asia are not people who can make legal donations.”

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Federal election law generally prohibits raising funds from non-U.S. residents and foreign companies other than U.S. subsidiaries.

Tom, a San Francisco native, said through her attorney that she did not receive the contract cited in the letter--although she subsequently worked with the Riady family’s Lippo Group on other matters for two years--nor did she win a presidential appointment.

And attorney Nancy Luque said Tom was referring to Chinese Americans, from whom donations will be legal, when she mentioned “business leaders from East Asia.”

“Maeley Tom has spent the better part of her life trying to involve Asian Americans in the political process,” Luque said.

“Ultimately, the consulting arrangement that she had with Lippo had nothing to do with this proposal. They essentially funded her efforts to educate and organize the Asian American Pacific community to have greater involvement in the American political process.”

Tom had a contract with Lippo from June 1994 through August 1996, Luque said.

Since mid-1994, she has also served as a senior vice president and director of the West Coast office of Cassidy & Associates, a Washington-based lobbying and public affairs firm that represents, among others, Taiwanese interests. Tom played a role in Cassidy’s efforts to enhance Taiwan’s image and improve relations with the U.S.

Luque emphasized that Tom has been cooperating with Senate investigators, who spoke to her last week. A Senate committee source expressed interest in talking further with Tom, who has long been an unofficial Democratic ambassador to California’s Asian American constituencies.

Earl J. Silbert, Riady’s attorney, could not be reached.

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The DNC responded to the release of Tom’s letter with a statement by former party chairman David Wilhelm, to whom it was addressed. Wilhelm said he did not recall receiving the letter.

“I would not have approved any plan to raise money from inappropriate fund-raising channels, and I don’t think Ms. Tom is implying this in her letter. To suggest that this letter represents the beginning of some sort of orchestrated effort to raise money from abroad is absurd.”

Tom’s letter raised concerns on another front: It was sent on the official letterhead of then-California Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti. Tom was then his administrative director.

“She obviously made a definite mistake in judgment,” Roberti said Wednesday regarding the use of his public stationery for such a letter. “It was against my policy and was inappropriate as far as state policy as well.”

State law prohibits public employees from using state resources for political or personal purposes, although prosecution for a single such violation is considered unlikely.

Riady has financially supported Democrats nationally since 1988, when he and Huang raised money for Senate candidates and, in turn, sought to have senators visit Asia--in part to further Lippo’s business interests there. In 1991, then DNC-Chairman Ronald H. Brown and a delegation that included Tom visited Taiwan, Hong Kong and Hawaii.

Huang was among those who joined the group in Asia; its itinerary included a lunch and dinner hosted by Lippo in Hong Kong. The DNC has acknowledged that a secondary purpose of the trip was to assess prospects for raising money overseas.

Tom described Riady’s 1994 plan to Wilhelm as “hopefully good news for you and the DNC.”

She said in her letter: “James Riady asked me to consider working for them on a contractual basis to put together the business leaders from East Asia with the administration for meetings and education purposes. He felt we could do this through the DNC and use this as a vehicle to raise dollars from a fresh source for the DNC.”

Later, she wrote that she intended to withdraw her name for consideration for a job with the Small Business Administration. Instead, she said he would suggest that she be considered “for an appointment such as the exports council, which will help my work with the Riadys.”

Times staff writer Paul Jacobs in Sacramento contributed to this story.