House Subpoenas Torrance Businessman

The House committee investigating campaign fund-raising subpoenaed Johnny Chien Chuen Chung on Friday to testify next week, setting up the likelihood that the Torrance businessman will decline to testify before television cameras.

Chung, among the Democratic Party’s largest campaign donors in recent years, emerged as one of the most colorful figures in the fund-raising furor--an entrepreneur who has brought embarrassment to a president he supported with hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Chung once told The Times: “I see the White House is like a subway: You have to put in coins to open the gates.”

The comment, oft-quoted since, has come to symbolize the notion that access to President Clinton’s White House was available to the highest bidder.

Chung’s comments also have prompted a review by Atty. Gen. Janet Reno of whether former Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary agreed to meet with a Chinese delegation in exchange for a $25,000 contribution by Chung to Africare, a charity for which O’Leary served as honorary chairwoman. Reno’s decision on whether to appoint an independent counsel on the matter is expected early next month.

Although Chung’s attorney, Brian A. Sun of Santa Monica, has sought immunity for Chung in exchange for his testimony to Congress, House investigators have subpoenaed him without making such an offer.

“In light of his willingness to talk to representatives of the national media, we’re interested in talking to him too,” said Richard Bennett, chief counsel for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee’s inquiry.

Sun could not be reached for comment Friday, but Bennett said he suspects that Chung may invoke his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. He may have to do so, however, in a televised public hearing scheduled to begin Thursday, Bennett said.

Current House rules allow any witness to call for the removal of television cameras at a public hearing. But GOP congressmen are expected to approved a change in the rule in advance of next week’s appearance by Chung.

So far, the House committee has conducted only three days of hearings, all of which bogged down in partisan wrangling. By calling Chung, even if he utters not a word of testimony, panel chairman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) is hoping to add some excitement to the inquiry and to highlight the fact that scores of witnesses are refusing to cooperate.

Chung was not called before fund-raising-related hearings that the Senate’s Governmental Affairs Committee recently concluded because that panel decided not to subpoena witnesses who would not testify without legal immunity.

Once dismissed as a “hustler” by a National Security Council aide, Chung visited the White House 49 times and donated $366,000 to the Democratic National Committee from 1994 through 1996. All of Chung’s funds were returned because the party said that an internal audit could not confirm that the funds actually came from him.

Chung has denied assertions by some GOP lawmakers that he may have funneled Chinese government money to the Democrats, which would be illegal. Still, on other topics, investigators believe that he has much to reveal.

“Johnny Chung’s not promoting the policy interests of some foreign government,” Sun has told The Times. “He’s promoting Johnny Chung. That’s not a crime. It’s the American way.”

Chung has said in previous interviews that he was seeking VIP treatment for a delegation of visiting Chinese businessmen when he was asked to help First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton defray the cost of White House receptions billed to the Democratic Party.

The solicitations by aides to the first lady, Chung has said, prompted him to hand over a $50,000 check inside the White House to Maggie Williams, the first lady’s then chief of staff.

Chung’s attorney also has revealed that his client contributed $25,000 in 1996 to a private committee that publicly defended the first family against Whitewater-related ethics attacks after Williams referred the head of the committee to Chung.

White House officials have disputed Chung’s accounts.