Commerce Dept. Hid Documents, Judge Charges

A federal judge charged Tuesday that Commerce Department officials systematically concealed and destroyed documents that might have shed light on whether overseas trade missions were used to reward business executives who contributed to the Democratic Party.

In a blistering 80-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth found “a pattern of abuse” by the department’s office of general counsel in a four-year-old civil lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal organization.

Among the targets of Lamberth’s wrath was former Commerce Department aide John Huang, a major figure in the Democratic campaign fund-raising controversy.

Lamberth said that the document destruction stretched over a period of years, showing an “egregious . . . disregard for the law.” It climaxed with “a flurry of document shredding” in the office of Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown after his death in a plane crash in Bosnia in April 1996, the judge said.

But even before this tragedy, department officials were cavalier in failing to search for documents responsive to Judicial Watch’s freedom-of-information suit, Lamberth said.

Department officials said that they could not respond immediately to the judge’s ruling because they had not read it and because the case remains in litigation. However, the department has consistently denied wrongdoing.

“We would welcome another search for documents,” spokesman Morrie Goodman said.

Commerce officials over the last two years repeatedly have insisted that U.S. business executives were chosen for seats on overseas trade missions based on a set of objective criteria and that political considerations played no part in their selection.

However, public records show that many made sizable Democratic campaign contributions either before or shortly after these trips.

Lamberth also said in the ruling that Larry Klayman, president and counsel of Judicial Watch, had received only “questionable testimony” when he interrogated Huang during a four-hour deposition on Oct. 29, 1996. Huang, one-time deputy assistant secretary for economic policy, left the department in late 1995 to become a chief fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee.

The judge said that Huang, who remains under investigation by a Justice Department task force for his role in obtaining foreign campaign contributions, gave “incredible” testimony that he had minor duties at Commerce. In addition, the department never fully complied with a court order to turn over all of Huang’s relevant records, he said.

“John Huang may well have removed responsive documents from the [department] when he left,” Lamberth said. “His testimony suggesting otherwise is not credible.”

Turning to Nolanda S. Hill, a former business partner and confidant of Brown, Lamberth noted that she testified last March about conversations she had with Brown. Paraphrasing Hill, the judge said that the White House had instructed Brown “to delay the production of documents responsive to Judicial Watch’s requests and to come up with a way to avoid compliance with this court’s orders.”

Lamberth said “it is still unclear . . . precisely who was responsible” for the alleged destruction and removal of documents. But he said he wanted the plaintiffs to pursue this question with additional depositions in the months ahead.