Campaign Task Force Steps Up Probes of Fund-Raising Abuses

As the presidential election approaches, the Justice Department’s campaign finance task force is toughening its approach to political donation abuses that occurred during the campaign four years ago.

With 17 convictions already under their belts, prosecutors are pursuing several remaining defendants with such grave charges as international money-laundering, obstruction of justice and willful false statements--far more serious crimes than the misdemeanors provided for in campaign finance statutes.

Defense attorney Reid Weingarten says in court papers filed recently that the technique of threatening larger crimes is only a ploy to get his client, Thai businesswoman Pauline Kanchanalak, to enter into a plea agreement.

But Robert J. Conrad Jr., who heads the federal task force, replied in an interview that “our mandate is to prosecute the most serious charges that are readily provable.” He said the work of the 3-year-old task force is “not winding down at all.”

A recent sign of his resolve was the indictment of two nuns from a Buddhist temple in Southern California for failing to appear as government witnesses at the trial of Maria Hsia, a Los Angeles immigration consultant and longtime fund-raiser for Vice President Al Gore.

The nuns, who were under subpoena, had gone to Taiwan and refused to return. Hsia was convicted anyway on five felony counts of making false statements--for helping to raise $100,000 for the Clinton-Gore ticket, mainly from illegal foreign donors.

Hsia’s conviction on March 2, the first major one following a trial, has reinvigorated prosecutors working for Conrad, convincing them that they are on the right track. Earlier convictions resulted largely from the guilty pleas of principal Democratic fund-raisers in the Asian American community, such as John Huang, Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie and Johnny Chung, all of whom were found to have falsified donor identities to conceal illegal foreign sources.

Asked about the task force’s progress, Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who conducted hearings three years ago into political fund-raising abuses, said he doubted the vigor of prosecutors.

“At every turn, the Justice Department has gone out of its way to confine the inquiry to illegal donors, rather than recipients, and has consistently resisted lines of inquiry that might point to high-level political figures,” Thompson said.

The senator, among many congressional Republicans who urged appointment of a special counsel, said “a genuinely independent prosecutor would have done more--and moved faster--to get to the truth.”

Conrad, however, insisted that his investigators have followed up every lead from cooperating witnesses like Huang and Trie and that “if prosecutions are warranted we conduct them.”

Members of the task force are turning their attention to Kanchanalak, a Washington lobbyist for Thai business interests who is accused of funneling foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations.

While Kanchanalak’s case parallels Hsia’s in many respects, prosecutors have taken a new approach that caused postponement of her April trial until November. In new court papers, government lawyers say they are planning to seek a second, superseding indictment that will accuse Kanchanalak and her sister-in-law and business associate, Duangnet “Georgie” Kronenberg, of international money-laundering, based on evidence contained in 1,300 pages of financial records furnished a few weeks ago by the Thai government.

Weingarten, Kanchanalak’s lawyer, has protested that this would be the first use of federal money-laundering statutes in a campaign finance case.

“It is difficult to imagine that Congress intended a statute enacted to target drug kingpins and organized crime bosses to be applied to an alleged scheme to make improper campaign contributions,” he wrote.

In a similar vein, prosecutors have raised the stakes in their case against David Chang, a major fund-raiser for Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.), by targeting him in two indictments not only with false statement charges for allegedly hiding the sources of illegal donations but also with obstruction-of-justice charges.

Torricelli, who has not been charged, has said he was unaware that unlawful donations were made.