Clinton Not Told of China Donation Plan, Aides Insist

WASHINGTON — Past and present aides to President Clinton insisted Sunday that the White House’s upper echelon was not warned by the FBI of a possible Chinese government bid to funnel campaign money to congressional members, but Republican leaders said the mystery of who knew about it widens the fund-raising controversy.

“I certainly wasn’t advised of that. And the president wasn’t advised of that,” said former Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta, who left office in January. Current Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles said the FBI did tell some “mid-level staffers” at the National Security Council about the intelligence warnings, but they did not pass the information to higher-ups.

The question of when the White House first heard of the alleged attempt by China to influence the U.S. political system could prove crucial, Republicans said. The Democratic National Committee has already been obliged to return thousands in questionable campaign contributions because they came from fund-raisers with business links to China, such as former Commerce Department official John Huang; Johnny Chien Chuen Chung, a Torrance businessman; and Yah Lin “Charlie” Trie, a former Arkansas restaurateur.

Last year, the FBI briefed at least six members of Congress, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), after receiving evidence that Beijing had targeted them to receive laundered campaign funds through Asian donors. It is not known whether China followed through with any contributions, which would be prohibited under laws banning foreign involvement in U.S. elections.

Lawmakers speculated Sunday that the plan may have been designed to buy favorable votes for China on retaining its most-favored-nation trading status.

“Billions of dollars of trade are involved” on that issue alone, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “I think this issue will arouse the American people because of the implication that foreign countries, i.e., China, were trying to influence American political campaigns,” he said on CNN.

Returning to Washington from California on Sunday afternoon, Feinstein said at a news conference that she was exasperated with the FBI because its agents had given her little useful information at the briefing she received June 14.

She said they told her nothing about who might be involved, how much money was donated and what the purpose might have been in contributing to her campaign.

“The information was vague and non-specific,” she said. “If there is credible evidence [of wrongdoing], tell me what it is. Enable me to protect myself. I think that’s the job of the FBI.”

Feinstein added that she plans to discuss the issue today with FBI Director Louis J. Freeh.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said it is “amazing” if no warnings of the FBI’s suspicions were passed on to the top levels of the White House.

“If the FBI knew that China and other Asian countries were trying to exert influence in our society with the White House and with Congress, and they knew enough to warn six members of Congress, it seems to me the White House certainly had to be warned too,” Hatch said on “Fox News Sunday.”

But joining Panetta and Bowles in saying that the top White House officials had not been briefed on the issue was Jack Quinn, the White House counsel until December. Quinn added that he found it “a bit baffling” that he and other senior officials were not told of the intelligence reports involving Beijing.

“I do not believe that any senior White House officials were aware of that,” Quinn said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation,” regarding the FBI warnings.

*

Other Republican leaders suggested the White House may have been kept in the dark because it had already come under suspicion.

“There’s a potential for people in the White House to be under investigation in this attempt,” McCain said. “So I think that’s why they were not informed.”

Still a third Republican senator said he plans to press staff members with the National Security Council, which is considered part of the White House, this week to disclose what they knew and who they informed.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he expects the issue to arise as his panel begins long-stalled confirmation hearings Tuesday on Clinton’s nomination of former NSC Director Anthony Lake to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

The latest twist in the furor over questionable campaign donations and fund-raising prompted renewed calls from Republican leaders for the naming of an independent counsel to handle the probe.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has resisted the calls to appoint an outside counsel, saying she has not been given specific evidence of a criminal violation involving a top executive branch official.

*

Hatch said the revelations of the past week--including fund-raising phones calls from the White House made by Vice President Al Gore and the acceptance by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief aide of a $50,000 check at her office there from Chung, the Torrance businessman--should trigger the appointment of an independent counsel.

White House officials have insisted that the first lady’s aide, Margaret Williams, was merely an innocent conduit between Chung and the DNC. But Time magazine reported in its latest edition that the check’s delivery followed a meeting the day before between Chung’s lawyer and an aide to Williams.

Of the six members of Congress believed targeted by China to receive illegal contributions funneled through foreign corporations, only the names of Feinstein and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who was briefed as early as 1992, have surfaced publicly.

Feinstein’s office on Friday officially returned six donations that totaled $12,000. She said Sunday that she decided to do so not because she believed the donations were illegal, but because of the growing controversy concerning foreign-linked contributions.

*

She said the money appears to have come from people with connections to the Lippo Group, an Indonesian banking and real estate concern with wide-ranging business interests in China and a company that once employed Huang, the former Commerce Department official.