DNC Releases Partial List Of Donors

WASHINGTON (Oct. 30) -- Hail to the chief fund-raiser. President Bill Clinton was raising still more money at a Democratic party gala Tuesday night even as the Democratic National Committee (DNC) bowed to pressure and released documents showing some $10 million raised and some $11 million on hand during mid-October.

The DNC says it will file an official report with the Federal Election Commission later this week. The partial disclosure on Tuesday showed contributions from unions, real estate agents, technology firms, attorneys, corporations, and generous giving by Hollywood celebrities.

It all ended a bad day for the DNC, which had tried to avoid filing a pre-election report disclosing its most recent big donors. But suspicion that Democrats were accepting overseas money fueled an outcry over what would have been a virtually unprecedented withholding of campaign finance information.

On another front, suspended DNC fund-raiser John Huang obeyed a federal judge's order and began giving pre-trial testimony in a civil lawsuit. Huang raised hundreds of thousands of illegal and questionable dollars for the Democrats.

Huang said when he dropped out of sight last week he was trying to avoid the press, not federal marshals.

"I was not trying to hide away from the court," he said in videotaped testimony. "I was really trying to stay away from the harassment of the media." Huang also said a friend had relayed to him some encouragement from Hillary Clinton.

"They did mention to Mrs. Clinton, and would like to have Mrs. Clinton say 'We all support John Huang and he's a friend of us (sic).' And I believe the indirectly (sic) message coming back is Mrs. Clinton's also saying, 'John's a friend of mine as well.'"

But the first installment of Huang's testimony shed no light on his fund-raising. The lawsuit is an attempt by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch to uncover trade documents at the Commerce Department, where Huang worked until last year.

And, in yet another development, a former U.S. official in Taiwan said it was common knowledge there that Democratic officials were seeking campaign contributions from Taiwanese businessmen.

Said Nat Bellochi, chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, "It seemed to be so prevalent in conversations that I had that I thought I should turn it over to government here in Washington and say this seems to be of concern to a considerable number of people in Taiwan." That could be illegal, and the Justice Department is investigating.

Refuting a press report, White House officials today said a senior member of Taiwan's Kuomintang party had "no private meeting" with President Clinton and made no campaign contribution.

White House counsel Mark Fabiani told CNN in a phone conversation that a search of records indicates that Liu Tai-Ying was a guest at a Clinton-Gore fund raiser in San Francisco in September 1995 and "shook hands with the president in a receiving line." But Fabiani said there is "no indication of a private meeting... no record of a contribution."

All this bad press for the Democratic Party is just what Clinton does not need entering the final week of his re-election campaign. As one White House official said of the DNC, "The damage enhancement team is on the field."

In fact, while the president has largely ignored the stepped-up attacks against his administration's ethics, White House aides say the fund-raising issue has reached critical mass, and that Clinton plans to talk about it in a campaign speech this week, probably Thursday or Friday.

Aides say Clinton will try to turn the issue back on Republicans, accusing them of blocking reform. He will blame House Speaker Newt Gingrich, citing their famous New Hampshire handshake last year where they pledged to create a bipartisan commission. And, he'll accuse Bob Dole of filibustering legislation to reform campaign finance laws.

CNN's Brooks Jackson contributed to this report.

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DNC Releases Partial List Of Donors

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