ASHINGTON - Al Gore's presidential campaign and other Democratic candidates are benefiting from more than half a million dollars collected years ago from the same donors who prompted a widespread investigation into illegal foreign campaign contributions in 1996.
The money, $603,500 spread through several Democratic Party organizations, was raised in the early 1990s from Democratic fund-raiser John Huang, industrialist James Riady and executives of Riady's Indonesia-based company, the Lippo Group.
Those donors gave millions more to the Democratic Party, much of it from overseas. But after FBI and congressional investigators raised questions about the legality of the money, the party gave back $3.2 million of the donations in 1997.
A Knight Ridder review of federal election records found that the Democratic National Committee and several Democratic Party organizations kept the rest of the money. Party officials say they did not believe the $603,500 was raised illegally.
But Huang has told the FBI and congressional investigators that Riady's company reimbursed his own $119,800 in donations. He said he believed Lippo executives also were reimbursed. Such reimbursements are illegal; donors cannot make campaign contributions on behalf of someone else.
If party organizations had to give back the money now, that would cut into funds that the party is counting on to help Gore and other Democrats in congressional races across the country. The Gore campaign declined to comment last night.
Huang pleaded guilty last year to federal campaign finance law violations and was fined $10,000 and sentenced to one year of probation.
Federal and congressional investigators began looking into Democratic Party fund-raising in 1997 in response to allegations that the party collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal contributions.
In August, authorities in Riady's native Indonesia announced they were cooperating with FBI investigators looking into Riady's campaign finance activities. Riady is believed to be in Indonesia and Abbe Lowell, his Washington-based attorney, declined to comment on the matter.
The contributions date back as far as the 1992 presidential campaign, when Riady offered to raise $1 million for Clinton's first presidential race as the two rode in a limousine in Los Angeles, shortly after Clinton won the Democratic nomination. Riady, a former bank executive in Little Rock, Ark., has been a close friend of President Clinton's since Clinton was governor of Arkansas.
Donations began pouring in within days of the limo ride and continued through 1994, according to testimony given to congressional investigators. The $603,500 came in during that period from Huang, Riady, and Lippo executives.
Huang told the FBI and congressional investigators that he believed Lippo executives had been reimbursed, just as he and his wife, Jane, had been reimbursed for their contributions.
Democratic Party officials say they have kept the money because they have no evidence that those contributions were illegal.
Joseph E. Sandler, general counsel to the Democratic National Committee, said that because the Huangs had earned a substantial income during that period, the contributions in all likelihood had not been reimbursed and thus were legal. Sandler added that the contributions of the Lippo executives were not returned because Huang failed to identify them in his congressional testimony or in his statements to the FBI, and because he had testified at one point that he had no direct knowledge of any reimbursements.
