Inside John Huang's Files

From the mundane to the momentous, from the simple to the suspicious

Pandora's Boxes: The most recent set of files made public April 15 on view at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington.

by Frank Wu The "Asian connection" controversy concerning campaign finance that surfaced in the 1996 election has reached a new stage. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has started to release documents requested by congressional committees, while simultaneously making them available to the media.

The voluminous papers, encompassing not only the files of former DNC official John Huang but also materials relating to him, already amount to more than 100,000 pages.

The mass of materials, copied and numbered in the manner typically used for lawsuits, are being demanded from the DNC by the two congressional committees investigating political fundraising. The DNC, the Washington headquarters for the party and the office from which Huang worked, has emphasized that it has no choice but to comply with the requests from the legislators.

The Thompson committee in the Senate, chaired by potential Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, has reached an agreement with the DNC to maintain the confidentiality of what it reviewed. But the Burton committee in the House of Representatives, chaired by Dan Burton, who himself faces allegations of improper fundraising, has been unable to do so.

Apparently in an effort to cooperate with congressional staffers as well as prevent them from selectively leaking information, and to meet demands from the media, the DNC has voluntarily allowed journalists access to the same sets of documents. It has removed identifying information to protect privacy in some instances and has withheld some sensitive data concerning current party operations.

In an interview with AsianWeek, Stephen Langdon, the new press secretary of the DNC, stated, "These documents were produced as part of our pledge to fully cooperate with requests from congressional committees. The pages produced represent only a fraction of the massive amount of documents we expect to give to the Hill in order to comply with their request."

AsianWeek has had an opportunity to review the contents of the latest set of Huang files, three nondescript boxes that were made public on April 15, accompanied by a statement condemning Asian-bashing from DNC co-chairs Roy Romer and Steve Grossman (see "Better Late Than Never," April 25, and "Voices" in this issue). It is impossible to neatly summarize the disparate materials. There are too many items, too many obscure references, not enough context, and not enough time. But even a cursory examination of the materials is enough to reveal that the Huang matter is likely to continue, leading in many directions--whether toward China, Taiwan, or Indonesia, but always encompassing Asian Americans who have had contact with Huang in the past year.

For the purposes of this story, individuals identified by the document are not named here unless that information is significant or unless the person is already a public figure, or the document has been discussed elsewhere. The Huang files contain hundreds of business cards, along with miscellaneous contact information for people ranging from the famous to the unknown. Included here, for instance, are a fax from someone with the business card of the managing director of Henry Kissinger's consulting firm; dozens of letters from candidates asking for his financial support, or from officeholders asking on behalf of their favored candidates; even more letters from donors giving money; a few résumés; brochures, press releases, and materials from APA community groups; corporate annual reports; drafts of position papers prepared by APA advocates and others from the White House; postcards to "Uncle Huang"; many faxes from California, including letters and memos concerning minutiae of the 1996 campaign; invitations; confirmations; RSVPs; letters of apology; thank you notes; instructions to Huang; instructions from Huang; and of course many internal memos indicating the DNC was interested in courting Asian Americans, and vice versa. Most convenient for investigators and potentially damaging for the APA community, the boxes contain many lengthy lists--of actual donors, potential donors, important people, potential appointees, volunteers, staffers, and leaders, with some people playing several roles. There is a list of "APA opinion leaders," which may have been sent from the White House, showing ethnicity, employer, and referring source. One of the "Asian donor lists" from another DNC staffer who had worked with congressional campaigns includes "2,000 donors spanning 28 states, with heavy concentration in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, New York, and California."

The files also offer a unique behind-the-scenes look at a contemporary political campaign. They reveal how the American system of representative democracy operates, if not quite clearly what the ambitions of Huang might have been. For example, one file includes the schedule of DNC Chair Don Fowler, showing that he was booked for 20-minute meetings from breakfast through dinner, day after day.

Some of the materials show great attention being paid to Asian Americans as constituents. The "Clinton Administration Outreach" plan "to the Asian Pacific American community" has campaign platitudes, as well as data on states with the largest APA populations. It identifies White House Public Liaison Doris Matsui as chair of the "working group" with Huang and six other members, with two staffers. It states, "The Working Group is responsible for coordination among the White House, the DNC and the Re-Elect to ensure that policy and political strategies are tailored to address the needs and concerns of the APA community."

There is a set of talking points, mostly generic but possibly edited for Asian American concerns. There is a draft "get out the vote" plan from a Los Angeles consulting firm. There are some notes from meetings of the "Asian American working group" consisting of APA political appointees.

Other handwritten notes concern details of the campaign so trivial as to be comic. One guest, presumably of Huang's, requires a stretch limo pickup at the airport and an appointment with an eye specialist while visiting.

Many of the items become ironic, almost pathetically so, given subsequent events. Some photocopies of photos from the aptly named file Photo-Op Inc. show Huang presenting Fowler with a giant check for a million dollars, drawn on the Asian American Bank, signed Asian Pacific Leadership, from the now infamous, $25,000 per couple, Hay-Adams Lunar New Year fundraiser in February 1996.

A memo describes "Finance Council Chairman Benefits" ranging from a skybox at the DNC convention in Chicago and dinner with unspecified officials to commemorative photographs and an exclusive lapel pin, for contributions of at least $250,000.

Someone at a different level of donation appears to have sent a fax to Huang complaining, "financial support was minimal ($200) ... yet when I asked for your help in return, you not only ignored my request but specifically indicated that I did not do enough. ..."

A letter from an abbess of the Hsi Lai Temple, the Los Angeles-area religious group that held a fundraiser on its grounds, to Fowler thanks him for coming to visit. "It was a special day for the Temple, and I hope that it was special for you as well." Fowler's schedule for the day includes notes from his handlers to remember that "in 1989, as a U.S. Senator, you visited the home office of this temple in Taiwan."

A note from Melinda Yee, who worked with Huang at the Commerce Department and who has also faced allegations in the media, ends with, "I'll Miss You All. ... Please Call, Write, and Visit!!!" Yee now works as San Francisco's international trade director. A memo to the DNC Finance Department explains the use of check-tracking forms, and states, "All of this information MUST be completed, inc. occupation, employer, phone, fax etc. If we do not have this information, we will be unable to reach your donors to invite them to briefings or other ... activities if applicable."

There are many intriguing items, as well: a dinner invitation to Twin Oaks, the estate used by the unofficial Taiwanese embassy for entertaining, and a copy of the Clinton administration letter to Congress on immigration. The sender of one of the postcards addressed to "Uncle Huang" mentions that she is in Jakarta and is scheduled to see "Riady of Lippo ... someone you probably know." The sender adds that he "doesn't miss the snow" in the Capitol.

A few of the odder items can also be comical. For example, several dozen pages of materials on Prague appear in the middle of a box otherwise devoted to Asia, Asians, and Asian Americans--an apparent misfile. There is the macabre and the meta-fictional: an invitation to the funeral of Ron Brown; a few memos from the DNC press office to Huang on how to respond to the early stages of the scandal itself.

Some of the items are not by or from Huang, but about him. A memo dated Dec. 20, 1993, from one Democratic Party operative to another, reports on organizing efforts in Los Angeles. It states, "the Asian community was very well represented with John Huang, Richard C. Bertch and Richard Park leading this group." In contrast, neither the African American nor Hispanic communities was "well represented."

AsianWeek makes several appearances. Huang apparently received semi-weekly packages of newspaper clippings and magazine articles from APA media as well as mainstream publications.

With the documents, major media outlets have hundreds of leads for stories, even if some of them may amount to the "guilt by association" that APA leaders have been protesting. The DNC has sold more than two dozen sets of the documents, at a cost of 7 cents per page to cover its duplicating bill, with some journalistic institutions buying multiple sets. No nonpress group, however, has made a request to the party to purchase a set.

Following the fiasco of its internal audit, the DNC, which claims not to have the money with which to make promised refunds to donors, might do well to warn people that they are being exposed.

DNC spokesperson Langdon added that in an effort to avoid stereotyping, "We have a policy of not answering reporters' questions about people in the document based on their having an ethnic surname--Asian, Greek, whatever." Nevertheless, an enterprising reporter who contacted every person whose name he or she found in Huang's files would eventually touch virtually every Asian American Democrat who has participated in politics at the national level, as well many other APAs who would be surprised to know that they had such significance. It may be a somewhat perverse test of political clout among Asian Americans as to whether one's name surfaces among the business cards, résumés, letters, and lists in Huang's files. It is impossible from the mass of paper to determine what Huang may have been doing, but he was clearly occupied with many activities concerning Asia, Asian Americans, the Democratic Party, and the Clinton campaign. The e-mail messages Huang received, for example, he apparently never opened and read; so if there was a conspiracy organized via that medium, it remained in the ether. Yet even the appearance that Huang stood at the center of the activities is a deception: anyone would appear to be the crucial connection linking everything else in a universe consisting of one's own files.

Reviewing the files, one is reminded of one unfortunate side effect of the disclosures that the investigation's focus on Huang ensures an emphasis on Asian Americans.

The disclosures have set Congress and the media off to investigate Asian Americans and the "Asian connection." A self-fulfilling truth: many Asian Americans are implicated, because only Asian Americans are being investigated.

Other fundraisers' files are not being opened for anyone with a press credential to look through. How well would anyone's office stand up to scrutiny, if their job was, as the professionals put it, "dialing for dollars?" Non-Asian American individuals implicated in the "Asian" connection are left alone. Other than attracting Ross Perot's attention as having "names you can relate to," Mark Middleton and James Wood have vanished from the scene successfully if only temporarily.

The influence of other individuals and interest groups on the political process is ignored, as if Asian Americans alone are the most influential lobby in the Capitol. Major politicians who have become major players in the China market--former Secretary of State Kissinger, for example--have stayed out of sight altogether, or become even more respected leaders of opinion on foreign policy despite their business interests overseas. Jewish American, Arab American, Cuban American, and Irish American concerns about homeland politics are accepted without allegations of dual loyalties.

And then there is the dynamic within our community. Asian Americans are finding themselves a perfect target. We are divided amongst ourselves between political parties, over homeland politics, domestic issues, by ethnicity, and along class lines. There is some truth to every stereotype, and with Asian Americans the generalization about "loss of face" applies more to this situation than any suggestion about guang xi.

We will apologize publicly for wrongdoing before it is proven. We will shame one another to an even greater degree privately for that embarrassment.

Through it all, the voting public--itself a misnomer because the majority of citizens neglects to participate in the democratic process--creates contradictory demands. We elect incumbents, but condemn politicians. We demand reform, but decline to pay its costs. We wish for change, but fear its effects.

Over the past six months, the reaction to the campaign finance controversy has shown simultaneously our naïveté as well as our cynicism.

We are naïve for failing to appreciate that anyone participating in politics, especially fundraising for a presidential election, has personal ambitions, a political agenda, or both. We are naïve for supposing that millions of dollars of money, expended primarily on television advertising, can flow into a system without corrupting it, perhaps to its core. We are naïve for supposing that international trade policies can be freed from the influence of domestic partisan politics. We are naïve, or foolish, to isolate ourselves while around us the global economy continues to become not only broader but also deeper.

We are cynical for believing, however, that nobody who is involved with government has any principles, that raw power determines all public policy, and that there is only self-interest rather than any public interest.

We are cynical, too, for supposing that everyone represents the influence of some special interest. We are cynical for accepting that political leaders, Democrat and Republican alike, will use the scandal to advance themselves and seek partisan advantage. We are cynical, finally, for assuming that nothing can be done, that we must be resigned to a cycle of complacency and controversy.

Hindsight is only brutal, not perfect. From the files of Huang, some points in a picture emerge, but without forming a pattern and lacking context. Only with the testimony of Huang will the complete story be told.

The documents, by themselves, are random bits of data which may be connected with other bits of data. What emerges could be innocent or suspect. Much depends on the perspective from which it is viewed.

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