Where Politics, Ethics Collide

Most of us by now have grown indifferent to allegations of immorality and illegality against President Clinton. Bombarded by headlines noting alleged instances of infidelity, unscrupulous business dealings and unethical fundraising tactics, many of us justified electing him to a second term--myself included--by believing that we should separate Bill Clinton the man from Bill Clinton the President. We naively believed that the alleged problems of his personal life did not affect his ability to govern the country effectively.

But the fanciful ideal that morality and politics can exist in two separate spheres has recently been shattered. Last month the FBI revealed to the public that the Chinese government may have attempted to influence Congress and the Clinton Administration by contributing to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and individual politicians.

While we have been aware for some time of allegations that the DNC broke the law by accepting contributions from individuals with strong ties to Southeast Asia and China, its questionable practices have failed to capture much public interest. Like Whitewater, the many details of the scandal make it ill-suited for captivating the masses in this age of the sound bite.

Understanding the ramifications of the DNC's overaggressive fundraising tactics involves learning the intricacies of campaign finance laws and the complex ties that the DNC contributors in question had with various Southeast Asian interests. These complications made it easy to dismiss the allegations as just another example of relatively innocuous unethical behavior by members of the Clinton administration.

But this scandal does matter. The Clinton administration's eagerness to solicit funds may have given a foreign government a window of opportunity to influence our own. Clinton assured reporters that he did not know of the FBI's suspicions about the Chinese government, and that if he had been briefed on the subject, he would have made sure his administration was more careful in deciding who should be given White House access. F.B.I. spokespeople, on the other hand, have claimed that such information was never restricted from reaching the President.

Even if Clinton is telling the truth about being kept in the dark, his administration's lax policies in granting access to the White House and his oversight of those policies are nonetheless disturbing. Clinton is a shrewd, seasoned politician who has surrounded himself with competent aides, so it is difficult to believe that neither he nor members of his staff ever questioned whether the DNC's many donors and solicitors with ties to Southeast Asian interests might be working with ulterior motives.

The finance chair of the DNC last year, Johnny Huang, a former vice president of an Indonesian business conglomerate with strong ties to China, should have been watched more carefully. The DNC has been forced to return $1.6 million of the $3.4 million Huang raised because the money was donated by foreigners, a practice which is illegal.

The administration also should have looked more closely at the motives of Johnny Chung, a California entrepreneur with ties to China who has donated approximately $300,000 to the Democratic party in the past two years, and has visited the White House on at least 50 separate occasions. In one of those visits (which, coincidentally, was in the same week that he donated $50,000 to the party), he escorted Chinese government officials to watch the President's weekly radio address to the public.

But, the administration's most egregious campaign finance mistake was its failure to look into (or its willful oversight of) the ties to China of Ng Lag Seng and Charles Yah Lin Trie. Seng, who recently had his $15,000 DNC donation returned, formerly served on the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Trie, Seng's business partner, is an Arkansas restaurateur and longtime friend of Clinton who is believed to be the DNC contact who brought Wang Jun, a Chinese entrepreneur and the head of a military-owned arms company, to a coffee klatch for political donors hosted by Clinton.

Perhaps none of these people were attempting to gain any improper influence over governmental policy through their donations--indeed, there has been no evidence supporting the claim that they were.

But they never should have been given that chance. Even if the President and his administration were ignorant of the FBI's suspicions about the Chinese government, the aggressive fundraising tactics of some members of Clinton's re-election team were just plain irresponsible. Those solicitors who allegedly sought and accepted illegal donations should have known that laws prohibiting campaign contributions from foreign donors are in place to prevent foreign peoples and governments from influencing United States policy.

The campaign finance scandal seems to be yet another example of the poor decision making and recklessness which appears to run rampant through the Clinton administration. Unfortunately, Clinton's sly campaign strategists managed to trick us into believing that ethics do not matter in choosing our politicians. Hopefully, we will learn from this latest scandal so that we will not be fooled again.

Alex M. Carter, a first-year living in Wigglesworth, is a Crimson editor.