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0n Jan. 17 of this year, Huang quit the Commerce Department to launch into his next career: Democratic fund raiser. He was an instant achiever. By all accounts he brought in more cash and aroused more enthusiasm among Asian Americans than any Democratic presidential candidate before Clinton had ever enjoyed. At a $1,000-a-plate dinner for Asian Americans in Los Angeles last July, Clinton proudly praised Huang for being so good at getting the audience to open its wallets. But on Oct. 18, Huang was suspended from his fund-raising slot after news leaked that he had solicited the $250,000 South Korean donation in violation of U.S. laws against foreign political contributions. Other improprieties soon emerged, and Huang disappeared until he was forced to make his deposition.
More questions were raised by Huang's dozens of visits to the White House this year. Secret Service logs show that Huang went there most frequently in February 1996, shortly after joining the D.N.C. "It creates a very bad impression to have a fund raiser spending that much time in the White House," says C. Boyden Gray, who served as Bush's White House counsel. Gray set up a "funnel" in the Bush White House during the 1992 campaign, requiring campaign officials to clear any conversations with Bush appointees in the government. "It was time-consuming because you had to make two phone calls instead of one, and sometimes it was frustrating because they'd say no," he says. "It probably chilled a lot of communications." Alas, for the Clinton Administration's zealous fund-raising operation, it's too late to turn down the heat.
--Reported by J.F.O. McAllister with Clinton; Nina Burleigh, Viveca Novak and Mark Thompson/Washington; Donald Shapiro/Taipei and Michael Shari/Jakarta