DNC Admits Mistakes in Monitoring Contributions

WASHINGTON — Top officials of the Democratic National Committee acknowledged Friday that, under pressure to keep up with Republican fund-raising efforts, they had not adequately scrutinized who was giving them money. But they said they have taken steps to prevent any more questionable contributions in the future.

In their first detailed response to a three-week controversy over the committee’s fund-raising practices, they described an organization so desperate for funds, and eventually so swamped by the flow of contributions, that it ignored the usual safeguards.

For example, the committee failed to run computer checks on its major donors, a standard practice for most political fund-raising operations and part of the committee’s own procedures until mid-1994. Two employees dedicated to that task were let go then to save money and were never replaced despite record fund-raising.

“I think our system got overwhelmed, and it in part contributed to the problems” that the party now faces, said committee Executive Director B.J. Thornberry. She said the DNC relied on a kind of “ad hoc system” that depended largely on the instincts of fund-raisers who were under enormous pressure to bring in donors.

The DNC’s fund-raising practices have led to a major controversy in the final weeks of the presidential campaign, with disclosures that it accepted $20,000 from a convicted felon, $325,000 from a Indian man who told a court he had no assets, $250,000 in illegal foreign funds from a Korean firm and $5,000 from a Buddhist nun who said a Democratic activist gave her that amount in small bills and told her to donate it in her own name.

The party stripped one of its top fund-raisers, John Huang, of his duties Oct. 18, and has asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate. But until Friday, senior officials refused to address the larger issues raised by Huang’s activities or try to explain how some of the questionable contributions made their way into the party’s coffers.

On Friday, it was disclosed that there were two people named John Huang visiting the White House--and that only one was a Democratic fund-raiser.

White House spokesman Barry Toiv identified the second man with the same name as being involved in Vice President Al Gore’s review of government agencies, which was designed to improve their efficiency, the Associated Press reported.

The disclosure came as aides to President Clinton missed a second House deadline for providing Congress with information on Huang, who pulled in an estimated $4 million to $5 million in Democratic contributions from Asian Americans this year. White House counsel Jack Quinn said more time was needed to respond.

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Thornberry acknowledged a series of both managerial and political lapses and said she will “beef up” the process for checking out large donations.

“We don’t wink and nod and have a flagrant disregard for the law around here,” Thornberry said. “We’ve made some mistakes, and we take it very seriously.”

She said it was “absolutely, absolutely” a huge mistake to stop running computer checks on donors who contribute $30,000 or more, and that all checks greater than $10,000 were now being scrutinized by the party’s general counsel, Joseph Sandler.