Charlie Trie was that Little Rock, Arkansas, restaurant owner who contributed so much to Bill Clinton's 1996 campaign. And then some people found it highly irregular and the Senate Government Affairs Committee set out to investigate. No doubt, Fred Thompson remembers it well. After all, he chaired the Committee as they sloughed through the summer of 1997.
Eventually, if I remember correctly, some people went to prison. Or maybe not. In any event, the report of the 1997 Special Investigation in Connection with 1996 Federal Election Campaigns is up on Wikipedia. But, for some reason, some of the sections are empty. Specifically, Sections 20-32. Some have interesting titles:
# Section 20: "Charlie Trie's Contributions to the Presidential Legal Expense Trust"
# Section 21: "The Saga of Roger Tamraz"
# Section 22: "DNC Efforts to Raise Money in the Indian Gaming Community"
# Section 23: "The Hudson Wisconsin Casino Proposal"
# Section 24: "The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes: Their Quest for the Fort Reno Lands"
# Section 25: "The Offer of R. Warren Meddoff"
# Section 26: "White House, DNC and Clinton-Gore Campaign Fundraising Efforts Involving the International Brotherhood of Teamsters"
# Section 27: "Compliance by Nonprofits with Committee Subpoenas"
# Section 28: "Role of Nonprofit Groups in the 1996 Elections"
# Section 29: "Allegations Relating to the National Policy Forum"
# Section 30: "White House Document Production"
# Section 31: "DNC Document Production"
# Section 32: "Campaign Finance Reform Issues Brought to the Forefront by the Special Investigation"
If you look hard enough, the contents can be found in the government archives, under the heading S.Rpt.105-167,Pt.1-6 INVESTIGATION OF ILLEGAL OR IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN CONNECTION as either a text file or a pdf. But, it's my impression that the text version is not quite complete. At least, I wasn't able to find Section 20 as a text.
So, since the pdf recitation of Charlie Trie's doings are of some historical interest and some of the players are relevant even today, I transcribed just a couple of excerpts to provide a flavor of where were over a decade ago.
p. 2713
CHARLIE TRIE'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PRESIDENTIAL LEGAL EXPENSE TRUST
P. 2725
VI. May 9, 1996 WHITE HOUSE MEETING
After receiving the initial investigative report from IGI, including information about the Ching Hai Buddhist group, Cardozo scheduled another meeting at the White House for May9, 1996 to again discuss the Trie donations. The meeting was attended by Cardozo, Shcwartz and Libow on behalf of the Trust , and Harold Ickes, Jack Quinn, White House Counsel, Bruce Lindsey, Deputy White House Counsel, Cheryl Mills, Deputy White House Counsel, Evelyn Lieberman, Deputy Chief of Staff and Maggie Williams, Chieff of staff to the First Lady, on behalf of the White House. Cardozo did not know why it was nesessary to meet with so many senior members of the White House staff, especially in light of his insistence that the Trust operate independent of the White House. The White House apparently made the decision as to which staff members would attend.
During the May 9 meeting, Cardozo explained the key facts surrounding Trie's donations to the Trust, and called upon Libow, the Trust's attorney, to provide the group with a summary of IGI's findings regarding Ching Hai and its leader, Suma Ching Hai. Libow described IGI's findings in great detail including their conclusion that at least some of the donations may have been coerced.
p. 2726
The group discussed the pros and cons of returning the donations and the type of press coverage such a story would generate. Mills raised the question of whether returning the money would be seen as some sort of discriminatory act against Asian-Americans, but in the end the group supported the Trustees preliminary recommendation to return the money.
Significantly, Cardozo testified that soon after the meeting started Bruce Lindsey entered the room, heard Trie's name mentioned, and commented that he knew Trie from Little Rock and that he knew Trie was "involved with the Democractic Party." Ickes was present when the comment was made, but said nothing in response. Furthermore, despite the fact that Ickes was supervising the President's re-election effort from the White House, he apparently failed to make any inquiry into Trie's fundraising activities with the DNC.
A. Ickes Failure to Notify the DNC
Lindsey was correct on May 9th that Trie was "involved" with the Democratic Party. In fact, he was a Managing Trstee of the DNC (meaning he contributed or raised at least $100,000). Ickes' was also involved with the DNC. In fact, according to some witnesses, Ickes was calling the shots on a day to day basis at the DNC. Yet, despite his leading role with the DNC, Ickes failed to notify anyone at the DNC that a major DNC donor and fund raiser was involved in highly questionable fund raising for the Trust. According to DNC Chairman Don Fowler, "If we had known about the problems with Trie earlier, we could have done something . I wish we had known that." Instead, the DNC was ultimately forced to return $645,000 in funds contributed or raised by Trie. Indeed, the first time Ickes mentioned the issue to anyone at the DNC was during a telephone conversation with B.J. Thornberry, Executive Director at the DNC, in October, 1996--after the fundraising controversy had broken in the press. Ms. Thornberry reaised quetions with Ickes regardling whether John Huang had been truthful with the DNC. Ickes responded by telling her that if she had those concerns she should also check out Charlie Trie and talk to Bruce Linsey about him.
Q. What did Mr. Ickes say to you?
A. Mr. Ickes said two things to me. He said that if I had concerns about John Huang that I also might want to check out contributions from Charlie Trie, and he said also that I might want to have the same conversation with Bruce Lindsey.
p. 2727
Mr. Ickes was not alone in his failure to follow up on Trie's actions with regard to the Trust. White House personnel, including the President, not only failed to notify the DNC of Trie's questionable fundraising practices with the Trust, but continued to have contact with him. Only four days after the May 9 White House meeting, the President sat next to Trie at the head table of a $5000 per person dinner in Washington. In August, 1996, two months after the Trust decided to return the Trie-related donations, the President accepted $110,000 from Trie at an event celebrating the President's 50th Birthday. In addition, as noted above, the President proceeded to appoint Trie to a federal trade comission and had the NSC prepare a personal response to foreign policy questions raised by Trie, both after Cardozo informed the White House and the First Lady about the questionable Trust donations.
VII. TRIE'S FINAL MEETING WITH THE TRUST
On May 17, 1996, Trie visited the Trust for the third and fianl time. Cardozo asked Schwartz to meet with Trie alone because Cardozo no longer wished to have any dealings with him. During the meeting, Trie acknowledged that he was indeed a member of the Ching Hai sect and that he had encouraged the Supreme Master to help him raise money for the Trust. Trie also had additional donations which he said totaled $150,000--bringing the total to $789,000--that he wished to deliver, but Schwartz rfused to accept them because by then the Trust has yet to make a determination regarding the first delivery of funds.
VIII. THE TRIE-RELATED CONTRIBUTIONS ARE RETURNED
The decision to return the Trie-related contributions was finalized in June 1996, and the Trust began mailing contributions back to the contributors. However, it did so with a twist. Notwithstanding IGI's finding about the involvement of the Ching Hai sect and the likely coercion exercised on sect members, the Trust sent a cover letter along with the returned contributions instructing the donors that they could re-submit their contributions if they met the Trust's guidelines. In other words, despite the fact that the Trust knew the donations had been, at least in part, coerced, it was still willing to accept the same money from the same donors.
Loren Berger, the IGI invetigator who authored the IGI report, testified before the Committee that she had a theory as to why the Trust sought to have the donations recontributed in this manner. She knew that any contributions accepted in the first six months of 1996 would be made public in the bi-annual report filed in July 1996, prior to the election. However,if the donations were trturned and the donors then re-submitted their contributions during the second half of 1996, the "contributions" would not be made public until the next reporting period--January 1997, after the election. Berger theorized that by returning the contributions and allowing them to be re-submitted after the first reporting period of 1996 had passed, the Trust could effectively receive the funds and avoid making them public until after the election. The only flaw in Ms. Berger's theory was that the bi-annual report had historically disclosed not just contributions, but returned contributions as well, which would mean the story would have become public prior to the election anyway. However, as discussed below, the Trust changed its public reporting method to avoid disclosing the return of the Trie-related contributions.
IX. THE BI-ANNUAL REPORT IS CHANGED TO KEEP THE TRIE DONATIONS SECRET
Work on the mid-1996 bi-annual report began in the first week of July 1996. The purpose of the report was to record the activities of the Trust for the first half of 1996 and to make them public at a press conference held in August. All previous bi-annual reports submitted by the Trust since its inception had listed "total contributions" received by the Trust during the six month period and subtracted "ineligible contributions" that had been returned during that same period. However, in mid-1996 the Trust changed the format of the bi-annual report so that only "contributions accepted" by the Trust were listed. The Trust eliminated the return line and rationalized that any contributions received and returned within the six month period were never "accepted" and, thus, need not be disclosed. This was a marked departure from the way returns had been accounted for historically.