IN CONNECTION WITH 1996 FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGNS
FINAL REPORT of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SENATE Rept. 105-167 - 105th Congress 2d Session - March 10, 1998
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| INVESTIGATION OF ILLEGAL OR IMPROPER ACTIVITIES IN CONNECTION WITH 1996 FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGNS FINAL REPORT of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS SENATE Rept. 105-167 - 105th Congress 2d Session - March 10, 1998 |
The Hsi Lai Temple Fundraiser and Maria Hsia
The fundraiser attended by Vice President Gore on April 29,
1996 at the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, California, has
been the focus of considerable attention and controversy ever
since reports first surfaced in the national press revealing
that some of the donations given to the DNC in connection with
this event were unlawfully reimbursed.1 Over the
course of its investigation, the Committee has examined the
various allegations of illegality and impropriety that have
surfaced in connection with this event. Furthermore, the
Committee has conducted a broader inquiry into the unlawful
involvement of the Hsi Lai Temple in the 1995-96 election cycle
and the complex chain of events that produced this involvement.
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\1\ See, e.g., Phil Kuntz, ``Instant Karma: Cash Gets to Democrats
Via Buddhist Temple,'' Wall Street Journal, Oct. 17, 1996 (recounting
allegations by Buddhist nun that DNC donation for Gore event was
reimbursed). This early coverage prompted the Christian Coalition to
file a complaint against the DNC with the Federal Election Commission
in connection with the Hsi Lai Temple fundraiser. See generally Colleen
Sealander, letter to Master Shing Yun, Oct. 29, 1996 (Ex. 1)
(forwarding complaint to Temple, with attachments).
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As a result of these inquiries, it has become apparent that
the DNC's Hsi Lai Temple fundraiser on April 29, 1996 was
merely one instance--albeit the most significant one--in an
ongoing campaign of illegal Temple donation-laundering arranged
by a woman named Maria L. Hsia in support of Democratic
candidates. Nor was this campaign merely an aberration confined
to the 1995-96 election cycle. Rather, it had roots stretching
back to 1988, with the decision of James Riady, John Huang,
Maria Hsia, and others to organize themselves into a political
fundraising and lobbying organization in order to advance their
interests through U.S. politics.
The Temple-related issue that has hitherto received the
most attention in the press--Vice President Gore's knowledge
(or alleged lack thereof) with regard to the status of his
April 29 luncheon as a DNC fundraiser--is addressed in this
section. It will be obvious from the evidence recounted herein
that despite his various denials, the Vice President was well
aware that the event was one designed to raise money for his
party. Preoccupied by a narrow debate over the inconsequential
terminology of ``community outreach,'' ``finance-related
events,'' ``donor maintenance,'' and ``fundraisers,'' many
observers have missed the forest for the trees. The real
significance of the Temple incident lies not in the Vice
President's lack of candor, but in the ongoing relationship
this affair illustrates between him--and the Democratic Party--
and a small but influential political clique headed by Riady,
Huang, and Hsia.
As will become clear, despite the participation of Temple
monastics in criminal wrongdoing in connection with the April
1996 event and in Hsia's broader campaign of Democratic Party
donation-laundering, the Temple itself seems to have been only
a secondary actor in this drama. Indeed, Temple officials seem
to have known little--if anything--about the political
campaigns they illegally supported at Hsia's
direction.2 The real significance of the Temple
incident may therefore be found in what it reveals about the
activities and agenda of its key decision-makers--Maria Hsia
and John Huang.
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\2\ Since the Hsi Lai Temple received electronic alarm services
from a corporation called ``DNC,'' many of the monastics solicited to
give money to the Democratic National Committee may have mistaken the
party for the company. Cf., e.g., IBPS check #1278, Jan. 5, 1996 (Ex.
2) ($50 payment to ``DNC,'' apparently for alarm services).
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Hsia and Huang have both asserted their Fifth Amendment
privilege against self-incrimination and have refused to
cooperate with the Committee. Nevertheless, from documentary
evidence produced pursuant to subpoena and from interviews and
depositions of persons involved, the Committee has been able to
develop a detailed understanding both of the events at issue
and of the role of Hsia and Huang therein.
i. maria hsia
Hsia Ling--better known by the Anglicized version of her
name, Maria Lynn Hsia--was born in 1951 and first came to the
United States on a student visa in 1973. After returning
briefly to her native Taiwan in 1974, she returned to this
country to become a permanent resident in 1975. Not long after
her arrival, she began working as a case worker at Popkin &
Shamir, a personal injury and immigration law firm.3
She became a U.S. citizen in 1986.4
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\3\ Maria Hsia, hearing transcript from Hsia v. Hom, Ca. Super.
Ct., No. BC 059523, Aug. 16, 1995, pp. 16-17 (Ex. 3).
\4\ James Sterngold, ``Political Tangle of Taiwan Immigrant,'' New
York Times, June 9, 1997.
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Though not a lawyer, Hsia took up several successive
positions with various immigration law firms, leaving Popkin
for a firm headed by Patrick Fleming, working as a consultant
for Damrell, Damrell & Nelson, then joining Howard Hom &
Associates, and working with Arnold Malter, before going into
business under her own name as Hsia & Associates in
1991.5 Throughout this period, the immigration
services business generally treated Maria Hsia well. In the
late 1970s and early 1980s, providing immigration services to
Taiwanese citizens was an ``extremely lucrative''
field.6 Hsia, it appears, profited accordingly. Her
reported income in 1982, for example, was $637,000.7
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\5\ Hsia's involvement with former INS lawyer Howard Hom began in
the summer of 1979, when they were both enrolled in Cantonese language
classes at the University of California in Los Angeles. Deposition of
Howard Hom, Aug. 27, 1997, pp. 8-9. They began living together in 1980,
and when the Fleming firm split up in 1986, Hom went into business with
Hsia as they took over most of Fleming's immigration clients. See
Memorandum of Interview of Howard Hom, Aug. 10, 1997, p.1. This
personal-cum-business relationship with Howard Hom lasted until late
1990. Howard Hom deposition, p.9.
\6\ See Trial Brief of Defendant and Cross-Complainant Howard Hom
in Hsia v. Hom, Ca Super. Ct., No. BC 059523, p. 6 (Ex. 4) (describing
immigration law as profitable ``largely due to tremendous uncertainty
in Taiwan over the future of the island nation'' caused by the U.S.
government's abrogation of formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan).
\7\ Ex. 3, p. 69. Her income in 1983 was $449,000. By 1986 it had
slipped to $362,000. Id. According to press reports, this stream of
revenue enabled her to purchase a Rolls Royce automobile and a home in
Beverly Hills. Sterngold, supra note 4.
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Hsia's first contact with political fundraising came in
early 1982 at a cocktail party she attended with Howard Hom. At
that reception, they met briefly with March Fong-Eu, an Asian-
American woman who was then California's Secretary of State,
and Fong-Eu's son, Matthew Fong, who was then his mother's
campaign manager and subsequently became California's state
treasurer. At a subsequent meeting, Fong enlisted Hom and Hsia
to help with fundraising for his mother's re-election. As Hom
later recalled it, ``Maria offered to take over the fund-
raising activity and, in fact, she explained to Mr. Fong that
she felt that she and her friends could probably do a better
fund-raiser than Howard and his lawyer friends . . . . That was
the genesis of how fund-raising got started with
Maria.''8
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\8\ Hom deposition, pp. 10-12.
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It was her immigration work that helped propel Hsia into
the political arena. Her interest in political activity was
heavily mercenary: it provided her with contacts and friends in
government circles in ways that she believed helped her
immigration services business in at least two ways.
First, such contacts might be useful in helping her clients
with specific immigration matters. When she and Hom ran into
some difficulty with Immigration and Naturalization Services
(INS) officials in 1983 over a series of visas they had
obtained for clients through the U.S. consulate in American
Samoa, for example, Hsia decided that ``a political approach
might be useful'' to complement more conventional litigation
strategies.9 Through her political contacts, she
persuaded U.S. Senator Alan Cranston and U.S. Representatives
Mel Levine, Howard Berman, and Harry Reid to write letters to
the INS on her behalf. Cranston was already a recipient of
political contributions Hsia had raised through her contacts in
California's Asian community,10 and after their help
with this immigration issue Hsia began raising money for
Levine, Berman, and Reid as well.11 Their queries
forced the INS to undertake the unusual additional step of
publishing a report in December 1983 on its handling of these
particular cases.12 The message was not lost on Hsia
that political contacts and political fundraising could indeed
pay her concrete dividends.13
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\9\ Id., p. 18.
\10\ Maria Hsia's fundraising efforts on Senator Cranston's behalf
continued, in fact, at least through May 1989. See Handwritten note by
Hsia's assistant Jeffrey Su listing attendees at Cranston fundraiser on
May 23, 1989, including Maria Hsia and John Huang (Ex. 5). As a result
of Hsia's longstanding contacts with Cranston, he invited her to
address a field hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's
Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific Affairs (which he chaired) at UCLA in
February 1989. See Alan Cranston, letter to Maria Hsia, Jan. 23, 1989
(Ex. 6); see generally Hom deposition, pp. 180-82.
\11\ Hom deposition, p. 20.
\12\ Sterngold, supra note 4.
\13\ See generally Hom deposition, p. 15 (``[E]specially on the
Federal level, when Maria started to meet Congressmen and Senators, she
realized that this was helpful to my immigration clients who, because
of the[ir] contact with the Federal Government, might have some need of
a letter from a Senator or a Congressman to get a case moving through
the red tape of the bureaucracy.'').
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Apart from concrete help with specific immigration cases,
however, Hsia's political activity was useful to her business
in a second, more general sense: it helped her cultivate an
image of a ``connected'' political ``player'' who could ``make
things happen'' for her clients. As Hom put it,
[I]t was also good in the sense of a public relations
image where the Chinese newspapers would say, Here's
Howard Hom and Maria Hsia having a reception with the
particular Senator or Congressman, the implication
obviously being that we were well-connected and that
clients should view that, if anything happened to their
case, we had this kind of extra protection, so to
speak.14
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\14\ Id.
Her political fundraising in California politics, for example--
which had begun with her involvement with Hom in March Fong-
Eu's campaign in 1982--quickly proved useful in this regard.
With help from fundraising beneficiaries March Fong-Eu and
California Lieutenant Governor Leo McCarthy, for example, Hsia
was appointed to several honorary state positions, the prestige
of which benefitted her immigration work.15
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\15\ See, e.g., Ex. 3, p. 58 (``I was sitting on the California
Economic [Development] Commission, which gave me a lot of exposure and
[helped] to draw more [immigrant] investors [under the Immigration Act
of 1990] to come into this country.'') These state positions included
seats on the Commission for Economic Development and the California-
Taiwan Sister State Legislative Task Force, and received weighty titles
as March Fong-Eu's ``Honorary Deputy Secretary of State'' and ``Special
Assistant for Asian Affairs.'' See Maria Hsia biography, p. 2 (Ex. 7)
(listing positions); Hom deposition, pp. 12-13; Leo McCarthy, letter to
Maria Hsia, April 8, 1991 (Ex. 8) (discussing upcoming seminar for
Commission for Economic Development).
Hsia's early political activity also had national results. DNC
Chairman Ronald Brown, who would later supervise Hsia's friend John
Huang in his Department of Commerce, appointed Hsia to the DNC's
``National Convention Site Selection Committee.'' Cf. Ronald H. Brown,
letter to Maria Hsia, June 14, 1990 (Ex. 9).
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As luck would have it, however, the synergy between Hsia's
political activity and her immigration business did not flow in
only one direction. Her immigration work may, in fact, have
introduced her to Indonesia's Lippo Group conglomerate. Having
been put in contact with the Indonesian section of Lippo Bank
by one of her clients, she acquired some further clients
through them.16
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\16\Maria L. Hsia, deposition in Hsia v. Hom, California Superior
Court, No. BC 059523, May 18, 1994, pp. 29-31 (Ex. 10).
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By the late 1980s, Hsia had begun to attempt on the
national stage what she had by then accomplished in California:
building close fundraising and political ties to prominent
politicians who were in a position to help her and her friends.
At least initially, however, this project--which was to
culminate with her efforts to involve the Hsi Lai Temple on
behalf of national Democratic candidates in the 1996
elections--could not be accomplished alone. To move more into
national politics, Hsia required some new friends.
The involvement of Hsia and the Hsi Lai Temple in donation-
laundering in support of the Clinton/Gore ticket in 1996 was
the culmination of a relationship between Hsia and Vice
President Gore that stretches back to 1988--the year that James
Riady, John Huang, Maria Hsia, Eddy Yang, Howard Hom, Fred
Hong, and others established the Pacific Leadership Council
(PLC) as a fundraising and lobbying organization to promote
their interests in U.S. politics.17
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\17\ As Hom recalled it, the purpose was to build the group into a
powerful political organization; it was designed to give its charter
members ``the same kind of clout as, say, other organized groups . . .
like the Teamsters or the National Rifle Association . . . .'' Hom
deposition, p. 24.
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From the beginning, it should be noted, the PLC was in
large part a vehicle for the advancement of Lippo interests.
James Riady, the son of Mochtar Riady and scion of the family
dynasty that ran the Lippo Group, was instrumental in the PLC's
founding and served alongside Hsia and Fred Hong as one of the
organization's first co-chairs.18 Indeed, James
Riady was perhaps the single most important figure in the PLC's
early political activity, hosting its first political
fundraiser on April 22, 1988,19 using his business
contacts to facilitate the group's fundraising,20
and employing his own money and that of Lippo employees to make
up for unanticipated shortfalls in PLC fundraising
efforts.21
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\18\ Id.
\19\ Id. p. 26; see also Maria Hsia, facsimile transmission to John
Huang, March 30, 1988 (Ex. 11) (referring to upcoming event at
``James's house on 4/22/88'').
\20\ One document recounting contributions made to the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee (apparently in 1988), for example, lists
13 persons or couples who had contributed between $5,000 and $10,000 to
that organization. Beside each name is listed the name of the person
who solicited that contribution. James Riady's name appears next to 11
of the 13 donations, suggesting that he was responsible for every
contribution but two (the ones that were made by Hsia and Hom
themselves). David Lang, memorandum to Mary Leslie, May 4, 1988 (Ex.
12); see also Hom deposition, p. 28 (explaining that handwritten
notations next to each name indicate solicitor). Another document
produced to the Committee, recounting solicitations for new membership
in the ``Leadership Circle/Business Round Table Circle,'' lists Maria
Hsia and James Riady as having each solicited $55,000. List of
Leadership Circle Solicitations, undated (Ex. 13).
\21\ John Huang, Riady's employee, was particularly active in this
regard. See Hom deposition, pp. 30-32 (recounting that John Huang
commonly ``stepped in to fill the slot'' if Hsia or others ``would fall
short of [their] goal and would have to look for other people to bail
her out . . . [by] making an extra contribution''); John Huang, note to
Maria Hsia, Dec. 16, 1989 (Ex. 14) (forwarding blank check drawn on
account at Lippo bank with handwritten instructions to use it for
either $500 or $1,000 donation to Fund for a Democratic Majority,
depending upon whether another contributor met anticipated commitment);
Jeff Su, letter to ``Pamela,'' April 15, 1991 (Ex. 15) (enclosing Huang
check to ``Mikulski for Senate'' in order to ``serve as a replacement
for Phillip So's check''); Maria Hsia, letter to Rick Weiland, April
28, 1988 (Ex. 16) (forwarding check from Huang which ``represents David
Yeh and Ossy Tirta's contributions''); Ex. 13 (listing solicitations by
Riady for ``New Members Leadership Circle/Business Round Table Circle''
with handwritten alterations replacing names of Ossy Tirta and David
Yeh with that of John Huang).
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A ``wish list'' 22 James Riady submitted to Hsia
in April 1988 summarizing ``issues need[ing] to be followed
up,'' 23 for example, suggests Riady's role in
steering the PLC and interest in enlisting it, and through it
the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), as a
vehicle for the promotion of Lippo interests. This list,
prefaced by a handwritten memorandum on Bank of Trade/Lippo
Group 24 stationery, outlined Riady's plans for the
group's political activity in U.S. politics on a Senator-by-
Senator basis, outlining a specific ``agenda'' for six U.S.
Senators: Daniel Inouye, Tim Wirth, Kent Conrad, James Exon,
John Melcher, and Tom Daschle. More broadly, Riady suggested a
number of ``[o]ther issues'' that the PLC should pursue, among
them:
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\22\ The term is Howard Hom's. See Hom deposition, p. 36.
\23\ James Riady, memorandum to Maria Hsia, April 26, 1988, p. 1
(Ex. 17).
\24\ The Bank of Trade was a Lippo-owned bank that is now known
simply as Lippo Bank.
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``(i) The need for the Senators to impress upon
Taiwan to allow Asian-American banks (or at least Bank
of Trade) to be allowed to open a branch office in
Taiwan in the very near future.
(ii) Appointments of Asian-Americans to policy making
positions in the Federal Government.
(iii) Visit of US Senators on an ongoing and regular
basis to Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan at our
invitation or with us as host.
(iv) Participation of Senators at specific Asian-
American community activities in California such as the
NACAB, The Asia Society, the Indonesian Business
Society and other similar bodies.
(v) Funds of various Federal Government Agencies or
government bodies as well as that of DSCC to be
deposited at the Asian-American banks in the U.S.
Perhaps the DSCC could start by making a deposit at
Bank of Trade.
(vi) Assistance for special, exceptional immigration
cases when and if it arises.'' 25
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\25\ Ex. 17, p. 3.
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Riady's role in personally directing such activity,
however, declined over time as it became difficult for him to
reconcile the broader responsibilities of helping run his
family's international business empire with day-to-day
involvement in U.S. politics. As a consequence, he found it
necessary to step down as co-chair of the PLC. To ensure that
Lippo's interests were still advanced by the organization,
however, Riady delegated his role to Huang, who was at that
time a top executive with the Lippo-owned Bank of Trade and
thus Riady's employee. Huang thereafter served as Riady's agent
``both on the PLC, taking over Riady's position as the
organization's co-chair, and more generally with regard to U.S.
political activity.26 As Maria Hsia herself
27 put it in a facsimile transmission to her PLC co-
chair Fred Hong, ``John Huang . . . is putting D.S.C.C.
together for James.'' 28
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\26\ See Hom deposition, pp. 24-25.
\27\ As suggested by Riady's April 1988 ``wish list,'' Hsia was
apparently also expected to play a role in implementing James Riady's
agenda. See Ex. 17, p. 1 (noting that with regard to political agenda,
``it may be best to coordinate through a person--i.e., you.'').
\28\ Maria Hsia, facsimile transmission to Fred Hong, March 30,
1988 (Ex. 18).
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The PLC swung its weight in behind Democratic Party
candidates in several of the major national races of 1988, most
prominently Michael Dukakis' campaign for President and Leo
McCarthy's campaign for the U.S. Senate.29 Both of
these campaigns, however, were conspicuously unsuccessful--
leading the PLC to cast around for a way to rekindle its
political fortunes. Ultimately, the PLC decided to try to
revive the organization's political activity by organizing a
high-profile trip to Asia for a group of U.S.
Senators.30 Significantly, it was this search for
new political opportunities in 1988-89 that helped bring Hsia
and the Riady/Huang group together, simultaneously, both with
Venerable Master Hsing Yun's Fo Kuang Shan Buddhist order and
with then-U.S. Senator Al Gore.
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\29\ See generally Hom deposition, pp. 22-25, ``89 for 90,'' Los
Angeles Times Magazine, Jan. 1, 1989, p. 34 (identifying Hsia as ``at
the center of a predominantly Asian group of fund-raisers rapidly
emerging as a major force in the hotly competitive Los Angeles
political money scene. Last fall, the group raised substantial sums
for, among others, the Dukakis and McCarthy campaigns. Throughout 1989,
its' leading delegations of Senators and Congressmen on tours of the
far east''). Hsia was also a ``regional chair'' for the 1988 Democratic
Senate Dinner in Los Angeles and--along with Huang, Hom, and Fred Hong,
among others--co-chaired at least one Dukakis campaign fundraising
dinner in Los Angeles sponsored by the ``Asian-American Friends of
Dukakis.'' (The ``general chairman'' for the latter event was the now-
convicted campaign-finance violator Albert Lum.) See 1988 Democratic
Senate Dinner brochure, p. 1 (Ex. 19); Dukakis dinner program (Ex. 20).
\30\ As it turned out, this trip would be among the PLC members'
most important steps toward implementing the U.S. political agenda
James Riady had spelled out in April 1988, see supra text accompanying
note 25 (listing agenda item of having Asian-Americans appointed to
high office), until the success in 1994 of the group's efforts to have
Huang appointed to a high government position. See Hom deposition, p.
39; see also Ex. 21 (letters on behalf of John Huang: Howard Hom,
letter to Doris Matsui, Dec. 14, 1992; Sen. Paul Simon, letter to Susan
Brophy, Jan. 6, 1993; Sen. Thomas Daschle, letter to Richard Riley,
Jan. 8, 1993; Mike Wantanabe, letter to Melinda Yee, Jan. 19, 1993;
Sen. Kent Conrad, letter to Bruce Lindsey, Jan. 21, 1993; Nancy H. Au,
letter to Melinda Yee, Jan. 26, 1993; Kathleen Brown, letter to Jody
Franklin, Jan. 28, 1993; Maeley Tom, letter to John Emerson, Feb. 17,
1993; Leo McCarthy, letter to Bruce Lindsey, Feb. 22, 1993; Leo
McCarthy, letter to John Emerson, Feb. 22, 1993).
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The connection between Hsia and her fellow PLC members and
the Fo Kuang Shan Buddhist order 31--the Taiwanese
parent organization of the International Buddhist Progress
Society (IBPS) and its Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights,
California--came about through Eddy Yang. Yang, also a founding
member of the PLC, headed the Sunlight Corporation a furniture
company and had been for many years an ``advisor'' to the Fo
Kuang Shan order in Taiwan.32 As Howard Hom
recalled, Yang stepped in and ``volunteered the temple's
auspices'' after Hsia had ``problems lining up a corporate
sponsor that she knew,'' making the temple available to help
underwrite the cost of the PLC's trip to Asia for Senator Gore
in early 1989.33
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\31\ This Taiwanese-based sect was founded in 1969 by Li Kuo-Shen,
who subsequently took the name Hsing Yun (``Stars and Clouds'') as his
``Dharma name'' upon becoming a monk. By the mid-1990s, the Order had
developed into a worldwide network having some 130 temples, as many as
1.5 million adherents, and over $400 million in assets. See Kevin
Sullivan, ``Monk at Issue is an Icon in Taiwan,'' Washington Post, Oct.
25, 1996, p. A22; Geoff Spencer, ``Buddhism Blossoms in Australia's
Industrial Heartland.'' Ap Worldstream, Oct. 8, 1995.
\32\ See Hom deposition, pp. 49-50.
\33\ Id.
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Involving the Fo Kuang Shan Order in the PLC's agenda was
in many ways an inspired choice, as it had acquired a
reputation for political activity in Taiwan.34
Master Hsing Yun saw himself as destined to play an important
role on the world stage as an unofficial advisor to political
leaders both in Taiwan and elsewhere.35 Not for
nothing, therefore, was Master Hsing Yun known as ``the
political monk.'' 36
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\34\ Master Hsing Yun, for example, has since served 1988 on the
Central Advisory Committee to Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang Party (KMT),
supported an independent Buddhist candidate (Chen Lu-an) in Taiwan's
1995-96 presidential election campaigns, and in 1997 accepted an
appointment to the Taipei government's cabinet-level Overseas Chinese
Affairs Commission. Debbie Kuo, ``Master Hsing Yun Appointed
Commissioner of O'Seas Chinese Affairs,'' Central News Agency [Taiwan],
Feb. 16, 1997; Sullivan, supra note 31, p. A22; Tsong Ching, ``Master
Hsing Yun and Preceptor of State Yu Lin,'' Pacific Journal, May 3, 1996
(Ex. 22) (translated by Michael Yan for the Governmental Affairs
Committee). According to press reports, Hsing Yun's ``pattern of
influence building'' has given him ties to ``a number of world
leaders.'' Sullivan, supra note 31; see also generally Stuart
Chandler, Establishing Friendly Relations: The Fokuangshan Perspective
on the Hsi Lai Temple Political Donations Controversy (unpublished
monograph, June 14, 1997) (Ex. 23, p. 13).
\35\ Hsing Yun once wrote a novel about a Buddhist monk named Yu
Lin, who was appointed to political office as ``Preceptor of State'' by
an emperor of the Ch'ing dynasty. This story, which was made into a
movie and a television series in Taiwan, outlines Hsing Yun's
``critique and expectations of a religious-leader-turned-Preceptor-of-
State'' and suggests that he entertains similar ambitions for himself.
Ching, supra note 34; cf. Fu Chi-ying, Handing Down the Light: The
Biography of Venerable Master Hsing Yun (Hsi Lai University Press 1996)
(translated by Amy Lui-Ma) (Ex. 24, p. 106).
\36\ John Mintz, ``Fund-Raisers Pressured Temple After Gore Visit;
12 Donors Were Reimbursed,'' Washington Post, June 13, 1997, p. A20
(recounting that Hsing Yun has called himself ``political monk''); see
also Ching supra note 34.
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To this end, in expanding his order to the United
States,37 Hsing Yun apparently hoped to continue
``spreading the Dharma,'' i.e., increasing popular receptivity
to Buddhist ideas and culture, through political fundraising in
U.S. politics.38 As he made clear to the Committee
when he was interviewed in Taiwan in June 1997,
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\37\ The name of the elaborate temple complex constructed by the
IBPS to be the headquarters of the Fo Kuang Shan order's North American
operations illustrates its intended mission of spearheading the order's
expansion into the United States: Hsi Lai means ``Coming to the West.''
Hsing Yun's biographer describes the founding of the temple in Hacienda
Heights as ``a milestone that mark[ed] the Dharma coming to the Western
world.'' (Ex. 24, p. 342).
\38\ See Ex. 23, p. 4 (``As another means to establish Hsi Lai
Temple as a legitimate, fully accepted member of the [U.S.] community,
Master Hsing Yun and the temple's various abbots have consistently
sought to secure `friendly relations' with local and national political
leaders.''); id., p. 16 (describing order's political involvement in
Taiwan and noting that ``[i]n light of Master Hsing Yun's willingness,
even eagerness, to create `friendly relations' with government
officials, both in Taiwan and abroad, the fact that he invited Gore to
Fokuangshan in 1989, and subsequently honored him with a banquet as Hsi
Lai Temple, no longer seems so bizarre.'').
Speaking of political donations, I feel that, my
entire life, I have been a person who enjoys doing good
deeds and giving to others. . . . I give people
assistance. I am grateful for the economic aid that the
United States government gave to the Republic of China
thirty or forty years in the past. Having established
two-way communication with the United States, I feel
that I ought to express my gratitude and repay the
country.39
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\39\ Hsing Yun, ``Statement to Governmental Affairs Committee Fact-
finding Team'' June 17, 1997 (Ex. 25, p. 2). (This document was
prepared by Hsing Yun for the Committee in advance of his interview on
June 17, 1997; it does not represent an account of this interview.)
This penchant for political involvement helped make Hsing Yun's
Fo Kuang Shan order an eager collaborator in Maria Hsia's
political activity.40 Over the next few years, Hsing
Yun's organization helped Hsia and her PLC co-founders in three
principal ways:
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\40\ Ironically, however, according to Howard Hom, Maria Hsia was
generally contemptuous of persons who became involved in political
activity through political conviction; she believed that real political
power flowed from campaign contributions rather than passion and policy
activism. Hom interview, p. 3.
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(1) The Fo Kuang Shan order helped pay for the PLC's
trip to Asia in early 1989 and hosted the PLC
delegation at its temple headquarters in Kiaoshung,
Taiwan;
(2) The order provided Maria Hsia with a lucrative
sideline in procuring ``religious worker'' visas and
green cards for Temple monastics and devotees coming to
the United States under provisions of the 1990
immigration act for the passage of which she had
successfully lobbied; and
(3) The order gave Hsia access to a deep reservoir of
money for illegally laundered political donations, upon
which she would draw heavily in the years to come.
In return, the Fo Kuang Shan order perceived itself as becoming
increasingly influential within the Democratic Party. By late
1996, brochures prepared by the Hsi Lai Temple had come to
describe Hsing Yun as an ``informal liaison to the White House
on Asian affairs.'' 41
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\41\ Lena H. Sun, ``Gore `Community Outreach' Touched Wallets at
Temple: April L.A. Event Raised Funds and Questions,'' Washington Post,
Oct. 25, 1996, p. A1.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The PLC's trip to Asia in 1989 was organized by John Huang,
James Riady, and Maria Hsia, with Huang playing the lead role.
Here again, James Riady's enormous role in the PLC was visible:
according to a report on the preparations Huang gave to a PLC
meeting in November 1988, Riady and his employee Huang provided
$10,000 in seed money to help cover the trip's costs. This
money was deposited in an account controlled by Huang, Hsia,
and Fred Hong at Riady's own Bank of Trade.42
Overall sponsorship of the trip was ostensibly to be provided
by a ``non profit organization in Indonesia''; this was being
arranged by James Riady.43
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\42\ Minutes of PLC Meeting, Nov. 10, 1988, p. 1 (Ex. 26).
\43\ Riady's role as perhaps the single most important figure
behind the 1989 trip is also suggested by a letter sent in July 1988 by
Huang's assistant to a member of Senator Kent Conrad's staff as part of
the PLC's efforts to organize the Asia trip. According to this letter,
Riady had picked the ``dignitaries, public officials and business
leaders in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia'' who were to be
visited by the PLC delegation. Interestingly, this list included a
number of ``PRC Related Officials,'' including the head of the Xinhua
News Agency in Hong Kong, described as ``equivalent to PRC
Ambassador,'' and the head of China Resources, which was called ``PRC's
key foreign trading company.'' Virginia H. White, letter to Karen
Frederickson, July 28, 1988 (Ex. 27). (For more about China Resources,
see the sections of this report dealing with Lippo and with
intelligence matters.)
The Fo Kuang Shan order also contributed an additional $4,000
toward the PLC's expenses through its U.S. subsidiary, the
International Buddhist Progress Society. See Check #1938 from
International Buddhist Progress Society for $4,000 to ``Pacific
Leadership,'' Dec. 28, 1988 (Ex. 28).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally, the plan had been to invite as many as five
U.S. Senators, accompanied by 15 PLC members, on a trip to
Taiwan, Indonesia, and Hong Kong.44 All but one of
the Senators invited to participate, however, turned down the
Council's invitation.45 But Senator Gore faced re-
election in 1990, and had depleted his campaign funds in his
failed 1988 presidential bid.46 Having been told by
Senator Gore that he ``would like to know the Asian community
better and would like to be closer to them,'' 47
Maria Hsia explicitly promised Senator Gore her political
support, as well as that of PLC co-founders such as James Riady
and John Huang, if he would come join them in Asia. Indeed,
Hsia advised him bluntly that ``[i]f you decide to join this
trip, I will persuave [sic] all my colleagues in the future to
play a leader role in your future presidential race.''
48 Gore thereupon accepted, becoming the only
national-level U.S. politician to join the PLC in Taiwan.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\44\ Ex. 26, p. 2.
\45\ Hom deposition, p. 56.
\46\ See Al Gore, letter to Maria Hsia, May 23, 1989 (Ex. 29).
\47\ Maria Hsia, letter to Albert Gore, Nov. 22, 1988 (Ex. 30)
(recounting conversation with Gore during event at home of Pamela
Harriman). This Harriman event was probably not the same event
referenced in a document in the handwriting of Jeff Su--Maria Hsia's
political assistant--representing a fax transmission from Hsia to John
Huang at Bank of Trade. This document describes a dinner party for 25-
30 guests at Harriman's house costing $3,000 to $5,000 per person with
proceeds going to Friends of Al Gore. See Maria Hsia, memorandum to
John Huang (undated) (Ex. 31). According to Howard Hom, Jeff Su only
began working for Hsia in 1989, suggesting that the Harriman event
referenced in Hsia's November 22, 1988 letter was a prior fundraiser.
See Hom deposition, pp. 77-78.
\48\ Ex. 30. This letter is in the Committee's possession only in
``draft'' form, but Howard Hom recalls that it was ultimately sent as
written. See Hom deposition, p. 59.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to the partial financial sponsorship provided by
Hsing Yun, part of the Taiwan leg of the PLC's Asia trip
consisted of a visit to the Fo Kuang Shan temple in Kiaoshung.
Attending with a delegation that included James Riady and his
wife Aileen, John Huang and his wife Jane, Eddy Yang and his
wife Jenny, Fred Hong, Howard Hom, and Maria Hsia, as well as
Gore staff members Peter Knight and Leon Fuerth, 49
Senator Gore toured the Kiaoshung Monastery on January 11, 1989
and met with Hsing Yun.50
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\49\ Pacific Leadership Council, attendance list for January 1989
trip (Ex. 32). Knight was then Gore's chief of staff, while Fuerth was
his foreign policy advisor. (This document was not a final list of
participants, but Howard Hom recalls it being accurate apart from
exceptions that are irrelevant for present purposes. See Hom
deposition, pp. 61-62.)
\50\ Indeed, during their meeting, Senator Gore and the Venerable
Master discussed the Senator's hopes to win the U.S. presidency.
According to Hsing Yun, when
Senator Gore visited Fo Kuang Shan . . . I said to him,
``You can become the president of the U.S.'' He was excited
upon hearing that and said, ``I will visit you when I
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
become the president.''
Hsing Yun, article in Universal Gates Monthly (May 1996) (Ex. 33, pp.
183-184) [translated from the Chinese by SA Becky Chan for the
Governmental Affairs Committee].
This was the start of an extremely close relationship
between Hsia and Senator Gore. After the January 1989 trip to
Taiwan, Hsia became an active fundraiser for the Senator's
reelection campaign.51 Over the next 22 months,
until his reelection to the Senate in November 1990, for
example, Hsia was involved with--with the help of her
``political assistant'' Jeffrey Su 52--numerous
fundraising events for the Gore campaign, working in
conjunction with campaign officials to refer her own friends
and fundraising colleagues to Gore events in Southern
California.53 Hsia also helped organize Asian-
Americans and Indo-Americans in Tennessee in support of Senator
Gore's re-election, forwarding lists of affluent Chinese-
Americans in Tennessee to the Senator's fundraising staff and
helping publicize Indo-American events among her PLC
fundraising colleagues.54
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\51\ She and her colleagues also did fundraising for other
Senators. See, e.g., DSCC Tally Sheet (1989-1990) (ex. 34) (listing
DSCC recipients including Senators Paul Simon, Tom Harkin, John Kerry,
and Carl Levin); List of contributors to Sen. Howell Heflin dinner,
Nov. 27, 1989 (Ex. 35). Gore, however, was the particular object of
Maria Hsia's attentions.
\52\ Jeffrey Su was hired by Hsia in early 1989--after her return
from the trip to Taiwan--to help her run her various political
activities and particularly to assist her in working for Senator Gore.
Hom deposition, pp. 75 & 78.
\53\ See, e.g., Maria Hsia, memorandum to DSCC members, March 20,
1989 (Ex. 36) (list of upcoming Gore events); Debra Fried, memorandum
to ``Finance leadership and contacts/Friends of Al Gore,'' July 27,
1990 (Ex. 37) (forwarding list of upcoming Gore fundraisers on West
Coast in August 1990); Hari Lal, letter to Debra Fried, Aug. 14, 1990
(Ex. 38) (discussing Gore visit to Los Angeles); Handwritten memorandum
on ``Gore Reception 3/21'' chaired by Eddy Yang at home of PLC founding
member Tina Bow (otherwise undated) (Ex. 39); Jeff Su, fax transmission
to John Huang, Aug. 6, 1990 (Ex. 40) (discussing ``the Gore reception
on Thursday''); Jeff Su, fax transmission to Hari Lal, Aug. 15, 1990
(Ex. 41) (discussing upcoming Gore events).
\54\ See Ju Hong Taur, letter to Maria Hsia, Feb. 9, 1989
(translated by SA Becky Chan for the Governmental Affairs Committee)
(Ex. 42) (forwarding list of Chinese persons for fundraising
solicitation and political organization); Ex. 43 (Maria Hsia, fax
transmission to John Huang, March 9, 1990 [RE: Reception for Senator
Gore by Indo-American community'']; Hari Lal, fax transmission to Maria
Hsia, Oct. 1, 1990 [advising Hsia of Indo-American plans for Gore
fundraisers in Tennessee]); see generally Hom deposition, pp. 78-81
(recounting Hsia's role in organizing Asian-Americans and Indian-
Americans).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The PLC organized a fundraiser of its own for Senator
Gore's campaign on May 21, 1989--a $250-per-person event held
at the California home of PLC founding member Tina Bow and
consisting of a ``private reception'' with the Senator for PLC
members and event sponsors followed by a ``general reception.''
55 The event was chaired by Fo Kuangshan advisor
Eddy Yang, but Hsia was one of its principal organizers,
designing and mailing the invitations for the affair, helping
arrange musical entertainment 56 and inviting ``DSCC
Members and Friends'' to participate, advising them that
Senator Gore was ``a likely candidate for president in 1992.''
57
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\55\ Maria Hsia, letter to ``DSCC Members and Friends,'' May 5,
1989 (Ex. 44) (discussing May 21 fundraiser); R.S.V.P. return and from
Maria Hsia's computer file, May 3, 1989 (Ex. 45) (indicating $250
solicitation for event ``sponsors'').
\56\ See Ex. 45 (draft invitations from Maria Hsia's computer file,
with handwritten edits, and handwritten draft of invitation); Maria
Hsia, letter to Johan Sendjaja, May 3, 1989 (Ex. 46) (discussing
arrangements for band and public address system at May 21 Gore
reception); Handwritten notes from Maria Hsia's file detailing
preparations for May 21 reception (Ex. 47).
\57\ Ex. 44.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nor were Hsia and her colleagues above using Fo Kuang Shan
monastics in their fundraising for Senator Gore. Underlining
the PLC's reciprocal commitments with the Senator, for example,
Eddy Yang helped arrange for several monks and nuns from the
Temple to attend the May 21, 1989 Gore fundraiser.\58\ This
event reportedly raised nearly $20,000 for Senator Gore; he
accordingly wrote a thank-you letter afterwards to one of the
monastics saying that he ``deeply appreciates your support and
the support of your congregation.'' \59\ Senator Gore
thereafter thanked Hsia for her support, assuring her that this
assistance was vital because
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\58\ Hom deposition, p. 67 (``[T]he temple sent a team of monks and
nuns to the event, and as I recall, someone spoke as the representative
of that [organization], and because of that connection or linkage, Eddy
Yang was an event chair because of his connection initially with the
Buddhist temple that helped subsidize the trip to Taiwan.'').
\59\ William Rempel, Alan Miller & Henry Weinstein, ``Buddhist
Temple repaid some DNC Donations,'' Los Angeles Times, May 23, 1997, p.
A1.
my involvement in the Presidential race over the past
two years has delayed my efforts to raise money for the
1990 campaign and left our coffers empty for the
upcoming race. Your contribution at the early stage of
this effort has helped to replenish our account and
will allow me to build a strong organization. . . .\60\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\60\ Ex. 29
In addition to Gore-specific fundraising events, the DSCC's
political-contribution ``tally'' system proved to be a valuable
tool for Hsia as she swung her newfound fundraising clout
behind Senator Gore, representing as it did a convenient way
around limits on ``hard'' campaign finance contributions.\61\
Rather than limit their overall support of a particular
candidate to the $2,000 level specified for total individual
``hard'' donations, contributors to the DSCC arranged to
earmark much larger ``soft'' money contributions for particular
candidates. As Howard Hom remembered it,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\61\ By federal law, contributions to individual candidates for
Congress are limited to $1,000 per contributor for the primary and
general election campaigns, for a total of $2,000 per contributor.
The contributor donated under the name of DSCC, and
DSCC could do with it as they wished, but as the group
found out during the Leo McCarthy campaign for the U.S.
Senate in 1988, . . . we could request that all or a
portion of any donation be tallied or allocated to use
in a particular race. So we could say we want 90
percent to go to Al Gore and 10 percent to go to, say,
Leo McCarthy.\62\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\62\ Hom deposition, p. 71; see also id., p. 88 (noting that ``the
DSCC soft money tally would be separately allocated'' from ``the
individual contribution to the 2,000-per-year max[imum]'').
In other words, donors would give money to the DSCC itself in
large, unregulated ``soft'' money contributions, so that the
DSCC could funnel designated amounts of each personal total to
designated candidates with exactly the same result as if the
$1,000 limitations had never existed. This system was
ultimately found to be illegal--with the result that the DSCC
paid $75,000 in fines to the FEC \63\--but for several years
this ``tally'' system proved an invaluable means of skirting
federal election laws.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\63\ See Federal Elections Commission, Matter Under Review 3620,
conciliation agreement, Aug. 11, 1995.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After returning from the PLC's Taiwan trip, Hsia also
worked for Senator Gore's re-election campaign through this
DSCC tally system.\64\ As documented in files of her
fundraising activity kept by Hsia and Howard Hom, for example,
a donor named Michael Reyes became the frequent target of her
efforts to earmark his DSCC contributions for Gore's re-
election campaign.\65\ In the period before the 1990 elections,
the DSCC ``tallied'' at least $29,500 to Senator Gore's
campaign.\66\ Senator Gore was well aware of this work she
undertook on his behalf. As he put it in a letter he wrote to
Hsia in January 1989, for example,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\64\ Ex. 34 (``RE: DSCC tally to Senator Gore/Please check to see
if the DSCC did in fact tally money to Sen. Gore per our request'');
Jeff Su, fax transmission to Debra Fried, Aug. 22, 1990 (Ex. 48)
(``John Huang will be attending the DSCC 1990 Fall Dinner. Maria will
contact John and tell him [to] tally his $1,500 to Sen. Gore.'').
\65\ See, e.g., Maria Hsia, fax transmission to Michael Reyes, Dec.
2, 1988 (Ex. 49) (``I would like to tally your contribution to Senator
Al Gore if you have no objections since his reelection is coming.'').
\66\ Senator Paul Simon received even more DSCC money, being the
recipient of $36,500 in DSCC ``tallies.'' Other recipients included
Senators Howell Heflin ($7,500), Carl Levin ($2,500), Max Baucus
($1,000), John Kerry ($1,000), and Tom Harkin ($4,000). See Ex. 34.
I wanted to thank you for your generosity in
crediting by DSCC tally with the checks from Michael
Reyes and Tony Hsu. I have sent letters to both
thanking them and crediting you as the contact. Thanks
so much; it will help a great deal as we move into the
1990 Senate campaign. You are a wonderful friend.\67\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\67\ Al Gore, letter to Maria Hsia, Jan. 31, 1989 (Ex. 50); see
also Ex. 48 (``Senator Gore should call Michael [Reyes] and ask him to
tally the remaining $5,000 to his campaign once it is paid.'').
Another letter in December 1990 similarly thanked Hsia for
``your generous contribution to the Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee, which you had tallied to me.'' \68\
Throughout the 1989-90 re-election campaign, Hsia remained in
close contact about fundraising matters with Senator Gore and
campaign officials such as Debra Fried of Friends for Al Gore.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\68\ Albert Gore, letter to Maria Hsia, Dec. 5, 1990 (Ex. 51).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All of this fundraising support was, of course, part of the
rather explicit bargain Hsia had struck with Senator Gore in
inviting him to visit Taiwan in November 1988. Hsia approached
her political fundraising with clear objectives in mind, \69\
and Senator Gore's presidential ambition appears to have been
her most favored long-term prospect. As Hsia put it in a note
to one DSCC contributor, whom she was at that point trying to
persuade to ``tally'' an additional $5,000 to Friends of Al
Gore, help for Senator Gore was important because he had been
``willing to take the Lead role to travel [to] Asia and [was]
willing to work with us on a long term relationship for his
future presidency.'' \70\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\69\ Hsia advised Michael Reyes in January 1989, for instance, that
$5,000 should be allocated to Senator Paul Simon, ``since he sits on
the immigration sub-committee [and] he will be a very helpful source on
any immigration related issues.'' A final $5,000 should be reserved,
she said, for ``any [other] Senator who is responsive to our group's
needs.'' Maria Hsia, fax transmission to Michael Reyes, Jan. 18, 1989
(Ex. 52).
\70\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In fact, never a woman to say with circumspection what
might be put bluntly, Hsia made no secret of her expectations
even when writing to the Senator himself. Four days after the
PLC's first fundraiser for Al Gore on May 21, 1989, she wrote
to tell him that
We were so happy that you were able to spend some
time with members of the Asian Pacific American
community here in Los Angeles. . . . I appreciate your
willingness to provide an opportunity for people to get
to know you better. I would also like to see you become
one of the senators closest to the Asian Pacific
community. But for that to occur, we need time and a
special commitment from each other. If you share the
same sentiments, please allow my colleagues and I a
role in developing this relationship.\71\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\71\ Maria Hsia, letter to Albert Gore, May 25, 1989 (Ex. 53).
Because of her work in the immigration services business,
U.S. immigration law was another area of great personal
interest to Hsia. By February 1989, a major immigration reform
bill was being prepared in Congress,\72\ ultimately to become
the Immigration Act of 1990. As this bill moved through the
legislature during 1989, it became the subject of much lobbying
by immigration services providers such as Hsia and Howard Hom.
As finally adopted, the Act included a number of provisions of
great value to such persons. First, the Act restricted
deportation and provided work authorization for the spouse or
unmarried children of legalized aliens.\73\ Second, the Act
contained new provisions for what would become known as
``investor immigrants'' (persons who received special visa
preferences by virtue of their willingness to invest and/or
create jobs in the United States) \74\ and ``multinational
executive'' immigrants (persons employed by a foreign
corporation seeking to work for it in the United States).\75\
Third, the Act created an entirely new visa category for
``religious workers'' who belong to ``religious denomination[s]
having a bona fide nonprofit, religious organization in the
United States'' and who seek entry in order to work here for
their denomination.\76\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\72\ Tom Griffith & Steve Huefner, letter to Christopher A. Ford,
Aug. 18, 1997 (Ex. 54) (detailing legislative history of Immigration
Act of 1990).
\73\ P.L. 101-649, Sec. 301 [104 Stat. 4978, 5029]. As a result, an
immigration services provider could use one alien's legal residence in
the United States as a lever with which to secure visas (and ultimately
legal residency) for other members of his or her family. This often
enabled immigration services companies to develop an expanding ``tree''
of paying customers out of a single initial client contact. Hom and
Hsia did a lucrative business by such expedients; according to Hom,
losing the family reunification preferences ``would have wiped out a
certain percentage of the client base.'' See Hom deposition, p. 120.
\74\ P.L. 101-649 Sec. 121(b)(5) [104 Stat. 4978, 4989-90].
\75\ Id., Sec. 121(b)(1)(C) [104 Stat. at 4988]. By the nature of
these two categories, it was difficult to be both poor and eligible for
their visa preferences. Moreover, demand for such visas far exceeded
their supply--necessitating the development of a lottery system and
leading clients eagerly to seek any chance for a perceived special
advantage. See Hom deposition, pp. 128-129.
\76\ P.L. 101-649, Sec. 151 [104 Stat. at 5004-05]. Similar
provisions applied for temporary work visas, and these religious worker
nonimmigrants were exempted from the overall visa caps established
elsewhere in the legislation. Id. at Sec. Sec. 201(b)(1)(B) & 209 [104
Stat. at 4981 & 5027]. For a discussion of the new religious worker
rules, see Hom deposition, pp. 132-33.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All three of these visa categories were to become lucrative
parts of Hsia's business, especially after her association with
the Fo Kuang Shan order gave her and Howard Hom the job of
handling immigration work for foreign members of the Order
affiliating with its U.S. branches such as the Hsi Lai Temple
in Hacienda Heights, California.\77\ Hsia had long believed
that her political activity provided important intangible
advantages in her immigration services work, feeling that if
she were ``politically active,'' her clients would conclude
that she had ``more ability and more power to help them in
their cases.'' \78\ In 1989, with an immigration bill pending
in Congress that could provide a vehicle for visa provisions of
such value to her business, Hsia set about to use her political
ties to reap more concrete benefits as an immigration law
lobbyist.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\77\ When Hom and Hsia stopped living together, Hsia took the
Temple's immigration business with her, making it a major part of her
work with Hsia & Associates. Hom deposition, pp. 160-61; Deposition of
Man Ho, Aug. 6, 1997, pp. 51-54; Deposition of Yi Chu, Aug. 7, 1997, p.
24; see also Deposition of Matthew Gorman, Sept. 23, 1997, pp. 140-43;
(Ex. 55) (collection of illustrative immigration documents and invoices
for services rendered sent from Hsia & Associates to Temple in 1996);
Deposition of Man Ya Shih, Aug. 20, 1997, p. 16 (recounting that she
obtained green card through Hsia at Temple's expense); Deposition of
Siuw Moi Lian, Aug. 20, 1997, p. 11 (same); Deposition of Huei-Tsan
Huang, Aug. 20, 1997, pp. 11-12 (discussing Hsia's role in obtaining a
green card for her and in performing immigration services for Temple).
According to Hsia's assistant at Hsia & Associates, Matthew Gorman,
work for the Temple made up somewhere between 20 and 35 percent of
Hsia's immigration business. Gorman deposition, pp. 75-76. Maria Hsia
even handled immigration matters for Venerable Master Hsing Yun
himself. See Notice of Entry of Appearance as Attorney or
Representative for Hsing Yun, Oct. 28, 1996 (Ex. 56).
\78\ Ex. 3, p. 28. According to Hsia, political involvement
occasionally could lead to help with specific cases. Congressman Howard
Berman's office, she claimed, helped her develop ways to improve
client's chances in certain visa lotteries. Ex. 10, p. 26. Similarly,
when Hsia asked for help with a particular immigration case from DSCC
``tally'' recipient Senator Paul Simon, ``he made a phone call in front
of me to the immigration commissioner in Washington, DC.'' Maria Hsia,
deposition in Hsia v. Hom, Ca. Super. Ct., No. BC 059523, May 10, 1994,
p. 78 (Ex. 57). Senator Gore also apparently helped Hsia on at least
one occasion, by referring a particular case to her. See Hom
deposition, pp. 117-118; Leon Fuerth, memorandum to Maria Hsia, Dec.
14, 1989 (Ex. 58) (with attachments).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the principal objects of Hsia's attentions--and
fundraising support--in this respect was Congressman Bruce
Morrison of Connecticut, who was the immigration bill's sponsor
in the House of Representatives and the author of the religious
worker and ``employment-based'' immigrant provisions so
important to Hsia.\79\ Morrison was in the middle of a
difficult (and ultimately unsuccessful) gubernatorial bid in
Connecticut, and badly needed the funds with which Hsia and her
PLC colleagues set out to provide him. Significantly, among
other things, the PLC organized a fundraiser for Morrison at
the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights on April 22, 1990.\80\
It was apparently not the first time Hsia had used the Temple
for a political fundraising event,\81\ and it was not to be the
last.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\79\ See Ex. 54, p. 2.
\80\ See Ex. 59 (Jeffrey Su, fax transmission to Pat Andrews, April
20, 1990 [enclosing press release announcing upcoming Morrison event at
Hsi Lai Temple]; Invitation to Asian-Pacific American Friends of United
States Congressman Bruce Morrison event at Hsi Lai Temple [giving price
as ``$500 per couple/$300 per person'']). Hsia was even able to turn
Morrison's Connecticut defeat to her advantage by hiring him as an
immigration ``consultant'' immediately after the election of 1990--for
a fee of $10,000 a month for six months. See Ex. 57 (containing as sub-
exhibit Consultancy Agreement between Bruce Morrison and Maria Hsia,
Jan. 22, 1991). As Hsia explained it, Morrison had written ``the
business provision which provides for the jo[b] creating investor
category,'' and ``[t]he definition of ``new entrepreneur' will depend
on Congressional intent and the implementation of the new
regulations.'' Maria Hsia, fax transmission to Jamie Yang, Nov. 26,
1990 (Ex. 60). Who better, therefore, to have on one's masthead and
payroll as an immigration consultant?
\81\ Eddy Yang apparently organized a fundraiser at the Hsi Lai
Temple for Leo McCarthy's campaign. See Debbie McConville, memorandum
to Maria Hsia, undated (Ex. 61) (listing ``Southern California Event
Fundraising'' and indicating that ``Eddie Yang Event/Budhist [sic]
Temple Event'' raised $10,450). Howard Hom also recalled that one of
Senator Paul Simon's several visits to the Hsi Lai Temple had been a
fundraiser. See Hom deposition, pp. 87-88; cf. Maria Hsia, fax
transmission to Floyd Fithian, June 23, 1990 (Ex. 62) (describing Simon
``event'' at Temple); Paul Simon, letter to Maria Hsia, Jan. 22, 1990
(Ex. 63) (thanking Hsia for ``our visit to the Hsi Lai Temple''); Hom
deposition, p. 172 (recalling that when Hsia described meeting with
politician as ``event'' it was most probably a fundraiser). Other
officials may also have benefited from fundraisers at the temple. Cf.
Jeff Su, fax transmission to ``Elka,'' Jan. 22, 1990 (Ex. 64)
(discussing opportunity for California State Controller Gray Davis to
meet with ``Master Hsing Yun and potential supporters at Hsi Lai
Temple'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part of Hsia's lobbying effort during the summer of 1989--
at the same time she and her colleagues were pushing DSCC
donors to earmark their unregulated ``soft'' money
contributions to Senators Simon and Gore--involved traveling to
Washington to lobby legislators in person on the pending
immigration bill. According to Hom, the delegation Hsia took to
Washington even included a pair of nuns from the Hsi Lai
Temple. The presence of these monastics was intended to remind
members of Congress of
the Al Gore sponsorship to the Temple in Taiwan and
what the group--the Temple--did subsequently to let
other Senators know that if they came on board on the
immigration issue and other Asian issues, then they
could expect the same reciprocation . . . [through]
[t]rips to Taiwan and fundraising in the U.S.\82\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\82\ Hom deposition, p. 153.
Hsia's group met with a number of U.S. Senators and
Representatives on July 10 and 11, 1989.\83\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\83\ See Maria Hsia, Schedule for July 10-11, 1989 (Ex. 65). See
also, e.g., Ex. 7 (noting that Hsia ``organized and led delegations . .
. to visit Washington, DC during debate on the bill in an effort to
preserve the family reunification categories'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of her contacts on this trip was with Senator Gore, who
joined staff members Peter Knight and Leon Fuerth in meeting
with Hsia on July 10. Her notes of the meeting recount that
they discussed his trip to Taiwan with her in 1989, and that
Gore ``want[ed] to involve [himself] in the Asian Community
more for [the] future.'' 84 With regard to a
particular amendment to the immigration bill which had by that
point been reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee's
Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs and was rapidly
approaching a full Senate vote 85 --``he said [he
had] no problem for co-sponsorship.'' 86 The
amendment they were discussing --the ``family unity''
provisions that were so important to Hsia's immigration
practice was, in fact, adopted by the Senate two days later.
Senator Gore was one of its co-sponsors.87
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\84\ Maria Hsia, notes of meeting with Senators, July 10, 1989, p.
2 (Ex. 66); cf. Maria Hsia deposition in Hsia v. Hom, Ca Super. Ct.,
No. BC059523, apparently July 6, 1993, pp, 87-93 (Ex. 67) (discussing
lobbying trip and taking handwritten notes).
\85\ See Ex. 54, p.1.
\86\ Ex. 66 p. 2.
\87\ Ex. 54, pp. 1-2, On her Washington lobbying trip, Maria Hsia
employed a simple system of ``grading'' Senators on an A-to-F scale
based upon their responsiveness to her concerns; Senator Gore received
an ``A''. Ex. 66, pp. 1-2. In fact, to some extent, Hsia apparently
coordinated her lobbying on the pending immigration bill with Senator's
Gore office--as well as the offices of Senator Simon and Representative
Howard Berman--in promoting her favored legislative provisions. See
Maria Hsia, fax transmission to Leon Fuerth, Jan. 24, 1989 (Ex. 68);
see also generally Hom deposition. pp. 142-143.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writing to Senator Gore upon her return to Los Angeles,
Hsia thanked him for ``your support on the recent immigration
bill,'' adding that ``[o]n behalf of the Pacific Leadership
Council and the communities we represent, I thank you for all
that you have done.'' 88 Writing back to her in
response, Senator Gore described himself as being ``pleased to
have been able to assist you'' on the immigration bill.
``Without your superb contribution,'' he said, ``it would have
been much more difficult to find my way in these matters. I
continue to value your good counsel.'' 89 As John
Huang himself later described it to then-Vice President
Gore,``you worked very hard on immigration issues; you worked
very hard for us.'' 90
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\88\ Maria Hsia, letter to Albert Gore, July 17, 1989 (Ex. 69).
\89\ Albert Gore, letter to Maria Hsia, Aug. 28, 1989 (Ex. 70). By
all accounts, Maria Hsia appears to have been a significant ``player''
in crafting the Immigration Act of 1990--to the point that Senator Paul
Simon, one of the bill's sponsors, later presented her with the pen
used to sign the bill into law. See Hom deposition, pp. 158-159. So
important was this pen, in turn, to Hsia that she reported broke into
the offices of her law ``partner'' Arnold Malter in July 1995 in order
to retrieve it after their business relationship collapsed. See
Monterey Park Police, Crime Report for file number 95-4822, July 15,
1995 (Ex. 1995 (Ex. 71) (describing theft of pen as recounted by Malter
to police).
\90\ John Huang, opening remarks at Vice Presidential event in
Santa Monica, Sept. 27, 1993, on WHCA audiotape of Santa Monica event,
Sept. 28, 1993 [transcription by Government Affairs Committee stafff].
The White House Communications Agency apparently misdated this tape:
the event actually occurred on September 27. See John Huang, letter to
Jack Quinn, Oct. 7, 1993 (Ex. 72) (``We enjoyed meeting you again on
the following Monday, September 27 in Los Angeles. Vice President Gore
was just super.'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to more conventional communications thanking
her for her fundraising on his behalf,91 Senator
Gore sent effusive handwritten comments informing Hsia and
Howard Hom, for example, that ``I cannot thank you enough. You
two are great friends. See you soon. Al.'' 92 Hsia's
involvement with Senator Gore extended even to helping him
prepare his book Earth in the Balance: as Gore Chief of Staff
Peter Knight wrote to Hsia in March 1991,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\91\ See e.g., Ex. 51; Albert Gore, letter to Maria Hsia, Dec. 10,
1990 (Ex. 73); Ex. 29; Ex. 50; cf Invitation sent to Maria Hsia for
reception for swearing-in-ceremony on January 3, 1991 (Ex. 74).
\92\ Albert Gore, letter to Maria Hsia, Oct. 2, 1990 (Ex. 75); see
also Albert Gore, handwritten letter to Maria Hsia, undated (Ex. 76).
The materials you got for Al's book on the
environment were perfect. Thanks so much for taking the
time to do it. He would have been lost without your
efforts because the chapter on religion and the
environment is integral to his work.93
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\93\ Peter Knight, letter to Maria Hsia, March 6, 1991 (Ex. 77).
As will be described below, the close relationship between
Maria Hsia and Al Gore continued at least through
1996.94
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\94\ Even apart from DNC fundraiser and the April 29, 1996 Gore
fundraiser, for example, Maria Hsia interceded with Deputy Chief of
Staff David Stauss to procure a congratulatory message for the annual
conference of the Buddha's Light International Association (BLIA) in
Paris in August 1996. Compare Maria Hsia, letter to David Strauss, July
2, 1996 (asking for help in obtaining congratulations message), with
Albert Gore, letter to Maria Hsia, July 26, 1996 (extending
congratulations) (both Ex. 78. Hsia went so far as to invite President
Clinton to attend the conference, but be declined--opting instead
merely to send a congratulatory message of his own. See Ex. 79 (Maria
Hsia, letter to Bill Clinton, June 13, 1996, Stephanie Streett & Ann
Hawley, letter to Maria Hsia, Sept. 25, 1996; Bill Clinton, letter to
Buddha's Light International Association, Aug. 2, 1996). As recounted
by Temple official Man Hua during the deposition of her colleague Man
Ho, Hsia became involved in trying to arrange such favors for the BLIA
after learning that Yah Lin (``Charlie'') Trie was attempting to do so.
Protecting her exclusive relationship with the Temple by telling Hsing
Yun that Trie was ``not reliable,'' Hsia thereupon set about arranging
this herself. See Man Ho deposition, pp. 54-68.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Considerable publicity has surrounded the illegal
reimbursement of DNC donors by the Hsi Lai Temple in connection
with an April 1996 fundraiser organized by Hsia and Huang for
Vice President Gore. The pattern for this conduct, however, was
actually set at least three years earlier. Both Hsia and Huang
were involved in similar donation-laundering at least as early
as 1993, when they laundered contributions in connection with a
meeting they helped arrange between Vice President Gore's chief
of staff and the head of a company reportedly linked with the
intelligence apparatus of the People's Republic of China. On
Thursday, September 23, 1993, Huang wrote two checks to the
DNC--for $15,000 each--drawn against accounts at Lippo Bank
held in the name of two U.S. subsidiaries of James Riady's
Lippo Group, for which Huang still worked. Four days later, on
September 27, he wrote a third $15,000 check on the account of
a third Lippo subsidiary.95 Two days later, Hsia
arranged for three nuns from the Hsi Lai Temple to write checks
to the DNC totaling $5,000.96 All of these donations
were illegal, representing money from foreign sources or money
from ``straw donors'' illegally reimbursed by another party.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\95\ See Ex. 80 (Hip Hing Holding check #2626 for $15,000 on
September 23, 1993; San Jose Holding check #1692 for $15,000 on
September 27, 1993; Toy Center Holdings check #1458 for $15,000 on
September 23, 1993).
\96\ See Ex. 81 (DNC check tracking form for Pi Hsia donation of
$2,000 on September 27, 1993; DNC check tracking form for Hsin Kuang
Shih donation of $2,000 on September 27, 1993; DNC check tracking form
for Hsiu Chu Lin donation of $1,000 on September 27, 1993). Each check
tracking form lists Maria Hsia as the solicitor of the donation
described. On the ``memo'' position of Pi Hsia Hsio's check is written
``Maria Hsia.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Huang's three DNC checks came from Lippo subsidiaries--Hip
Hing Holdings, San Jose Holdings, and Toy Center Holdings--each
of which had negative income at the time the checks were
written.97 In other words, they were losing money;
the money for his three $15,000 contributions actually came
from Lippo accounts overseas.98 With regard to the
$5,000 in DNC donations from Temple monastics arranged by Hsia,
each nun was reimbursed that same day for their donations,
through checks written on the Temple's general expenses account
by the Temple's treasurer, Yi Chu.99
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\97\ See Ex. 82 (Hip Hing Holdings. Ltd., Income statement for
period ending December 31, 1993; San Jose Holdings, Inc., Income
statement for period ending December 31, 1993; Toy Center Holdings of
Ca., Inc., Income statement for period ending December 31, 1993). For
more information, see the section of this report dealing with John
Huang and Lippo.
\98\ Since the money clearly did not come from the U.S. operations
of these companies, this was a violation of federal election law. See
FEC A.O. 1992-16, Fed. Election Camp, Fin. Guide (CCH) para. 6059, at
11,811, June 26, 1992.
\99\ See Ex. 83 (IBPS check #8086 for #2,000 to Pi-Hsiao on
September 27, 1993; IBPS check #8087 for $2,900 to Hsing Kuang Shih on
September 27, 1993; IBPS check #8088 for $1,000 to H.C. Lin on
September 27, 1993). Temple treasurer Yi Chu's lay name Tsui-Hsueh
Hsueh appears on the checks. (The reimbursement to Hsing Kuang Shih was
apparently $900 more than her $2,000 DNC donation because she also
needed to be reimbursed for $900 in unrelated expenses she had also
borne on the Temple's behalf.) All three monastic ``straw donors''
received letters from DNC Chairman David Wilhelm thanking them for
their ``participation in the Los Angeles Vice Presidential Dinner on
September 27.'' See Ex. 84 (David Wilhelm, letter to Pi-Hsia Hsiao,
Oct. 15, 1993; David Wilhelm, letter to Ksing Kuang Shih, Oct. 15,
1993; David Wilhelm letter to Hsiu Chu Lin, Oct 15, 1993). Federal
election law prohibits funneling donations through third parties. See 2
U.S.C. Sec. 441f.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Friday, September 24, 1993, the day after Huang's first
$30,000 in laundered Lippo donations to the DNC, Huang escorted
Shen Jueren, the head of a company called China
Resources,100 to the White House for a meeting with
Vice President Gore's top adviser, his then-chief of staff Jack
Quinn.101
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\100\ China Resources is owned by the government of the People's
Republic of China, and is a major business partner of the Riady-owned
Lippo Group. For more information about China Resources, see the
sections of this report on John Huang's activities at Lippo Bank.
\101\ See Ex. 72 (``I want to thank you for having taken the time
out of your busy schedule to receive myself, Chairman Shen Jueren and
his assistant, Miss Liang of China Resoruces Group on September 24 at
your office.'') U.S. Secret Service WAVES list for June 7 through
September 24, 1993 (Ex. 85) (showing Huang appointment to enter White
House complex on September 24 with approval to enter both the Old
Executive Office Building and the East Wing). There is a possibility
that the Vice President may have also met Shen Jueren that day. The
Committee has an audiotape of a September 27, 1993 meeting for Asian-
Americans in Santa Monica, California, at which an individual
introduced himself to the Vice President by giving his name and saying,
``we met just last Friday, in your office.'' The Vice President
responded, ``Yes, of course, we just spoke.'' The Friday before this
meeting in Santa Monica was the day Shen Jueren met with Quinn in the
White House complex. The individual's name is not clearly intelligible,
but prior to this brief conversation a word that may be ``Shen'' can be
heard being spoken in the background of the audiotape. White House
Communications Agency audiotape of September 27, 1993 Santa Monica
event (misdated ``September 28, 1993'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The involvement of Huang and Hsia with Shen Jueren and
China Resources raises an interesting and possibly troubling
issue. As is detailed elsewhere in this report,102
the Committee has learned that Hsia has been an agent of the
Chinese government, that she has acted knowingly in support of
it, and that she has attempted to conceal her relationship with
the Chinese government. In view of this information--coupled
with information suggesting that Huang may have had a direct
financial relationship with the Chinese government
103--the Committee has examined carefully the
longstanding efforts by Huang and Hsia 104 to
develop close ties to U.S. politicians and cultivate influence
in the U.S. political system. This information might raise
concerns regarding Huang and Hsia's involvement with China
Resources' Shen Jueren in 1993.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\102\ See chapter of report entitled, ``The China Connection.''
\103\ See id.
\104\ Nor should it be forgotten that James Riady himself played a
significant role in trying to put U.S. Senators in contact with the
head of China Resources in connection with the PLC's Asia trip during
the 1988-89 period. See supra note 43. As recounted more fully in the
report chapter, ``The China Connection,'' the Committee has learned
from recently-acquired information that James and Mochtar Riady have
had a long-term relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public sources have for some years linked China Resources
to the PRC's intelligence apparatus, describing it as an
important source of what in U.S. espionage parlance is known
as--non-official cover'' 105 for espionage and other
intelligence-related activities, e.g., covert influence
operations. As one Defense Intelligence Agency employee put it
in a book published in 1994, for example,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\105\ Intelligence officers operating under ``non-official cover''
are known as ``NOCs,'' and if caught will not have the protection of
diplomatic immunity. See, e.g., Norman Polmar & Thomas B. Allen, Spy
Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage (New York: Random House, 1997), p.
400.
[Chinese] [c]ase officers make extensive use of
commercial covers. For example, a vice president of the
China Resources Holding Company (Hua Ren Jituan) in
Hong Kong is traditionally a military case officer from
Guangzhou. This officer coordinates the collection
activities of other intelligence personnel operating
under Hwa Ren [China Resources] cover.106
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\106\ Nicholas Eftimiades, Chinese Intelligence Operations (Naval
Institute Press, 1994), p. 80.
The increased prestige in commercial and political circles that
could be derived from access to U.S. politicians would
presumably be of no small value to such an operation.
The link between Hsia and the Chinese government might also
cast into a different light certain other episodes in Hsia's
history of political activity in the United
States.107 Among these would be her ties to Ted
Sioeng, who as described elsewhere, has worked, and perhaps
still works, on behalf of the Chinese government.108
Sioeng sat at the head table next to Vice President Gore and
Hsia at the April 29, 1996 Hsi Lai Temple fundraiser. The
Committee has received information that Hsia worked with Sioeng
and Huang to solicit contributions from Chinese nationals in
the United States and abroad for Democratic
causes.109
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\107\ For example, Hsia apparently considered lobbying for the
People's Republic of China on a commercial basis after the end of her
relationship with Howard Hom, and claimed to have become increasingly
involved with the PRC in immigration matters after 1992. See Ex 57
(containing as sub-exhibit Bruce Morrison, memorandum to Maria Hsia,
April 14, 1991); Ex. 3, p. 58; see also Hom deposition, p. 184. Though
she claimed in a November 1997 interview that ``I have never had a
single conversation with any Chinese government official about U.S.
politics,'' Hsia also invited four Chinese consular officials to a
reception in honor or Senator Tim Wirth in 1991, and hosted delegation
of Chinese government officials on a trip to Washington during the
summer of 1996. Compare David Johnston, ``Files on China Embarrass
F.B.I. and Reno, and Miff Subject,'' New York Times, Nov. 15, 1997, p.
A12 (quoting Hsia), with Jeff Su, memorandum to Paul DeNino, May 8,
1991 (Ex. 86) (listing consular officials at Wirth event), and Gorman
deposition, pp. 119-23; Matthew Gorman, sworn statement to Governmental
Affairs Committee, Aug. 27, 1997 (Ex. 87, p. 3, para. 17) (discussing
visit to Washington).
\108\ See chapter, ``The China Connection.''
\109\ See the section of this report entitled ``The China
Connection.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quite apart from these individuals' ties to the Chinese
government, however, it should be clear by now that if one is
to understand the Hsi Lai Temple's involvement in the 1995-96
election cycle, and even the issue of Vice President Gore's
knowledge with regard to the Temple fundraiser of April 29,
1996, one must first understand the breadth and depth of the
relationship between Maria Hsia and Vice President Gore. What
the Vice President knew and when he knew it is not a question,
in other words, that may be understood in isolation from the
past. Rather, it must be placed in context, as the outgrowth of
the long history of Vice President Gore's dealings with Maria
Hsia, John Huang, James Riady, and Hsing Yun's Fo Kuang Shan
Buddhist order.
As the preceding pages indicate, the relationship between
these five key figures was complex, but it was one firmly
grounded in mutual advantage and revolving around political
fundraising. Understood from the perspective of its
participants, therefore, this history places the events of 1996
in a new light. Ultimately, given the elaborate system of
reciprocal assistance among them and the considerable financial
investments the PLC's founding members had made in Vice
President Gore's political career, the Vice President had to
have understood that any DNC event organized at the Temple by
Maria Hsia and John Huang could only really be for one purpose.
Despite the political salience of this ``knowledge''
issue, however, the Temple incident involves much more than
simply a single fundraiser unwisely attended by the Vice
President and unlawfully supported by Hsia and Temple monastics
who had become accustomed to relying upon Hsia to steer their
illegal financial support to U.S. politicians. The DNC
donation-laundering arranged by Huang and Hsia in April 1996
was part of a broader pattern dating back at least to their
collaboration in the Shen Jueren affair of September 1993. In
some sense, the Temple episode of 1996 may even be understood
as the product of a mutually-reinforcing relationship between
Huang and Hsia that began in the late 1980s with their
involvement in the PLC and their fundraising for the DSCC.
Huang's appointment as a DNC fundraiser in early 1996
brought Huang and Hsia back together in ways familiar to both
of them, and with higher stakes than ever. As we have seen,
Huang had used Lippo resources to help Hsia make up for
unanticipated financial shortfalls in her political
fundraising.110 By early 1996, the tables had
turned, and Hsia had an opportunity to return the favor by
greatly expanding what had hitherto been a relatively small-
scale Hsi Lai Temple donation-laundering scheme into a potent
fundraising machine for the Clinton/Gore campaign. The infamous
Hsi Lai Temple fundraiser of April 1996 is thus only part of
this story; over the course of 1996, Hsia and Huang would raise
over $100,000 in laundered Temple donations to help keep Bill
Clinton and Al Gore in the White House.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\110\ See supra text accompanying footnote 24.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
II. A PATTERN OF DONATION-LAUNDERING: 1993-1996
Hsia's involvement with illegally laundering money from the
Hsi Lai Temple to U.S. politicians began at least as early as
June 1993, with a donation made by Hsia herself to a longtime
Hsia fundraising beneficiary, California Secretary of State
March Fong-Eu. Hsia wrote a $500 check to March Fong-Eu's
campaign in June 1993, having been earlier given $500 for that
purpose by the Temple's treasurer.111 In September
1993, as indicated previously, Hsia also arranged to launder
$5,000 of the Temple's money through three monastic ``straw
donors'' to the DNC for an event with Vice President Al
Gore.112
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\111\ See Ex. 88 (Form 490, List of Contributions Received by March
Fong Eu Campaign Committee '94 recording $500 contribution by Maria L.
Hsia in June 1993; IBPS check #7562 for $500 to Maria Hsia on June 4,
1993); Man Ho deposition, p. 214 (testifying that Temple supported
March Fong-Eu).
\112\ See supra text accompanying notes 96-99.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The September 1993 episode involving the Vice President set
a pattern for Temple donation-laundering that would persist
until the 1996 elections: Hsia would telephone a nun at the
Temple named Man Ho,113 who served as the Temple's
chief administrative officer during this period, to inform her
that she needed a certain sum of money in connection with a
particular political fundraising event or political campaign.
Man Ho would then pass along this request to the Temple's
Abbess or Abbot of the time. The Abbot or Abbess would, in
turn, approve a check request form prepared by Man Ho, who
would give this completed form to Yi Chu, the Temple's
treasurer.114
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\113\ Because Temple officials and monastics invoked their Fifth
Amendment privilege against self-incrimination when asked about their
involvement in DNC fundraising, the Committee granted immunity to five
nuns in exchange for their testimony: Man Ho, Yi Chu, Man Ya Shih,
Hueitsan Huang, and Siuw Moi Lian.
\114\See Testimony of Man Ho, Sept. 4, 1997, pp. 48-49; Man Ho
deposition, pp. 85-86 (testifying that September 1993 was first time
Hsia asked Man Ho for political donations); id., p. 92 (affirming
repetition of same pattern with other contributions); id., pp. 199 &
211-13 (discussing pattern of calls from Hsia).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unbeknownst to Man Ho until late in 1996,115
upon receiving the check request for political contributions,
Yi Chu would then approach Temple monastics or devotees and ask
them to write personal checks.116 The total amount
raised by means of these checks would be the total figure Hsia
had requested and the amount that Man Ho had indicated on the
check request form approved by the Abbot or
Abbess.117 Either the person who wrote the check or
Yi Chu would place the name of the political recipient on the
payee line of the check.118
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\115\ Man Ho deposition, pp. 199-201.
\116\ Yi Chu deposition, pp. 69, 79, 84, & 92 (discussing pattern).
The reimbursement was not, however, unknown to Hsia: as noted above,
she herself was reimbursed for a donation to March Fong-Eu in June
1993.
\117\ Man Ho deposition, pp. 196-97.
\118\ Yi Chu testified that she did not know what ``DNC'' stood for
until the scandal broke in the press; she believed that few, if any, of
the individual reimbursed donors had a much understanding of to whom,
or for what purpose, their checks were being written. Yi Chu
deposition, pp. 77-79; Testimony of Chu, Sept. 4, 1997, pp. 46-47.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At about the same time she received each personal check
from the monastics whom she had solicited, Yi Chu would write a
check for the identical amount, drawn on the Temple's general
expenses account and made payable to the ostensible political
contributors.119 Hsia typically stopped by the
Temple to pick up the monastics' donation checks from Yi Chu or
Man Ho, while Yi Chu gave the Temple's reimbursement checks to
the donors so that they could cover the cost.120
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\119\ Yi Chu deposition, pp. 86-87.
\120\ See, e.g., id., pp. 39-42 & 46 (recounting that reimbursement
checks were needed because monastics often could not afford
contributions otherwise).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The money used for these laundering transactions belonged
to the Hsi Lai Temple as a whole: the reimbursement checks were
all drawn upon the Temple's ``general expenses'' account, which
was in turn filled exclusively from an account into which
flowed donations made to the Temple and the Fo Kuang Shan order
by faithful Buddhist devotees in all walks of
life.121
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\121\ Id., pp. 86-88; Yi Chu testimony, p. 47. Though some
monastics did keep so-called ``Futien accounts'' at the Temple, their
money being held by the institution in a form of private banking and
segregated for each monastic's own use, these Futien accounts were not
used to reimburse political donations. See generally Yi Chu deposition,
pp. 16-19; Yi Chu testimony, pp. 50-51.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The general pattern was simple: Hsia would select the
recipient politician, ask the Temple for money, and the Temple
would funnel its own institutional funds through monastic straw
donors to that politician's campaign. This scheme served Hsia
and a number of U.S. politicians quite well until the 1996
elections, by which point Hsia was using it so frequently that
Yi Chu complained to Man Ho that the requests left her too
little time to find monastic donors who could be
reimbursed.122
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\122\ See Man Ho testimony, p. 48; Yi Chu deposition, p. 84. As a
result, for the last known Temple reimbursement--in October 1996--Yi
Chu simply gave Man Ho five blank Temple checks and left it for Man Ho
to solicit the donors/reimbursees herself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hsia's laundering of Temple donations to U.S. politicians
continued in 1994 with two separate episodes in which money was
funneled to Julia Wu, a local school board candidate. In the
first such instance, a monastic named Jou Sheng donated $2,000
to Wu's campaign in March 1994 and was reimbursed the next day
by Yi Chu.123 According to the Temple's attorneys,
another $3,000 was also laundered to Julia Wu at this time,
being passed through Pi-Hsia Hsiao and Nancy Mao, who were also
reimbursed with checks numbered sequentially with that written
to Jou Sheng.124 The Temple laundered money to Wu's
campaign again in May 1994, with at least $2,000 passing
through Temple Abbess Hsing Kuang Shih, as well as an
additional $3,000 through Pi-Hsia Hsiao and Hsiu Chu
Lin.125 In July 1994, Pi-Hsia Hsiao gave $900 to the
campaign of another local California official, Los Angeles
County Tax Assessor Kenneth Hahn, and was reimbursed by Yi Chu
for her efforts.126 Hsia and the Temple returned to
national-level fundraising in September 1994 by laundering
$5,000 to the campaign of Senator Edward Kennedy.127
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\123\ See Ex. 89 (Jou Sheng check #187 for $2,000 to Friends of
Julia Wu on March 2, 1994; IBPS check #8880 for $2,000 to cash on March
3, 1994, endorsed on reverse by Jou Sheng).
\124\ See Ex. 90 (IBPS check #8881 for $2,000 to cash on March 3,
1994, endorsed on reverse by Pi-Hsia Hsiao; IBPS check #8882 for $1,000
to ``cash NANCY MAO'' on March 3, 1994, endorsed on reverse by Nancy
Mao). Interestingly, Man Ho--normally the conduit for Hsia's requests--
claimed not to have been involved in the Julia Wu donations, leaving
open the question of which other present or former Temple officials
have been involved in Hsia's donation-laundering schemes.
\125\ See Ex. 91 (Hsing Kuang Shih check #587 for $2,000 to Julia
L. Wu on May 4, 1994; IBPS check #9167 for $2,000 to Hsing Kuang Shih
on May 6, 1994); see also Ex. 92 (IBPS check #9168 for $2,000 to Pi-
Hsia Hsiao on May 6, 1994; IBPS check #9169 for $1,000 to Hsiu Chu Lin
on May 6, 1994).
\126\ Ex. 93 (Ph Hsia Hsiao check #174 for $900 to Committee to Re-
elect Assessor Kenneth Hahn on June 15, 1994; IBPS check #9397 for $900
to Pi-Hsia Hsiao on July 1, 1994).
\127\ See FEC Info database printout of individual contributor data
(Ex. 94) (listing total of $2,000 in contributions by Pi-Hsia Hsiao to
Kennedy for Senate, recorded by campaign on September 15, 1994); Id.
(listing $2,000 to Kennedy for Senate from Ling-Tzen Huang, recorded on
same date); id. (listing $1,000 to Kennedy for Senate from Hsiu-Chu
Lin, recorded on same date); Ex. 95 (Pi-Hsia Hsiao check #179 for
$2,000 to Kennedy for Senate on September 6, 1994; Hsiu Chu Lin check
#365 for $1,000 to Kennedy for Senate on September 6, 1994; IBPS check
#1034 for $2,000 to Pi-Hsia Hsiao on September 6, 1994; IBPS check
#1035 for $2,000 to Ling-Tzen Huang on September 6, 1994; IBPS check
#1036 for $1,000 to cash, endorsed on reverse by Hsiu Chu Lin).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The first recipient of laundered Hsi Lai Temple money
arranged by Maria Hsia in 1995, was apparently the DNC itself,
in connection with a Clinton/Gore event in September for which
Hsia reportedly raised $5,000 in unlawful Temple
donations.128 Los Angeles County Supervisor Don
Knabe and Senator Edward Kennedy also each received $3,000 in
laundered Temple donations arranged by Hsia in
1995.129
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\128\ See Ex. 96 (IBPS check #2727 for $2,500 to Hsiu Chu Lin on
September 20, 1995; IBPS check #2729 for $2,500 to cash, endorsed on
reverse by what appears to be the name ``Tong Sew Long''; Jou Sheng
bank records for 09/09/95 through 10/10/95 showing deposit of $2,500 on
September 22, 1995 and debit of $2,500 on September 28 with cashing of
check #215). (On their ``memo'' lines, the IBPS check to Tong Sew Long
bears the Chinese characters for ``public relations''--the term Maria
Hsia used for political fundraising. See Yi Chu deposition, p. 106. The
check to Hsiu Chu Lin is strangely annotated with Chineses characters
and the English phrase ``birthday gift.'') According to the Temple's
attorneys, at least two additional $2,500 checks were filled out by Fo
Kuang Shan monastics in connection with this event--but the payee line
was left blank and Maria Hsia subsequently diverted it for her own
purposes, filling it out not to the originally-intended political
recipient but to a company called Shen He International, Inc. See Ex.
97 (Gin F.J. Chen check #405 for $2,500 on September 20, 1995; Jou
Sheng check #215 for $2,500 on September 20, 1995; IBPS check #2728 for
$2,500 to Jou Sheng on September 20, 1995).
\129\ See Ex. 98 (Shiwen W. Teh a.k.a. Shiwen Wang check #1772 for
$1,500 to Kanabe for Supervisor on October 25, 1995; Knabe for
Supervisor, list of Monetary Contributions Received for 10/01/95
through 12/31/95 period, indicating $1,500 contributions from Hsiu Chu
Lin and Shiwen Teh, both recorded on November 11, 1995; IBPS check
#2846 for $1,500 to cash, endorsed on reverse by Melissa Wang [a.k.a.
Shiwen Teh] on October 24, 1995; IBPS check #2847 for $1,500 to Hsiu
Chu Lin on October 24, 1995; Federal Election Commission, Selected
Receipts & Expenditures (95-96), showing $1,500 in contributions on
December 1, 1995 from Hsiu-Chu Lin and Shiwen W. Teh; Hsiu Chu Lin
check #623 for $1,500 to Edward M. Kennedy; Shiwen W. Teh a.k.a. Shiwen
Wang check #1776 for $1,500 to Edward M. Kennedy on November 13, 1995;
IBPS check #2923 for $1,500 to Melissa Wang [a.k.a. Shiwen Teh] on
November 10, 1995; IBPS check #2924 for $1,500 to Hsiu Chu Lin on
November 10, 1995).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As noted, however, Hsia's fundraising scheme for funneling
Temple money through ``straw donors'' expanded dramatically in
1996 after John Huang went to work at the DNC and began to
organize Democratic fundraisers among California's Asian
community. It was not by coincidence, therefore, that Hsia's
biggest foray yet into Temple donation-laundering occurred in
conjunction with the first significant event Huang organized
for the DNC: a fundraiser with President Clinton at the Hay-
Adams Hotel in Washington in February 1996. For this event,
Hsia telephoned Man Ho at the Temple to ask for $25,000 in
contributions,130 an amount which was duly collected
from nine monastic straw donors who were thereafter
reimbursed.131 Don Knabe also continued to receive
the Temple's support during 1996. At the end of February, Hsia
made a $1,500 donation to Don Knabe's campaign, being duly
reimbursed by the Temple for her pains.132
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\130\ Man Ho deposition, pp. 196-97; Yi Chu deposition, pp. 69-73.
\131\ See Ex. 99 (DNC Check Tracking Form for Hsiu Chu Lin check
#667 for $3,000 to DNC on February 17, 1996; IBPS check #3286 for
$3,000 to Hsiu Chu Lin on February 14, 1996; DNC Check Tracking Form
for Jou Sheng check #223 for $3,000 to DNC on February 16, 1996; IBPS
check #3294 for $3,000 to Jou Sheng on February 16, 1996; DNC Check
Tracking Form for Pi-Hsia Hsiao check #194 for $2,500 to DNC on
February 16, 1996; IBPS check #3300 for $2,500 to Pi-Hsia Hsiao on
February 16, 1996; DNC Check Tracking Form for Suh-Jen Wu check #107
for $3,000 to DNC on February 16, 1996; IBPS check #3298 for $3,000 to
Suh-Jen Wu on February 16, 1996; DNC Check Tracking Form for Hsing
Kuang Shih check #600 for $3,000 to DNC on February 16, 1996; IBPS
check #3295 for $3,000 to Hsin Kuang Shih on February 16, 1996; DNC
Check Tracking Form for Gin F.J. Chen check #486 for $3,000 to DNC on
February 17, 1996; IBPS check #3299 for $3,000 to Gin F.J. Chen on
February 16, 1996; DNC Check Tracking Form for Hsin Cheng Shih check
#137 for $3,000 to DNC on February 19, 1996; IBPS check #3297 for
$3,000 to Hsing Cheng Shih on February 16, 1996; DNC Finance Executive
Summary of $2,500 contribution from Hsiao Jie Su on February 19, 1996;
IBPS check #3301 for $2,500 to Hsiao Jie Su on February 16, 1996; Hsiao
Jie Su check #304 for $2,500 to DNC; DNC Check Tracking Form for Jen
Chin Hsueh a.k.a. Gary Hsueh check #269 for $2,000 to DNC on February
16, 1996; IBPS check #3296 for $2,000 to Jen-Chin Hsueh on February 16,
1996. The Temple's computerized accounting records list this series of
payments by consecutively numbered checks as ``No Name'' payments. See
Hsi Lai Temple, Transaction Detail by Account (February 1996) (Ex.
100).
\132\ Ex. 101 (IBPS check #3318 for $1,500 to Maria Hsia on
February 29, 1996 with ``memo'' notation apparently reading ``re:
contribution of Don Knabe'' [sic]; Knabe for Supervisor, List of
Monetary Contributions Received for period 02/11/96 through 03/09/96,
indicating $1,500 contribution recorded on March 7, 1996).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At least four additional episodes of donation-laundering,
occurred between the April 1996 event and the general elections
in November 1996. In July 1996, Hsia contacted Man Ho at the
Temple, informing the nun that Hsia would need $50,000 in order
to purchase two tickets to an upcoming fundraising luncheon
with President Clinton at a private home. Hsia subsequently
changed her plans, however, deciding instead upon a less
expensive $5,000-per-person dinner at the Century Plaza
Hotel.133 In the end, two Temple monastics donated
$5,000 each for the Century Plaza event,--thereby making it
possible for Hsia to become one of its co-chairs, a status
contingent upon raising $10,000 134--and were
reimbursed by the Temple.135
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\133\ Man Ho deposition, pp. 202-06; Yi Chu deposition, pp. 75-76.
\134\ See Invitation to July 22, 1996 Presidential Gala (undated)
(Ex. 102) (noting that status of ``Co-Chair for the Presidential Gala''
requires one personally to contribute $5,000 or to raise $10,000).
\135\ Ex. 103 (Bih-Yueh Jeng check #158 for $5,00 to DNC on July
22, 1996; Wang Chi Rung check #135 for $5,000 to DNC on July 22, 1996;
IBPS check #3894 for $5,000 to Wang Chi Rung on July 17, 1996; IBPS
check #3890 for $5,000 to Bih-Yueh Jeng on July 17, 1996).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In September 1996, two Temple monastics donated a total of
some $6,500 to the DNC and were reimbursed by the
Temple.136 Also that month, Hsia and her assistant,
Matthew Gorman, arranged for the nun Pi-Hsia Hsiao to donate
$1,000 to Don Knabe's re-election campaign,137 a
donation which was reimbursed by the Temple on the same day it
was made.138 Finally, Hsia arranged for $5,000 in
Temple funds to be laundered to the campaign of Representative
Patrick Kennedy for a fundraiser held in Los Angeles on October
5, 1996. For this event, the occasion on which an exasperated
Yi Chu finally refused to arrange to funnel the money through
monastic ``straw donors'' 139--Hsia used blank
Temple checks to reimburse herself and four friends for their
$1,000 contributions to Kennedy's campaign.140 These
laundered donations--along with another $100 check from Hsia's
friend Richard Choi--were handed to Rep. Kennedy and a campaign
aide as they emerged back onto the street at the end of a visit
to the Hsi Lai Temple on October 5.141
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\136\ Ex. 104 (FECInfo database printout of individual contributor
data,showing $1,500 contribution to DNC from Hsiu Chu Lin on October 2,
1996; IBPS check #4119 for $1,500 to Hsiu Chu Lin). According to Yi
Chu, Chee Kien Koh (a.k.a the Rev. Hai Kai) also donated to the DNC at
this time, being reimbursed in cash ($3,000) and with a check made out
to cash ($2,000). See Yi Chu deposition, pp. 79-82; IBPS check #4118
for $2,000 to cash, with ``memo'' notation reading ``Chee Kien Koh''
(Ex. 105). It may be, however, that Koh failed to pass the $2,000 on to
its intended political recipient; he returned $2,000 to the Temple in
two $1,000 payments in December 1996 and January 1997. See IBPS, Chee
Kien Koh deposit check records (Ex. 106).
\137\ Ex. 107 Matthew Gorman, letter to Peter Kelly, Sept. 18, 1996
[forwarding Pi-Hsia Hsiao check #197 for $1,000 to Don Knabe for L.A.
County Supervisor dated September 18, 1996]; Knabe for Supervisor, List
of Monetary Contributions received for period 10/01/96 through 10/19/96
listing $1,000 contribution from Pi-Hsia Hsiao). Pi-Hsia Hsiao's check
was filled out improperly, however, and had to be reissued. See Matthew
Gorman, letter to Dardy Chen, Oct. 8, 1996 (Ex. 108) (forwarding
reissued check, also dated September 18, 1996).
\138\ IBPS check #4120 to Pi-Hsia Hsiao for $1,000 on September 18,
1996 (Ex. 109).
\139\ See Yi Chu testimony, p. 48.
\140\ The other reimbursees were Hilary Goldstone and Donald Burns,
two Los Angeles attorneys and longtime Kennedy family fundraisers, as
well as Hsia's business colleague Stephen Zhou and his wife May Lin
Zhou. See Ex. 110 (Federal Election Commission, Selected List of
Receipts & Expenditures [95-96], listing $1,000 contributions on
October 5, 1996 by Burns, Goldstone, Hsia, and the Zhous; IBPS check
#4193 for $1,000 to Hilary Goldstone on October 5, 1996; IBPS check
#4194 for $1,000 to Donald Burns on October 5, 1996; IBPS check #4195
for $1,000 to Maria Hsia on October 5, 1996; IBPS check #4196 for
$1,000 to May Lin Zhou on October 5, 1996; IBPS check #4197 for $1,000
to Stephen Zhou on October 5, 1996).
Stephen Zhou was the head of Zarks International, a company located
in the same office spaces as Hsia & Associates. Zhou also leased office
space to T&W Arts & Crafts--the U.S. subsidiary of a company from
Hangzhou, China, called Yalong Economics & Trade Corporation--as well
as apparently serving as an officer of T&W. See Ex. 111 (Commercial
Lease between Zarks International, Inc. and T&W Arts & Crafts dated
Feb. 14, 1996; Projected Organizational Chart of T&W Arts & Crafts
(USA), Inc. (undated), listing Stephen Zhou as vice president).
\141\ Having received this money just outside the door of the
Temple apparently enabled Representative Kennedy to claim later that
``our story could not be compared to the vice president's because we
never did a fundraiser at the temple.'' See John Mulligan, ``Grand Jury
probes Buddhist temple fundraising,'' Providence Journal-Bulletin, Oct.
20, 1997, pp. A1 & A6; John Mulligan, ``Kennedy explains his rationale
in returning money raised at temple,'' Providence Journal-Bulletin,
Sept. 9, 1997, p. A4. All of these funds have apparently been returned.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Counting the Temple fundraiser in April 1996, which yielded
at least $65,000 in unlawful Temple donations, this elaborate
system of donation-laundering, in which Temple officials
marshaled funds to political candidates and causes chosen by
Maria Hsia, may ultimately have funneled $146,400 to various
U.S. political candidates. Of this total, some $116,500 went to
the DNC in support of the Clinton/Gore ticket.
III. THE HSI LAI TEMPLE FUNDRAISER OF APRIL 29, 1996
The idea to hold a DNC fundraising event at the Hsi Lai
Temple appears to have had its beginnings in March 1996, when
Hsia persuaded Venerable Master Hsing Yun to meet with Vice
President Gore by visiting the White House. Although Temple
officials apparently understood ahead of time that some White
House trip was in the offing, arrangements for this visit seem
to have been hastily concluded at the last minute while Hsing
Yun and a delegation of Temple monastics were in New York City
on other business.142 On March 14, 1996, Hsing Yun
received a telephone call from Hsia in California, informing
him that the White House meeting had finally been arranged.
Temple administrator Man Ho thereupon made flight arrangements
to take Hsing Yun's delegation to Washington the next day, and
obtained for the White House the social security numbers of
those who would meet with the Vice President.143 The
Master was reportedly initially reluctant to rearrange his
schedule in order to accommodate this last-minute change, but
he was ultimately persuaded by Hsia's entreaties and by those
of former Temple abbess Hsing Kuang Shih enlisted by Hsia to
help in this regard.144
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\142\ Man Ho deposition, pp. 94-95 & 101.
\143\ Id., pp. 88-96 & 110.
\144\ Man Ho deposition, p. 96; see also Transcript of Hsing Yun
interview by Governmental Affairs Committee Staff, June 17, 1997, p. 2
(Ex. 112) (recounting that Hsia had called him in New York to urge that
he meet with Gore, and that although ``reluctant to go'' Hsing Yun has
``said, `O.K., I'll go.' ''). (This transcription of the Committee
staff's interview with Hsing Yun was transcribed by Stuart Chandler,
who attended the meeting apparently on behalf of the Temple's
attorneys.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
John Huang played the central role in setting up the March
15 meeting with Vice President Gore. Even before Hsing Yun's
delegation left for New York on March 10, Huang had telephoned
Man Ho in order to obtain the Master's social security number
for the anticipated White House visit.145 It was
Huang who requested the Hsing Yun meeting,146 and he
both worked with Gore scheduler Kim Tilley in arranging it
147 and wrote the Vice President's briefing
notes.148
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\145\ Man Ho deposition, p. 99. Maria Hsia called Man Ho later--
when the Temple delegation was in New York--to obtain social security
numbers from the other members of the delegation who would be visiting.
Id., p. 110.
\146\ John Huang, memorandum to Albert Gore, March 15, 1996
(describing meeting as having been ``requested by John Huang''). Hsing
Yun suggested that the meeting had been the idea of John Huang and
Maria Hsia. See Transcription of Hsing Yun interview, p. 2.
\147\ See John Huang, memorandum to Kim Tilley, April 11, 1996 (Ex.
113) (''You know we have together arranged Master Hsing Yun to visit
the Vice President Gore [sic] in the White House in March of this
year.''). The Vice President's schedule also listed John Huang as the
staff contact for the Hsing Yun meeting. Gore schedule for March 15,
1996 (Ex. 114).
\148\ John Huang, fax transmission to Eric Anderson, March 15, 1996
(Ex. 115) (forwarding briefing notes for Vice President ``prepared by
John Huang'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the morning before the March 15 meeting, Hsia spoke
personally with Vice President Gore by telephone from the
delegation's room at the Hay-Adams Hotel. Although the Vice
President had already agreed to the meeting, and the Temple
delegation was at that point waiting at their hotel, the Vice
President's staff had become concerned over the potential
political implications of a visit from Hsing Yun. Taiwan was
then in the midst of its 1996 presidential election campaign,
which involved, among others, an independent Buddhist candidate
named Lian Chien, who had been endorsed by Venerable Master
Hsing Yun. Vice President Gore's foreign policy advisors
worried that meeting Hsing Yun could be seen as an implicit
endorsement of Dr. Chien, and feared that the Master would
somehow interject Taiwanese politics into the White House
meeting.149 As Gore national security staffer John
Norris later recalled,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\149\ Man Ho deposition, pp. 106-07; Deposition of Kimberly Tilley,
June 23, 1997, p. 138.
After we became aware of the scheduling proposal [for
the Hsing Yun meeting], I checked with State and NSC
(Taiwan Coordination Staff) to get information on Hsing
Yun's background. Neither office thought there was a
high risk that the meeting would lead to an incident in
our relations with either China or
Taiwan.150
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\150\ John Norris, memorandum, Oct. 16, 1996 (Ex. 116) (recounting
``my recollection of the two VP events involving Hsing Yun, the Taiwan
Buddhist leader, and the DNC'').
So concerned was Vice President Gore that despite having
received such a sanguine assessment from the State Department
and the NSC, he called Hsia personally at the Hay-Adams for
additional reassurances. As recounted by Man Ho, who was in the
room as Hsia spoke with him, the Vice President ``was afraid
that [M]aster might talk to him about political issues or
[M]aster might bring some message [from] Lian Chen [sic].''
Hsia assured Gore that Hsing Yun ``was not going to talk
[about] any political issue with the Vice President.''
151 The group then went to the White House to meet
with Vice President Gore, leaving Man Ho and one Temple devotee
behind at the hotel.152
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\151\ Man Ho deposition, pp. 105-07; see also Ex. 116 (``[Y]ou or
(Bill [Wise]) expressed concern about the sensitivities to Scheduling.
As a result of those conversations, Hsia called the VP and assured him
the meeting would be nothing more than a courtesy call.''). Tilley
deposition, pp. 139-40 (recalling hearing about a talk between Gore and
Maria Hsia).
\152\ Man Ho deposition, p. 111. As used in this report,
``devotees'' of the Hsi Lai Temple are lay persons who nonetheless
worship there regularly and who take part in various Temple activities.
By contrast, Temple ``monastics'' are those who formally take religious
vows and join the Fo Kuang Shan order itself (i.e., monks and nuns)--
shaving their heads, adopting distinctive monastic clothing, and
usually living in the Temple complex.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The meeting involved little more than exchanges of
greetings and pleasantries and a ``photo op'' with the Vice
President. Hsing Yun, accompanied by three other Temple
monastics 153 as well as both Hsia and Huang, met
with the Vice President for approximately ten
minutes.154 At the end of this brief meeting, the
Master invited Gore to visit the Hsi Lai Temple.155
As to when this visit might occur, Hsing Yun told the Committee
staff that Gore had indicated that he would be in Los Angeles
at some point within the next six or seven weeks, i.e. in late
April 1996.156
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\153\ Yumei Yang, Ke-Chun Hong, and Abbess Suh-Jen Wu (a.k.a. Tzu
Jung).
\154\ Ex. 113; Ex. 114.
\155\ Ex. 112, pp. 4-5; see also Ex. 113.
\156\ Memorandum of Interview of Hsing Yun, June 17, 1997, p. 2
(``At the close of this meeting the Master invited Gore to visit the
Hsi Lai temple in California. In reply, Gore indicated that he would be
traveling to California `in the near future' and would be glad to
accept the invitation. No specific date was discussed but the Master
recalled that Gore indicated he would be in LA within 6-7 weeks--that
is, late April.''). (In contrast to the document prepared by Chandler
purporting to be a near-verbatim transcription of the interview, this
memorandum was prepared by Governmental Affairs Committee Staff.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Within a week of the White House meeting, Maria Hsia sent a
letter to Leon Fuerth at the White House, advising him that
``Master Hsing Yun . . . could be very helpful for Vice
President Gore's re-election.'' 157 The next day,
Hsia wrote the Vice President himself, informing him that
\157\ Maria Hsia, letter to Leon Forth [sic], March 22, 1996 (and
earlier drafts dated March 20 & 22) (Ex. 117); see also Progress Sheet
from Hsia & Associates (Ex. 118) (indicating ``sent final draft letters
to Gore & Forth [sic]'' on March 24, 1996).
John Huang has asked me to help with organizing a
fund-raising lunch event, with your anticipated
presence, on behalf of the local Chinese community.
After the lunch, we will attend a rally at the Hsi Lai
Temple where you will have the opportunity to meet
representatives from the Asian-American community to
visit again with Master Hsing Yun. The even is
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
tentatively scheduled for April 29. . . .158
\158\ Maria Hsia, letter to Albert Gore, dated March 23, 1996 (and
earlier drafts dated March 20 & 23) (Ex. 119). It should be noted,
however, that neither Hsia's March 22 letter to Feurth nor her March 23
letter to the Vice President was produced to the Committee by the White
House in the voluminous Temple-related records delivered to the
Committee pursuant to subpoena.
Though this letter did not make clear whether the ``fund-
raising lunch event'' being organized by Huang and Hsia would
take place at the Temple or at some other unspecified location,
unambiguous arrangements were worked out over the next few days
to have both the fundraising luncheon and the rally at the
Temple. By April 4, the DNC has apparently prepared invitations
to a Vice Presidential luncheon at the Hsi Lai Temple,
159 and Hsia's assistant Gorman had opened a file
specifically identifying April 29, 1996 as the date of the Vice
President's anticipated visit. This file was entitled ``Vice
President Gore Hsi Lai event April 29, 1996--DNC Fundraiser.''
160 By April 8, the Vice Presidential Protective
Division of the U.S. Secret Service had begun planning for
Gore's April 29 luncheon in Los Angeles.161
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\159\ Maria Hsia, fax transmission to Ted Marino, April 4, 1996
(Ex. 120) (forwarding invitation on DNC letterhead for Vice
Presidential event at Hsi Lai Temple).
\160\ Ex. 121 (Photocopy of file header opened on April 4, 1996;
Maria Hsia, memorandum to Matthew Gorman of April 4, 1996 instructing
him to ``open file under V.P. Gore Hsi Lai Temple Visit 4/29/96'');
Gorman deposition, pp. 20-22 (confirming opening file on April 4,
1996).
\161\ U.S. Secret Service, VPPD Scheduling Document, April 8, 1996
(Ex. 122) (including William Pickle, letter to Sen. Fred Thompson,
Sept. 2, 1997 [explaining document]).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In late March 1996, Hsia notified the Master and others at
the Temple that the Vice President would visit on April 29,
1996. Immediately, Hsia set up meetings to plan the event. Hsia
requested, and it was accordingly decided that a luncheon would
be served in the Temple's dining hall.\162\ Both Man Ho and Yi
Chu testified that in one of these early planning meetings at
the Temple, the Abbess told to the monastics in attendance that
it would be ``acceptable'' or ``appropriate'' for the monastics
to contact devotees of the Temple to indicate that they could
attend the luncheon with the Vice President and, for $5,000,
have their photograph taken with him.163
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\162\ Man Ho deposition, pp. 117-119.
\163\ Man Ho testimony, pp. 27-28; see also Man Ho deposition, pp.
125-31. In her deposition testimony, Man Ho recalled that the Abbess
might perhaps have said that the price for a photograph was $5,000 per
couple. Nor is it clear who suggested to the Abbess that she encourage
contributions in connection with the event, or how she arrived at this
$5,000 figure.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After one or two early planning meetings at the Temple, and
early in the month of April, both the Abbess and Hsia left the
U.S. for Taiwan, where they remained until very shortly before
the April 29 event. In their stead, Hsia and the Abbess left
Matt Gorman and Man Ho, their respectiveassistants, to take
care of the day-to-day planning and preparation for the
event.164 Most of Gorman's responsibilities consisted of
arranging for the invitation of special VIP guests, who did not have to
pay to attend the DNC fundraiser--at Hsia's direction.165
Among the nonpaying guests Hsia invited to the event were two senior
officials from the INS, Joseph Thomas and Daniel Hesse, and a federal
judge from Los Angeles, Robert Tagasuki.166 The VIP guest
list also included Monte Perez, chairman of the ``Nationwide
Citizenship Association,'' and Tom Byun, who headed the ``Radio Korea
Citizenship Nationwide Program.'' 167
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\164\ Man Ho testimony, pp. 29-30; Man Ho deposition, pp. 132-33;
see also Gorman deposition, pp. 23 & 25.
\165\ Gorman deposition, pp. 22-25.
\166\ These three men were to have their invitations specially
hand-delivered. See Ex. 123 (Matthew Gorman, fax transmission to
Richard Choi, April 22, 1996 (forwarding to Choi copies of invitations
that were to be hand delivered to Thomas, Hesse, and Tagasuki); Matthew
Gorman, fax transmission to Man Ho, April 12, 1996 (advising Man Ho
that Thomas, Hesse, and Tagasuki will attend as ``V.I.P. guests''). It
is not clear, however, that Judge Tagasuki actually attended. Senator
Daniel Inouye and Congressman Matthew Martinez were also invited, but
neither official attended. See Ex. 124 (Matthew Gorman, fax
transmission to Mary Lou, April 12, 1996 [inviting Inouye]; Matthew
Gorman, fax transmission to Rev. Man Ho, April 12, 1996 [containing
invitation for Martinez]).
\167\ See Ex. 125 (Richard J. Soon Choi, letter to Matthew Gorman,
April 24, 1996 [responding to confirm acceptance of invitation by Perez
and Byun]; Matthew Gorman, fax transmission to Richard Choi, April 24,
1996 [advising Man Ho of attendance of Byun and Perez)].
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
At some point in mid- or late-April, Hsia telephoned Gorman
in order to request that he solicit money from a number of
individuals for the Gore luncheon. Many of these individuals
apparently did not speak English well, if at all, and Gorman
left the solicitation of these persons to another Hsia &
Associates employee, Betty Luk, because he did not speak
Chinese particularly well.168 Among these persons
were Huang Guang Miao, president of the U.S. subsidiary of a
Chinese company, and Joseph Chen,169 the head of a
Taoist religious organization called the Great Tao Foundation
of America and secretary-general of the World I-Kuan Tao
Headquarters in Taiwan.170
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\168\ Gorman deposition, pp. 47-48; Matthew Gorman, memorandum to
Betty Luk (Ex. 126) (giving list of names for solicitation: ``Professor
Lo,'' Jennifer Tsai, Huang Guang Miao, Celia Wu, Joseph Chen, Zhou Buo,
Chan Ya Shery, & Jeffrey Lin).
\169\ Chan had written John Huang earlier in April to ask if Vice
President Gore could visit the anniversary celebrations of the Great
Tao Foundation after stopping at the Hsi Lai Temple on April 29. ``If
you could make arrangements so that the vice-president after the
luncheon at the Hsi Lai Temple could say a few congratulatory remarks
at our ceremony between 2:00 and 2:30 P.M., and pose for photos with
all attending Taoists,'' Chen wrote, ``the Great Tao Foundation will
respectfully donate $25,000 toward the campaign funds.'' Joseph Chen,
letter to John Huang, April 10, 1996 (Ex. 127) [translated by Michael
Yan for the Governmental Affairs Committee]. The Vice President did not
ultimately attend Chen's event on April 29, 1996, but Maria Hsia did
arrange to bring Chen to an event with President Clinton and Vice
President Gore in Los Angeles in September 1995. See Maria Hsia, letter
to Joseph Chen, Sept. 19, 1995 (Ex. 128) (forwarding details of event
to Chen, with handwritten note ``Th