Huang Portrayed as Keen Cultivator of DNC Donors

WASHINGTON — Wealthy South Korean businessman John K.H. Lee wanted to meet President Clinton. Democratic fund-raiser John Huang wanted Lee’s money.

So Huang told Lee that five seats were available for an intimate dinner featuring Clinton at a Washington hotel last April. The tab, Huang told Lee, was $50,000 a plate (even though other guests were paying nothing). The ruse worked: Lee wrote a check on his company’s account for the $250,000.

Huang’s cultivation of Lee, brought to light by a combination of interviews and newly available documents, provides the most detailed look yet at the master campaign fund-raiser in action. It is the portrait of a man who did not hesitate to manipulate the tools of his trade to reel in a quarter of a million dollars from a neophyte in the U.S. political process.

But so eager was Huang that he cut some corners--notably the prohibition against contributions by foreign companies. The Democratic National Committee ultimately returned Lee’s money, but only after disclosure of the illegal contribution helped trigger a national scandal--with Huang at its heart--over the party’s acceptance of legally questionable funds from foreign-linked sources.

Lee’s largess on behalf of Cheong Am America Inc. remains the largest indisputably illegal contribution among the $1.5 million that the DNC has returned. Most of this money was brought in by Huang, the point man in an effort to raise as much as $7 million from the Asian American community.

Lee’s funds ostensibly were from the U.S. subsidiary of his South Korean company, which would have made the contribution legal. But they actually came from the parent firm; the start-up affiliate, which never produced any revenue, has since vanished from the United States, along with its flamboyant chief executive.

As Huang negotiated the Cheong Am contribution, he dealt not with Lee, who speaks little English, but with Mike Mitoma, an international business consultant. Mitoma had been retained by Cheong Am to help the company establish a plant to manufacture enormous outdoor video screens in Southern California. Cheong Am’s target was the city of Carson, where Mitoma is the mayor.

After Lee expressed a desire early last year to meet Clinton, preferably during the president’s ensuing trip to South Korea, Mitoma said he approached the White House but was twice rebuffed. So he called the DNC, where he hooked up with Huang.

Mitoma said the fund-raiser told him that Lee’s best chance to see Clinton was at a small $50,000-a-plate dinner at the Sheraton Carlton Hotel in Washington on April 8. Huang said Lee could purchase as many as five of the dozen or so seats.

“I called Lee; he said, ‘Fine,’ ” Mitoma recalled. “He would have bought the whole thing if they’d let him. He didn’t care how much money it cost.”

The event was not quite planned the way Huang had sold it, a source familiar with the DNC finance operation said. In truth, the dinner was for individuals who had pledged to raise money for a Democratic gala the following month, not for those paying that evening.

But it appears that Lee would not have been fazed by this bit of creative salesmanship even if he had been aware of it. His goal was private time with Clinton, a greeting, a picture and something else: to let the president know that Cheong Am was seeking a U.S. partner for its venture, perhaps with the hope that Clinton would somehow assist in that effort, sources said.

Mitoma said a private encounter with Clinton was a condition for the contribution. Huang turned down his request for a White House session, but Mitoma said Huang assured him of some private time before the hotel dinner.

Huang did not tell Mitoma, however, that even as the Cheong Am contingent departed from Los Angeles for their rendezvous with Clinton, he still did not have the necessary approval for the promised private time in Washington.

Huang needed White House approval for a private session, especially because it involved a foreign national, said a source knowledgeable about the process. Huang and DNC finance director Richard Sullivan submitted their request to the White House political affairs office.

On April 8, the day of the dinner, Sullivan and Huang sent a memo to Doug Sosnik, the White House political director, and his deputy, Karen Hancox, requesting the meeting for Mitoma and his colleagues, according to a copy of the memo obtained by The Times. The memo identified Mitoma, the mayor, rather than Lee, the South Korean executive, as the one asking for five minutes.

“The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the possibility of the Cheong Am America Group entering a joint venture with a U.S. broadcasting company to set up a manufacturing facility,” said the memo. “The Cheong Am America Group would like to set up a facility in Carson.”

The White House gave a green light for Clinton to meet Mitoma and the others, a source said.

Hancox said through a White House official that “it’s plausible she would have said OK to shake the guy’s hand. Nothing was mentioned about money or contributions.”

Huang’s attorney, John C. Keeney Jr., declined comment, as did Sullivan.

In addition to Lee and Mitoma, also present were Lee’s Korean partner and two other company directors, Won Ham and his wife, Lucy. The Hams are longtime Los Angeles residents and U.S. citizens. Sullivan and White House officials have told others they thought at the time that the Hams and Mitoma might be making the contribution, which would have been legal.

Mitoma recalled that the group waited for 45 minutes in the hotel lobby before being led into a side room, filled with other people, for their encounter with Clinton.

It is not clear what Clinton was told about Cheong Am prior to the meeting; an administration official said “we are not aware of anyone at the White House who briefed the president.”

Clinton “does remember saying to [Lee] that ‘Mayor Mitoma tells me you’re thinking about locating your company in the Carson city area, . . . and we sure hope you’ll do it,’ ” the official said.

Others who were present recall a smiling Clinton shaking hands with everyone, a few pleasantries and a round of photographs. The cost of the session: as much as $50,000 a minute.

Mitoma said he was concerned that Lee would feel cheated because the much-touted “private meeting” did not live up to its billing. “But he did not seem to mind,” Mitoma said.

In fact, Lee and his group did not even stay for the dinner; instead, they returned to their own hotel.

For Huang, one step remained. Even under the DNC’s porous vetting process, he still needed DNC counsel Joe Sandler’s approval of the Cheong Am check because it came from the U.S. subsidiary of a foreign company. A former colleague said Huang had followed this procedure in other cases.

And, at the time, Huang told others that he checked the Cheong Am donation with Sandler, a source said. Sandler said through a spokeswoman that “it was not run past him.”

In Huang’s DNC fund-raiser account and on an internal tracking form, Cheong Am’s $250,000 contribution was listed under Won Ham’s name rather than Lee’s, even though the South Korean signed the check, records show.

DNC press secretary Amy Weiss Tobe said this was not intended to suggest the money came from a U.S. citizen rather than Lee, who was barred from contributing because he was not a legal resident. “Our assumption is that John thought that Mr. Ham would be in the states more than Dr. Lee,” she said.

Lucy Ham, who severed her ties to Cheong Am in late April, subsequently contributed $10,000 through Huang to attend a dinner at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. She said she was mystified about her husband’s name appearing in DNC records because he had “nothing to do” with the Cheong Am contribution.

Huang wasn’t done with Lee either. He approached the South Korean to become a sponsor for the Aug. 29 convention dinner as well. This time Lee ponied up $10,000--his second illegal contribution. This too was returned by the DNC a month after the Cheong Am money went back.

Miller reported from Washington and Rosenzweig from Los Angeles.