Drug Dealer’s Donation Becomes Election Fodder Republicans, Perot Wonder How Cabrera Was Allowed In White House

A convicted drug dealer who gave $20,000 to the Democratic Party and attended a White House Christmas party hosted by Hillary Rodham Clinton once boasted to prosecutors he could link Cuba to the cocaine trade.

Federal agents found a photo of drug dealer Jorge Cabrera with Cuban President Fidel Castro when they searched his home after his arrest last January. That photo has not been made available by prosecutors.

Prosecutors discounted his claims that he could show that the Cuban government aided his shipping of Colombian cocaine.

“The information he gave us could not be corroborated,” Miami’s U.S. attorney’s spokesman Wilfredo Fernandez said Thursday. “The defendant admitted he lied about the information.”

Photos of Cabrera with Hillary Clinton at the White House and Vice President Al Gore at a Miami fundraiser were released Wednesday by the Justice Department. The pictures were taken after Cabrera made the campaign contribution to the Democratic National Committee in November 1995.

The DNC returned the $20,000 last week after learning that Cabrera had been convicted on drug charges and was serving a 19-year prison term.

Amy Weiss Tobe, a spokeswoman for the DNC, said it’s difficult to screen donors and Cabrera had told them he was from a prominent South Florida family; His family owns one of the largest fisheries in the Florida Keys.

The Secret Service, which protects the president, said it had screened Cabrera through the FBI’s National Criminal Information Center along with more than 200 others who attended the White House Christmas party last year.

“The information that was on it at that time did not give us any cause for concern that he would pose a threat to the president,” Secret Service spokesman Carl Meyer said Thursday. “Consequently, he was admitted.”

“Just because you have a criminal record does not mean you can’t be admitted to the White House,” he added.

Still, Republicans and Reform Party candidate Ross Perot questioned Thursday why Cabrera was allowed into the White House.

“That drug dealer who gave $20,000 and went to the White House for dinner - he’s not coming to dinner in my White House,” GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole said at a Thursday rally in Montgomery, Ala.

Perot, speaking in Washington to the National Press Club, said, “I never thought I would live to see a major drug dealer give 20,000 bucks in Florida … and then be invited to the White House for a reception.”

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., attacked the Secret Service.

“This guy was convicted for assault with a lead pipe, he was convicted for importing marijuana,” Gingrich said. “And I am frankly very surprised that the Secret Service did not find out. Their professional reputation is on the line.”

Cabrera, a 41-year-old Islamorada businessman, was sentenced to 19 years in prison two weeks ago. Authorities seized nearly 6,000 pounds of cocaine and 30 boxes of Cuban Cojiba cigars at the time of his arrest.

Cabrera had been arrested twice on drug charges in the 1980s, but pleaded guilty to non-drug-related charges. Court papers said that by 1995 he was deeply involved with the Cali Colombian drug cartel.

Federal agents have speculated for years about official Cuban involvement in the drug trade, but no indictment has resulted.