Gop On Campaign Probe Hot Seat Hong Kong Businessman Allegedly Put Up $2.1 Million For Spending Spree

A Hong Kong businessman reluctantly put up $2.1 million to fund a late campaign spending spree that helped Republicans win the 1994 elections - and then swallowed a $700,000 loss when a party organ defaulted on a loan, a Senate committee learned Wednesday.

Beginning its third week of hearings on campaign finance abuses, the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee also voted to grant immunity to four Buddhist nuns and a Virginia woman allegedly involved in laundering Democratic contributions, overriding objections from the Justice Department.

The nuns are expected to testify in September about a controversial fund-raiser in a California Buddhist temple at which Vice President Al Gore appeared. Six of the panel’s seven Democrats joined all nine Republicans in approving immunity for the nuns.

The testimony about the money transfers from the businessman, Ambrous Young, kicked off three days that will focus on alleged Republican abuses. Previous testimony dealt with allegations of Democratic improprieties in last year’s presidential campaign.

Young’s lawyer, Benton Becker, told the panel that Young, a longtime Republican supporter, agreed to provide the money as loan collateral under strong pressure from then-Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour.

Becker said Barbour was seeking collateral to float a bank loan to the GOP-affiliated National Policy Forum late in the 1994 campaign. The forum wanted the loan to repay a debt to the RNC, which had provided seed money to start the think tank in 1993.

In a letter to Barbour dated Sept. 9, 1994, Young quoted the RNC chairman as telling him the money was “urgently needed and directly related to the November election.”

On Oct. 12, 1994, Young’s Hong Kong parent company transferred $2.1 million to its U.S. subsidiary, which had few assets. The money was put up as collateral for the bank loan to the forum, which was made the next day.

The forum then transferred $1.6 million to an RNC account used to finance state activities, according to a document obtained by the committee. But the document, dated Oct. 13, directed that the transfer be delayed at the RNC’s request until Oct. 20.

Democrats asserted in the hearings that the reason for the delay was that transactions after Oct. 19 would not be disclosed on campaign-finance reports until after the election. Having received the money, the RNC quickly parceled it out to Republican committees and candidates in 28 different states.

Asked why Young, who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1993, had agreed to put up the money, Becker at first portrayed it as a selfless act motivated by belief in the free-market system.

When pressed, however, Becker acknowledged that Young recognized the deal would increase access to Republican officeholders and that Barbour arranged for Young to meet House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., in 1995. “The way he expressed it was, ‘This puts powder on my face,”’ Becker said of his client.