Campaign Reform

Report: Bank Of China Made Transfers To Democratic Fund-Raiser

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 1) -- A Chinese government bank made a series of large wire transfers in 1995 and 1996 to Charles Yah Lin Trie, a figure at the center of the Democratic fund-raising controversy.

As first reported today by The Wall Street Journal, the payments were generally in the amounts of $50,000 or $100,000, and were conducted by the Bank of China's New York office around the time Trie directed large donations to the Democratic National Committee. The total amounts tranferred are not yet known, nor are the precise dates.

It is also not clear whether the transfers were made by the bank or at the behest of a client. Most of the bank's business comes from mainland Chinese businesses and Asian companies that do business in China.

Trie is in Asia and did not comment for the Journal's story. His attorney, Reid Weingarten, told the Journal that the notion his client was "receiving Chinese government money for influencing the U.S. government is as preposterous as it is false."

Trie first surfaced in the fund-raising flap when the trustees of President Bill Clinton's legal defense fund decided to return about $600,000 in questionable donations brought in by Trie. Of some $320,000 in donations brought in by Trie to the DNC, $15,000 has been returned because the source of the funds was unclear.

Trie, who was born in Taiwan, ran a restaurant during the 1980s in Little Rock, Ark., which Clinton used to frequent as governor of Arkansas. Trie now spends much of his time making business deals throughout the Pacific Rim.