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- by Michael Reagan - May 22, 1997
The first prosecutions involving illegal campaign contributions to Democrats in 1996 involves donations laundered by Gen and Nora Lum through their pipeline company. The Lums have agreed to plead guilty to arranging $50,000 in illegal contributions during the 1994 election, some of which went to Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. Nora Lum and her husband, Gene, have agreed to plead guilty to one felony each that they arranged to pass the money through "straw donors," the Justice Department announced. According to the Associated Press the Lums agreed to admit to a scheme to funnel corporate and personal funds to the Kennedy and Price campaigns by making it appear that legal donations were being made in the names of other people, according to court papers. Typically, $1,000 or $2,000 was given to an employee, a corporate officer or someone else, who in turn donated the money to a candidates' campaign, court papers said. The checks carried the notation "reimbursement," the documents said. Federal election law bars corporate donations to candidates and it also prohibits individuals from giving more than $2,000 to a candidate. The Lums became active in Democratic politics in Hawaii during the 1980s and became major fund-raisers for the Democratic National Committee during the 1992 election cycle after meeting Ron Brown. In 1993, they moved to Oklahoma and purchased a gas pipeline, renaming it Dynamic Energy. Price served as the company's president for the first year before leaving the company to run for a House seat in Tulsa. Shortly after taking over Dynamic, the Lums placed Michael Brown on their board of directors and gave him a 5 percent share of the company, providing him thousands of dollars in shareholder payments as well as a $60,000 golf course membership. At the time, Brown's father, Ron Brown, was commerce secretary. Nora Lum was chairman and CEO of Dynamic Energy Resources, and a frequent guest at the Clinton White House. The Lums' daughter, Trisha, 27, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor violation alleging she acted as an illegal conduit for a $10,000 contribution to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The charges were brought by the Justice Department task force created by Attorney General Janet Reno to look into campaign fund-raising abuses after the Democratic Party accepted $3 million in donations from prohibited or suspect foreign sources. The charges stem from an independent counsel investigation into Ron Brown's business dealings that was expanded to include Dynamic and the Lums. The independent counsel probe ended when Ron Brown died in a plane crash in Croatia in 1996, and the remainder of the investigation was turned over to the Justice Department. In spite of this prosecution, Reno still persists in refusing to appoint an independent counsel to investigate the Clinton Campaign Fund scandals, saying there is "no evidence" that "illegal actions" took place.
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