Asia Fundraising-gate, Part II

IN the summer of 1996, the Democratic National Committee released its quarterly campaign-finance report, and two names, Arief and Soraya Wiriadinata, quickly caught reporters’ attention. Nobody had ever heard of them. They lived modestly in a townhouse in Springfield, Va., yet with contributions of $425,000 to the party and President Bill Clinton, the Wiriadinatas out-gave such well-known Democrats as Steven Spielberg. It turned out they had given their money through a Democratic fundraiser named John Huang, who was in tight with the Clintons as well as the Indonesian business conglomerate Lippo Group, which was funneling illegal money to the president’s reelection campaign. When investigators started looking into that, the campaign-finance scandal was born.

Fast forward to 2007. In late August, the Wall Street Journal, checking campaign-finance reports, noticed contributions from William and Alice Paw, two members of a middle-class family living in a modest home in Daly City, Calif. Like the Wiriadinatas, they had never been heard of; William Paw, according to the paper, is a postal worker who makes about $49,000 a year, while Alice Paw does not work. Yet the couple, along with their adult children, combined to give $45,000 to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the last two years, and a total of $200,000 to Democrats. It turns out their contributions were made in coordination with a Democratic fundraiser-and fugitive from the law-named Norman Hsu, and another campaign-finance scandal was born.

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Byron York

Byron York is a former White House correspondent for National Review.

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IN the summer of 1996, the Democratic National Committee released its quarterly campaign-finance report, and two names, Arief and Soraya Wiriadinata, quickly caught reporters’ attention. Nobody had ever heard of them. They lived modestly in a townhouse in Springfield, Va., yet with contributions of $425,000 to the party and President Bill Clinton, the Wiriadinatas out-gave such well-known Democrats as Steven Spielberg. It turned out they had given their money through a Democratic fundraiser named John Huang, who was in tight with the Clintons as well as the Indonesian business conglomerate Lippo Group, which was funneling illegal money to the president’s reelection campaign. When investigators started looking into that, the campaign-finance scandal was born.

Fast forward to 2007. In late August, the Wall Street Journal, checking campaign-finance reports, noticed contributions from William and Alice Paw, two members of a middle-class family living in a modest home in Daly City, Calif. Like the Wiriadinatas, they had never been heard of; William Paw, according to the paper, is a postal worker who makes about $49,000 a year, while Alice Paw does not work. Yet the couple, along with their adult children, combined to give $45,000 to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the last two years, and a total of $200,000 to Democrats. It turns out their contributions were made in coordination with a Democratic fundraiser-and fugitive from the law-named Norman Hsu, and another campaign-finance scandal was born.