ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 4, 1996 TAG: 9611040058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Seeking to quell a growing controversy over foreign-linked political donations, the White House disclosed Friday that there were two people named John Huang visiting the White House - and that only one of them was a Democratic fund-raiser.
White House spokesman Barry Toiv identified the second man with the same name as being involved in Vice President Al Gore's review of government agencies designed to improve their efficiency.
The disclosure came as aides to President Clinton missed a second House deadline for providing Congress information on the Huang who pulled in an estimated $4 million to $5 million in Democratic contributions from Asian Americans this year.
The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee chairman had set a noon Friday deadline for presidential aides to reveal with whom the Democratic National Committee fund-raiser met in dozens of White House visits this year.
White House officials - while telling reporters such a list exists - said they were unable to provide the information on such short notice to Rep. William Clinger, R-Pa.
``President Clinton's lawyers are hiding documents from Congress and the American people about Mr. Huang's frequent White House meetings even though these documents are readily available,'' Clinger said in a statement.
White House counsel Jack Quinn accused Clinger in a letter of ``using your office for partisan electoral purposes.'' Quinn said the White House needs more time to respond because ``your request covers an extremely broad time frame and requires us therefore to retrieve and verify a large number of records.''
Separately, Quinn wrote the House International Relations Committee that he would be unable to supply documents immediately on Huang's ties to a wealthy Indonesian family that has contributed heavily to Clinton's campaign.
The deadline set for that disclosure was Tuesday, but the committee did not reveal that the White House missed it until Friday.
``We will be in touch with your staff as soon as we are in a better position to assess the magnitude of your search request,'' Quinn wrote. The committee's request ``cannot be completed in the time frame indicated,'' he added.
White House spokesman Barry Toiv said that ``a number'' of the 65 White House visits this year by a man listed on Secret Service logs as John Huang were by someone other than the Democratic fund-raiser.
CBS Radio interviewed a man who said he was the second John Huang and that he had been to the White House 12 to 24 times last year and this year. He said he was with the Internal Revenue Service and had been on loan for Gore's review.
The Secret Service records show that Huang was a far more frequent White House visitor than the Clinton administration has said. Previously, the administration has said only that Huang met with Clinton on a few occasions, without mentioning visits with other people at the White House.
In the past 15 months, the name John Huang is listed 78 times as visiting the White House.
``I am not the John Huang who works for the Democratic National Committee nor do I know him,'' the second John Huang told CBS.
The White House learned of the second man with the same name on Thursday after talking with some people listed as having cleared John Huang into the White House, Toiv said.
Reporters for several days have been asking the White House for details on the people with whom Huang the fund-raiser met, but so far, the White House has provided just two names.
White House spokesman Mike McCurry said Thursday that top Clinton political aide Harold Ickes - the deputy White House chief of staff - recalls meeting with Huang ``at least once or twice.''
The only other person McCurry suggested as possibly having met with Huang was Douglas Sosnik, assistant to the president and director of political affairs. But Sosnik said that ``I don't recall meeting with'' Huang at the White House.
The White House previously acknowledged that Huang met on a few occasions with the president.
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS PRESIDENTby CNB