Buddhist Temple Repaid Some DNC Donations

The Buddhist temple that hosted a controversial political fund-raiser featuring Vice President Al Gore last year privately reimbursed nuns and some temple devotees who made donations to the Democratic campaign, The Times has learned.

The undeclared repayments to about a dozen contributors ranged from $2,200 to $5,000 and may have exceeded $50,000, according to sources familiar with the transactions.

Federal election law prohibits reimbursements of campaign contributions and requires disclosure of the true source of the funds.

Newly obtained documents also reveal the Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights engaged in other political activities that raise questions about the religious center’s compliance with tax laws banning partisan activities by nonprofit institutions.

Since opening nearly a decade ago, the temple hosted a 1990 fund-raiser for a Connecticut gubernatorial candidate, provided support for various politicians and lobbied Congress on immigration legislation that would help Buddhist religious workers to enter the U.S., records show.

Democratic fund-raiser Maria Hsia, a private immigration consultant and longtime public relations advisor to the temple, arranged the events as well as a Taiwan trip that then-Sen. Gore and his top aides took in 1989, financed in part by the Buddhist sect.

An attorney for the temple declined to answer questions about fund-raising there. But Hsia’s attorney, Gordon Greenberg, said in a statement: “She has done nothing illegal or improper. When all the hype and hysteria is over, it will be clear that Maria Hsia is simply a civic-minded activist and a hard-working businesswoman.”

The temple donations are one facet of the widening federal investigations to determine whether foreign government and other interests attempted to influence the U.S. political process through contributions. The Hsi Lai Temple is a branch of Fo Kuang Shan, a Taiwan-based religious order with ties to the Taipei government.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which is investigating alleged fund-raising abuses in the 1996 campaign, voted Thursday to issue subpoenas for Hsia and 23 temple workers, donors and attendees seeking to their testimony and documents.

The new information about temple fund-raising could be particularly nettlesome to Gore, considered a certain contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000. In addition to suggesting additional improprieties in connection with the fund-raiser he attended, the documents show that he and his office had periodic contacts over the years with Hsia, a Taiwanese American and the temple’s liaison to the U.S. political world. Gore initially insisted he did not know the luncheon was a fund-raiser but later acknowledged that some of his staff were aware of its purpose.

Hsia’s partner in organizing the Gore event was Democratic fund-raiser John Huang, who is at the center of the campaign scandal. Hsia, Huang and Indonesian financier James T. Riady founded the now-defunct Pacific Leadership Council to support Democratic Senate candidates and to foster more political clout for Asian Americans.

The Gore luncheon at Hsi Lai Temple--an imposing $25-million complex and the largest Buddhist holy place in the Western Hemisphere--raised about $140,000 for the Democratic National Committee on April 29, 1996.

However, the party acknowledged last October that it had been improper to hold a fund-raiser at a tax-exempt religious institution. After an internal audit, the DNC announced that it would return nearly half the contributions, primarily on grounds there was insufficient information to confirm that donors were eligible to contribute or that the listed donors actually gave the money.

About a Dozen Donors Reimbursed

The Times found that about a dozen contributors were reimbursed by the temple, including at least five nuns, an official of the temple’s religious university, a temple telephone operator and various lay members and volunteers.

Most of the checks--made out to the Democratic National Committee--were for $5,000 each.

Master Shing Yun, founder of the Hacienda Heights temple and the sect’s headquarters in southern Taiwan, contributed $5,000, which was returned by the DNC. But it is not clear whether his donation--drawn from a money market account he shared with the temple abbess--was reimbursed from any other temple account.

Federal election law requires the identification of the actual campaign donor. It is unlawful to knowingly provide false information to the Federal Election Commission, an offense that can be prosecuted as a felony under criminal statutes.

Making a federal campaign contribution in the name of another individual or entity is also prohibited by election law. If this is done knowingly, then it, too, is potentially a criminal violation.

“You can’t reimburse anyone for a contribution that they make,” said Ian Stirton, a spokesman for the FEC.

Questions have arisen over the extent to which federal election laws apply to largely unregulated “soft money” contributions to political parties. But the DNC says virtually all of the temple contributions were “hard money” raised under federal regulations and limits.

In that case, said Trevor Potter, an elections attorney and former chairman of the FEC, “the person who received reimbursement and passed on that money that wasn’t theirs and the person whose money was actually used could both be in violation of the law.

“Traditionally the FEC has been much tougher with the persons who devised the reimbursement scheme.”

Contributions From Legal Residents

Under FEC laws, civil penalties can be assessed for the amount of each unlawful contribution or double the amount, if the violation was willful.

In addition, election law prohibits contributions from people who are not legal residents.

One temple source who insisted on anonymity said no foreign money was involved in the reimbursements and that the money came from the local temple’s own resources, such as book sales and donations from Southern California devotees.

The DNC said it was unaware of any reimbursement scheme by the temple.

“We had no specific indication that anyone had been reimbursed for their contribution,” DNC spokesman Steve Langdon said Thursday. “For some of those whose money we have returned or are returning, we could not identify the source of the contribution.”

The temple is incorporated in California as a nonprofit religious organization. Officials at the state Franchise Tax Board said that such organizations are prohibited from making political contributions or using “substantial” assets for lobbying.

The Justice Department has dispatched prosecutors and FBI agents to Los Angeles to interview temple donors about the sources of their political gifts. An attorney for one donor--who says her contribution was not reimbursed by the temple or by any foreign interests--said the donor will be questioned again by federal agents next week.

“They wanted to know all about Maria Hsia and the temple and who’s a possible foreign agent and if there’s any foreign money coming in,” said the attorney.

Hsia’s Los Angeles attorney, Greenberg, told Senate investigators this week that Hsia will refuse to answer questions from Congress while the Justice Department is conducting its separate criminal probe, sources said.

Greenberg and temple attorney Brian Sun of Santa Monica declined to answer written questions submitted by The Times for this article.

The temple got support from a longtime Republican fund-raiser and friend of Hsia, Beverly Hills attorney David Ross. He blamed the critical attention focused on the temple on “a double standard.”

“No one’s looking at all the money the Christian right is raising for political causes in churches all over the country,” Ross said. “The difference here is that these people [Buddhists] look different. It’s a racist thing.”

Hsia was out of the country this week, and a number of key temple officials were in Taiwan attending a Buddhist festival. None could be reached.

Vice President’s Visit to Temple

By all accounts, the vice president’s temple visit was not originally intended to be a fund-raising event.

Early in 1996, Master Yun enlisted Hsia to help explore the possibility of President Clinton or Gore appearing as a guest of honor at a temple ceremony for dignitaries.

Hsia was no accidental choice. During the late 1980s and early ‘90s, she had been one of the most influential Asian American political organizers in the country.

As a co-chair of the Pacific Leadership Council, Hsia orchestrated a PLC-sponsored Taiwan tour for then-Sen. Gore in January 1989. That trip was financed by Master Yun’s temple in Taiwan and by the newly opened Hacienda Heights religious center which records show contributed a $4,000 to the PLC.

In Taiwan, Gore first met Yun when Hsia and the group toured the Fo Kuang Shan temple in Kaohsiung. In a letter to Hsia a few days later, the senator called the visit “almost overwhelming” and wrote: “I know we can do great things together in the future.”

A few months after the Taiwan trip, Hsia arranged one of the earliest fund-raising events for Gore’s 1990 reelection campaign--a May 1989 reception at the Beverly Hills home of PLC member Tina Bow. Several temple monks also attended the fund-raiser, though there is no record that they made any contributions.

In a subsequent letter thanking one of the monks, Hsia said Gore “deeply appreciates your support and the support of your congregation.”

Reception Raises Nearly $20,000

The reception raised nearly $20,000, primarily from the Asian American community. In a letter, Gore thanked Hsia for her support, saying it was especially important because his unsuccessful 1988 quest for the presidential nomination had “left our coffers empty for the upcoming race.”

Hsia had special plans for Gore, other correspondence shows. On May 25, 1989, she wrote that she wanted Gore to “become one of the senators closest to the Asian Pacific community. But for that to occur, we need time and a special commitment from each other.”

Later, records show, Hsia helped organize Asian Americans in Tennessee to support Gore’s reelection.

After Gore’s 1990 Senate reelection victory, he invited Hsia to Washington for a Capitol Hill reception for members of the 102nd Congress.

Ginny Terzano, Gore’s spokeswoman, said the vice president considered Hsia “a friend and a longtime supporter” whom he generally saw a couple of times a year at Democratic events.

Friends say Hsia virtually retired from politics in subsequent years. Federal election records show that her personal donations to campaigns dropped abruptly from about $25,000 per year to a few hundred dollars.

That hiatus ended, friends say, when Master Yun asked for her help. In February 1996, Hsia led a temple delegation--including the master--to Washington to attend Huang-organized DNC fund-raising events featuring Clinton and Gore. In March, during a visit to the White House with Hsia and Huang, Master Yun invited Gore to visit the Hsi Lai Temple.

The visit was to coincide with a California fund-raising tour for the DNC. Huang, Hsia’s former PLC colleague who was then a DNC official, also was planning to tap Asian Americans at a fund-raiser for Gore at a Monterey Park restaurant.

But sources say scheduling conflicts meant either the temple visit or the restaurant fund-raiser had to be scrubbed. According to Peter Kelly, a former state Democratic chairman who was legal counsel to Hsia and the temple last year, the DNC decided to combine the two events.

“This simply was not the case of the temple setting out to raise money for anyone,” said one temple source.

Some Donors Canceled When Temple Was Site

Some major donors canceled when they heard the fund-raiser had been moved to the temple. Hsia told associates that Huang pressed her to make up the shortfall, saying: “You’ve ruined my fund-raiser!” She then turned to Master Yun, sources said.

A rash of temple donations was received a day after the Gore luncheon, DNC records show. Several of the temple-related checks bear similar handwriting on the line: “Payable To . . . . DNC.”

It remains unclear who filled in that line and how the reimbursement system came to be employed.

Friends say Hsia was an expert on the rules of fund-raising and presumably could have advised the temple how to stay in compliance with election laws if she was directly involved in collecting those donations.

Among PLC documents obtained by The Times, however, is correspondence between Hsia and aides of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in which she appeared to discuss withholding the identity of a donor.

In that instance, Hsia sent copies of a batch of checks to the DSCC after an April 1988 fund-raiser at Riady’s home. Hsia scrawled next to a $5,000 check from a San Marino man: “This check . . . belongs to my name [Maria Hsia] . . . Cannot report under this [donor’s] name.”

And on a fax cover sheet addressed to the DSCC in Washington on April 26 Hsia noted that the donor “will be very upset if his name appears . . . anywhere.”

There is no evidence the contribution was improperly reported, and the donor’s wife said the check was returned uncashed.

History of Visits to Buddhist Temple

The Gore event was not the first time political funds were raised in connection with the visit of a prominent elected official to the Hacienda Heights center.

In June 1989, Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) made a brief speaking stop at the temple during a fund-raising tour of California. Hsia, who helped arrange the tour, noted on her PLC planning sheet: “Goal--$2,000.” That day a temple official’s brother, identified in FEC files as a Montebello student, contributed $1,000 to the Simon campaign.

Simon, who left the Senate this year, said he did not recall any fund-raising at the temple. “To raise money at a religious institution is something that I’m sure would raise serious questions in my mind,” he added.

The most significant political fund-raising exercise at the temple, before the Gore event, appears to have been a luncheon for then-Rep. Bruce Morrison (D-Conn.) on April 22, 1990. Morrison, then chairman of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Affairs, raised more than $20,000 at the temple for his ill-fated gubernatorial bid that year.

The event was billed as “Asian-Pacific American Friends” honoring Morrison at $300 per ticket, $500 per couple.

Hsia’s correspondence file, filled with copies of the donor checks, includes a letter to Morrison expressing her hope that “the fund-raising [at Hsi Lai Temple] will be decisively helpful to your campaign for governor.” She added a P.S.: “There are more checks on the way.”

And a few days, later Morrison himself wrote a letter of thanks to Hsia, sending it along with several checks written on business accounts by donors at the temple lunch. Morrison asked Hsia to persuade those contributors to issue new personal checks conforming with Connecticut campaign laws banning corporate donations.

Among other VIPs at the fund-raiser was U.S. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-North Hollywood), who said he had earlier introduced Hsia to Morrison. Besides the Morrison fund-raiser, Berman said he visited the temple one other time, when Hsia persuaded the group to contribute $10,000 toward relief for Florida farm workers after the devastation of Hurricane Andrew.

Morrison insisted in recent interviews that, while he visited the temple to make a talk during a fund-raising trip to California in 1990, he was unaware that money was raised during his appearance.

“It was arranged by my campaign committee; I didn’t personally deal with any of that,” Morrison said.

Morrison, now chairman of the Federal Housing Finance Board, was the author in 1990 of pending legislation that would ease visa rules for Buddhist religious workers.

A few months after the fund-raiser, Hsia led a delegation of lobbyists to Washington to promote congressional support for the Morrison bill. Among those traveling to the Capitol were two Hsi Lai Temple nuns. The temple also released a public statement expressing support for the measure.

Lobbying by churches is banned only if it involves “a substantial part of [the church’s] activities,” according to a fact sheet provided by the IRS.

Rempel and Weinstein reported from Los Angeles and Miller from Washington. Staff writers Paul Jacobs and David Rosenzweig, and researcher Anna M. Virtue contributed to this story.

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The Money Source

The Democratic National Committee, which raised about $140,000 at the Hsi Lai Temple in a fund-raiser last year, later acknowledged that it was improper to raise such funds at a tax-exempt institution. It returned half the money, claiming that it did not have enough information to return the remainder. Democratic fund-raiser Maria Hsia arranged the event. The temple reimbursed nuns and some temple devotees who made donations. The Times has learned, a possible violation of disclosure laws.