A FRIEND IN NEED

By Michael Duffy/Washington

The story of Charles Yah Lin Trie might once have taxed the imagination of a Hollywood movie producer: A Taiwan-born man arrives in America empty of pocket but full of ambition. After working as a busboy in Washington, he opens a restaurant in Little Rock, Arkansas, befriends a future President of the U. S. and expands his business empire to the Far East. He becomes a top fund raiser for his old friend's party and then taps into a far-flung network of Buddhists for quick cash when the President gets into legal trouble. Eventually, he returns to Washington and earns the clout to move freely in and out of the White House, once bringing as his guest a major arms dealer from the People's Republic of China.

Yet what once seemed far-fetched has become commonplace at the Clinton White House, where each week more is disclosed about how the Democratic Party managed to raise $120 million for its campaign coffers this year. Whether any laws were broken in the process has been the focus of a Justice Department task force for more than a month. Last week the team of prosecutors and FBI agents extended their investigation to include the President's legal defense fund. Administration officials acknowledged that they had received subpoenas for all White House records relating to calls, letters and visits by as many as 20 Democratic Party fund raisers and donors.

As Clinton completed his final round of Cabinet appointments last Friday, he appeared undaunted by the latest round of disclosures. He admitted that it was "clearly inappropriate" for Trie to escort Chinese weapons dealer Wang Jun through the White House in February. "We have to do a better job of screening people who come in and out of here," the President said. But Clinton noted with pride that so far the multiplying probes of the Administration "have spent $30 million or something, and there's not a single solitary shred of evidence of any wrongdoing on my part." Said he: "I feel good about it."

Yet the White House was not pleased that Trie had appeared as yet another dubious character in the drama just when disclosures about zealous fund raiser John Huang's activities seemed to be taking a holiday break. Trie, 48, has played a small but supporting role in Clinton's life for more than a decade. The two men met when Trie ran a Chinese restaurant located near the Capitol in Little Rock named Fu Lin (in Chinese, it can mean "enrich your neighbor"). Clinton became a regular at Fu Lin, which hosted an unusually generous luncheon buffet. A friendship sprouted, and Clinton named Trie to the Arkansas State fire extinguisher board in 1988.

After the President's election, Trie became a Democratic fund raiser and by 1995 was working with Huang, at that point a go-go money-maker for the Democratic National Committee, to boost the party's appeal among Asian-American donors. In January, Trie attended a D.N.C. finance-board breakfast at Washington's Hay Adams hotel, where party chairman Don Fowler asked the party's top 110 fund raisers to each raise $350,000 by Election Day. Rainmakers from Texas and Massachusetts balked at Fowler's demand, calling the pace unrealistic. But not Trie.

Late Friday night the D.N.C. released 3,000 pages of documents showing that Huang worked closely with Trie toward such goals. Huang, the documents say, raised $3.4 million for the President's party, nearly $1 million more than previously reported. How much Trie raised still isn't known, but the documents show that from one dinner alone, he raised $100,000. He was so successful that Fowler wrote Trie to thank him, noting approvingly that he had been named a co-chairman of a special Asian-American fund-raising-event. Fowler urged Trie to ask for help "if there is anything we can do for you."

During that same period, Trie had generated similarly large sums for another worthy cause: defraying the Clintons' Whitewater-related legal bills. Michael Cardozo, executive director of the President's Legal Defense Trust, disclosed last week that Trie walked unannounced into Cardozo's office on March 21, introduced himself as a friend of the President's, and handed over two big manila envelopes. Inside, says Cardozo, were checks and money orders totaling $460,000. It was an astonishing donation. At that time, the trust had raised only $1.1 million.

While Trie went to lunch downstairs at the tony Palm restaurant, Cardozo sifted through the checks. Some were plainly unacceptable. The Clinton defense fund accepts checks of $1,000 or less from individuals who are U.S. citizens only--not from corporations, lobbyists or federal employees. When Trie came back from lunch, Cardozo returned checks worth $70,000, while keeping the rest in escrow pending an investigation. The contributions were literally too good to be true: though some appeared to come from different people in different cities, the handwriting was often the same and some of the money orders were in sequence.

If the White House was concerned about Trie and his methods, it gave little sign. Cardozo informed Hillary Rodham Clinton and deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes of the problems with the Trie donations on April 4. At the time, Mrs. Clinton didn't recognize Trie's name until Cardozo identified him as a Little Rock restaurateur. Two weeks later, Trie was named by the President to a federal advisory panel on Asian trade, a plan that had been in the works for months. On April 24, Trie again visited Cardozo, this time handing over $179,000 in donations. Cardozo refused them.

That was a wise move. By June the fund's private investigators determined that much of the money had been raised under the auspices of the Suma Ching Hai International Association, a Taiwan-based Buddhist sect that claims 100,000 followers in the U.S. The donations appear to have been generated at Ching Hai meetings in several U.S. cities, where followers were urged to contribute to the Clintons' defense fund. Some members gave directly; the Washington Post reported that others were told contributions would be made in their name. Trie's ties to the group are a mystery, but then so is the cult. Sect members, who worship a 46-year-old woman whose real name is Hue Thi Thanh Wallenstatter, are said to believe in, among other things, the curative powers of their master's bathwater, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In late June the fund's trustees decided to return the money. But they included with each check a fact sheet explaining how to make legitimate donations. Over the next six months, the trust received $122,585 in donations from 136 of the original donors. Two weeks ago, the trust returned those checks as well. "The trustees felt very strongly that these funds should be returned," said Cardozo last week, "and the President and Mrs. Clinton concurred."

Trie, who shuns publicity and refused comment last week, divides his time between Beijing and Washington, where he rents a suite at the Watergate. His Daihatsu International Trading Co., which bears no relation to the Japanese automotive giant, is believed to deal mainly in import-export business with China.

The White House, perhaps grateful for all Trie had done, continued to grant the fund raiser entree even after problems surfaced. Trie has visited the White House 23 times since Clinton was inaugurated, including the controversial Feb. 6 coffee with Clinton when his guest was arms-dealer Wang Jun. At the time, the U.S. and China were locked in a dispute over global arms trading by the Chinese. "I have no recollection of meeting him," Clinton said Friday. "I can tell you for sure nothing inappropriate came from it, in terms of any governmental action on my part."

Two weeks ago, Trie was invited to a Christmas reception and dinner for 250 top D.N.C. donors at the White House. He may have been impressed as he strolled through the lavishly decorated Blue and Green rooms, while military aides sang carols and guests drank eggnog. But not that impressed: Trie's entree is so routine that he didn't even stay for the dinner.

--Reported by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum/Washington

With reporting by JEFFREY H. BIRNBAUM/WASHINGTON