Men of zeal?

Mark Twain once wrote that "America has no criminal class, except Congress." But then he had never met the Clinton fund- raisers.

In the Wall Street Journal Paul Gigot spelled out one way it all worked. On January 17, 1996, a shopping-center developer named Herbert S. Miller attends a "coffee" with the President. On February 8, Miller donates $50,000 to the DNC. On February 12, Miller writes to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown describing problems and plans his company, American Malls International, has in Japan. In late March, Brown writes to Japan's trade ministry as follows: "I am writing to you on behalf of American Malls International . . . to request the support of the government of Japan in furthering the progress of a very promising project."

Then there is the John Huang affair. Huang was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce, had top secret clearance, and attended dozens of top secret briefings about China and Asian affairs. Yet he made more than seventy telephone calls to his former employers at the Indonesian Lippo conglomerate; Lippo was closely involved with Chinese government companies, which were much involved in economic espionage . . . And behold, the campaign money pours forth.

Another amazing specimen is the Energy Capital Partners matter, also reported in the Wall Street Journal. Here two Boston businessmen have coffee with the President, raise $3 million for his campaign, and soon thereafter are handed the management of a $200 million HUD loan program that brings no risks and guaranteed profits in the millions. Or perhaps you prefer the five- million-dollar man, Warren Medoff, who passed his business card to the President at a fundraiser with the notation that "My associate has $5 million he is prepared to donate to the DNC." He was soon faxed a list of bank account numbers by Harold Ickes. These were the accounts of tax exempt "voter education" groups, but Ickes also asked for a quick $500,000 for the Democratic National Committee --which, given that such political fund-raising is forbidden by law, Michael Kelly of The New Republic said "certainly looks like a clear violation of the Hatch Act."

Nor is this all. The Boston Globe reported in January that in 1996, President Clinton abruptly reversed course on a key immigration bill eight days after a fundraising dinner raised $1.1 million from Asian donors who opposed the bill. There are more recent reports that policy toward Guam was reversed when donors there came up with ready cash for the campaign, and it appears that per capita the Guamanians were the most generous constituency the Clinton campaign had.

Most serious is the new allegation, appearing in the Washington Post, that the embassy of the Peoples' Republic of China was maneuvering to push money in the direction of the Democratic National Committee. This was discovered, the newspapers suggest, through counter-spy operations of U.S. intelligence agencies. If the famous episode of the fundraiser at a Buddhist temple was simply fun, the business of Chinese intervention in American politics is not only distasteful but ominous. Where, truly, will it end?

This and the other revelations about foreign money tell us volumes about the Clinton operation. First, they tell us what careful observers understood to be the Clinton modus operandi: namely, take the cash and ask no questions about who is providing it. I worked for a total of four and one half years for the late Sen. Henry M. Jackson and for Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan, including during periods when they were raising campaign money. In my experience no such illegal or corrupt efforts to contribute to their campaigns were made, and it seems to me clear why: it was evident from their conduct that such efforts would be rebuffed and the attempt reported to the proper authorities. But somehow the Indonesian Lippos and the Chinese restaurateurs and the Buddhist "monks" all understood the signals emanating from Clintonland long before the press caught on. It is understood in most Third World countries that a "lobbyist" is someone who knows how much cash is required, knows to whom the cash is to be delivered, and makes the delivery. The Clinton Administration has used much rhetoric about closing the gap between us and the Third World, and perhaps this was what they had in mind.

No doubt the Clinton campaign would have recoiled in horror from a potential donor identifying himself as a representative of the Red Chinese (not, sadly, from ideological objection, but from practical political judgment). But the second thing we have learned should have been obvious from the start; when you agree to take cash from anyone, you abandon control over who your contributors are. Then, who funds the Clinton campaign is a decision made not in the White House but in Jakarta, Beijing, and God knows where else. And since each contributor wishes to buy a different item, what the law calls "depraved indifference" to who the contributors are transmutes quickly into indifference to what is available for purchase.