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  • 7/5/2025
How a husband-and-wife team parlayed a handful of political contributions into millions in personal wealth — and multiple visits to the White House.

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00:00January 1997. Bill Clinton has led his party to the first re-election of a Democratic president
00:23since FDR. His triumph was shadowed by a gathering scandal. Since November, the White House has been
00:42besieged by stories of questionable campaign contributions and has been in full damage
00:48control. It had taken a lot of dollars to get elected, and the money fever in our national
00:54politics had given rise to a new political class, people who saw politics not as a marketplace of
01:01ideas, but just as a marketplace. Many of them were here this night with the president, sharing his
01:10victory. We're interested in just two of them. We call them the Fixers. Funding for Frontline is
01:22provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by annual financial support from viewers like
01:30you. This is Frontline. Additional funding for this program was provided by the Florence and John
01:44Schumann Foundation.
02:01Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to suggest the use of your seatbelts of all time.
02:04Some of the other fixers have been spending a lot of time lately on the front page,
02:08a circumstance they'd generally rather avoid. The story has focused on the president, the vice
02:15president, and the Asia connection. Lord knows that's getting its share of attention. What we set out to
02:23do is to try to examine a case study in getting connected. Just how do fixers go about donating their way
02:30into the highest circles of power? We heard about a couple who mastered the art of getting connected.
02:37Their unlikely odyssey brought them from obscurity to the White House in the space of two years
02:43and made them millionaires along the way. Their story begins in Hawaii.
02:55Honolulu, Hawaii, America's paradise outpost in the Pacific.
02:59A paradise that was put up for sale in the 1980s, when Japanese developers invaded the islands. The flood of
03:11money promised enormous profit for those who could navigate the political shoals. My first stop was a
03:18public interest lawyer who tried to slow the development frenzy.
03:21In the mid-80s, Hawaii, for all intensive purposes, became a yen colony of Japan. You had a period where
03:32a limousine would drive into a neighborhood and a Japanese investor would knock on the door and say,
03:39I want to buy your house. A person would say, it's not for sale. They would say, here's the price we'll give
03:45you. And the guy would call to his wife, Martha, we're moving.
03:50But not all Japanese purchases were so straightforward. Some required the cooperation of willing politicians.
03:57The political influence over governor's office, major political entities, was monumental. Huge amounts of political
04:09contributions came in. And the remarkable thing for the Japanese was how cheaply they could buy Hawaii politicians.
04:18The campaign contribution free-for-all got so out of control that, finally, the Federal Elections Commission stepped in.
04:25The Federal Elections Commission is calling this one its biggest case ever.
04:28The investigation found that 24 foreign companies, mostly Japanese...
04:32The Federal investigators found more than 100 violations of campaign laws meant to protect against foreign influence over our elections.
04:40The Honolulu mayor, Frank Fossey, had accepted tens of thousands of dollars, as had the governor, John Waihei, all of it improperly given and received.
04:52Altogether, hundreds of thousands of dollars to 111 politicians and their campaigns were ruled illegal and had to be given back.
05:05Playing a key role behind the scenes in those Hawaiian fundraising controversies were Jean and Nora Lum.
05:14Nora was a Japanese-American who started out selling clothes in a tourist shop in Waikiki.
05:21Jean was an ethnic Chinese, a lawyer who tried and failed at politics.
05:27But together, they found their way when they learned the uses of political fundraising.
05:33Jean had landed a staff job on the city council, advising on land use policy.
05:39Nora was helping to find projects for developers.
05:43And when the Japanese created the Hawaiian land rush of the 1980s, Jean and Nora Lum were ready.
05:50This is the era of the Asians.
05:52Yeah, there's the great influx of Asians and Asian-Americans.
05:57And Nora sought opportunities and she knew opportunities when she saw them.
06:02And she just happens to be Asian. Now how convenient.
06:05Both of them do, you know.
06:07So let us show you how we can help you.
06:10Using teamwork, they put investors together with the political people who had to say yes to a project.
06:16They were able to give the appearance, I'd like you to meet my wife who has these political contributions.
06:25I'd like you to meet my husband who works for the key guy in the legislature.
06:31I needed to talk to someone who had done one of these deals with the Lums.
06:35Mr. Charles Chidiak, please.
06:37Charles Chidiak is a financier with a checkered past, an unindicted co-conspirator in the B&L banking scandal.
06:45He wanted to build Hawaii's most fabulous golf resort, the Hawaiian Riviera.
06:51I was told that this woman and her husband can fix anything in Hawaii.
06:58So I hired her to advise me how to work in this corrupt system and help me out with my zoning.
07:07I needed to get the zoning.
07:09I mean, I had the engineering ready, I had the money ready and everything ready.
07:13And this thing was dragging on and on and on.
07:17She is a convincing woman, she can convince people that she can do things.
07:22So I gave her $50,000 in cash.
07:25And she said, I'll get you the approval in two months.
07:30And she said, she told me she's going to pay several guys, some of the, you know, power people in the state.
07:38And she'll get it to me in two months.
07:40Do you believe that she did pay those people?
07:43I have no way of checking.
07:45She told me she did.
07:47She didn't only work for me, by the way.
07:50She worked for other people also.
07:52Among Nora and Jean's clients were other developers who were trying to build hotels, resorts and golf courses.
08:00By the end of the 1980s, 73 Japanese-owned golf courses were in various stages of development.
08:07In Hawaii, golf courses were prohibited on agricultural land.
08:13Overnight, that law changed Japanese dollars.
08:18They were able to change the law and to get the Constitution ignored.
08:24Golf courses were suddenly permitted on agricultural land.
08:29Take the case of the Manawili Valley.
08:34In Hawaii, they say it's a scenic treasure.
08:37In the mid-80s, 1,000 acres of the valley were sold for $7 million in order to build two golf courses financed by the Japanese.
08:46To overcome political barriers, the developer hired Jean Lum.
08:51Then, the developer began to make donations to Hawaiian politicians.
08:57After they were able to buy the vote change, then overnight, that land became worth $40 to $50 million.
09:08The valley had been home to native Hawaiian farmers for generations.
09:13Now, Jenny Ohlinger, who lived here for 60 years, had to leave.
09:21Then, one day, the bulldozers arrived.
09:25The developers hired off-duty police and moved in on the local residents.
09:33Houses were bulldozed down.
09:36The bulk of the farmers were forced to leave by false police evictions, threats.
09:44SWAT teams moved little old ladies and children with full governmental support.
09:54There was a complete breakdown in law enforcement because the police and government authorities were on the payroll of these excellent Japanese business people.
10:08Thanks, to a large extent, to Jean and Nora Lung.
10:13As she left, Jenny Ohlinger placed an ancient Hawaiian curse on the golf course and on those associated with it.
10:23They actually built a golf course on the side of a mountain.
10:28Meanwhile, the FBI had launched an island-wide investigation into political corruption.
10:34A law enforcement official, who was in Hawaii at the time, confirmed the investigation, but would not be publicly identified.
10:42An actor speaks his words.
10:44In the case of the Lums, there was a genuine federal investigation.
10:49That's true. There were two issues. A search warrant for the Lums house and the subpoena for the financial records.
10:57What the agents were looking for was evidence of political kickbacks.
11:01And essentially, what needed to be established was the fact of payments to these people?
11:07Right. Their sole reason for existence is to pay kickbacks and launder money.
11:13I have talked to a couple of agents.
11:17Undercover FBI agents met with Hawaii's fixers, including Nora Lung, and secretly recorded their conversations.
11:24Nora Lung apparently actually bragged of her ability, her expertise in laundering campaign funds.
11:33Yes, as a matter of fact, that's right.
11:35And how would that work?
11:37Well, I remember he had two or three conversations, one with her and two with Jean out on a golf course.
11:44The probe of the Lums even included their associate, the developer, Charles Chidiak, who secretly became a cooperating witness for the FBI.
11:54The case was not prosecuted for what a Justice Department official said was a lack of admissible evidence.
12:02But the Lums were reaching for higher political connections.
12:06She said, I'm going to move into the hierarchy of the Democratic Party.
12:10And she was going to move to the mainland and work national politics.
12:16The most direct way to move onto the national stage in 1992 was to get noticed by this man, Ron Brown, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
12:28A few days after meeting him in Honolulu, the Lums donated $26,000 to the party.
12:35Then that summer, the Lums kicked in another $40,000.
12:40Nora's daughter, Maxine, gave $7,500.
12:44Her other daughter, Trisha, gave $7,500.
12:48Nora herself gave $10,000.
12:51And her sister, Kathy Nojima, gave $15,000.
12:56And then they went to the Democratic Convention.
13:00Madam Secretary, Ohio cast 144 votes for the next president of the United States, Philip Clinton.
13:12The Lums, and many Asian American contributors, placed their bets at just the moment the money chase in presidential politics was reaching a frenzy, with Bill Clinton as the candidate and Ron Brown as the chief fundraiser.
13:26My mother and my father always taught me to believe that in America, a kid from Harlem can go anywhere, do anything, even become chairman of the greatest party in the history of democracy.
13:40To make the climb from Harlem to this podium, Ron Brown had perfected the character traits of a super fixer.
13:51In a 25-year career as a lawyer lobbyist among the power elite, he'd become a master of connections.
14:00He'd worked for Senator Edward Kennedy, ran Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign.
14:06And as the first black chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Brown was determined to deliver the next president of the United States.
14:13To do that, the Democrats needed money.
14:21Brown concentrated on bringing new money and new people into the Democratic Party.
14:27That meant tapping into the new heart of Asian America, Los Angeles.
14:32In the 80s, the Republican National Committee was being very successful in tapping into Asian money.
14:39And I think Ron Brown and the Democrats recognized that, that there was fertile ground to be tilled.
14:46You know, we know how to make money. A lot of us are businessmen, right?
14:50And a lot of them are very successful entrepreneurs.
14:53And many Asian Americans welcomed the attentions of this head of a national party who was himself a minority.
15:01He was comfortable in that environment and took the time to really engage people.
15:05And he was looking at you and followed through in the conversation.
15:09I think the things that struck most people were that you would hear later on about follow-up.
15:16That there'd be a conversation in those environments where he would say, I'll look into that or I'll get back to you on it.
15:23And he actually did.
15:24But Brown would soon learn that dealing with the fragmented Asian American community was a challenge.
15:30When we talk about the Asian community, it's not just one community.
15:33It's different communities that are, you know, very divided.
15:37There's the Koreans, the Japanese, the Filipinos, the Cambodians, you name it.
15:41And even within each ethnic group, you know, there are different factions.
15:44You know, you look at yourselves as different from, you know, people who come from another area.
15:49Brown realized he needed someone from the outside to step in and unify the diverse community.
15:56So to pull off something Asian, you know, that someone from outside in many ways provides the neutrality that allows for people from these ethnic communities to convene.
16:09And that's how Jean and Nora moved to the next stop on their odyssey to the White House.
16:19With Brown's blessing, they set themselves up as Clinton-Gore fundraisers.
16:24What the Lums told me is that they are now in a big way with Ron Brown and the Democratic Party.
16:31And basically that she was part of the Ron Brown set up.
16:35She convinced Ron Brown that she's an expert and that she knew all the tricks of raising money for campaigns.
16:42And since he's been interested in money, I think that's why he hired her.
16:48And she was happy to do it.
16:50And why were the Lums so eager to get close to Ron Brown?
16:53She told me that when Bill Clinton wins, Ron Brown is going to become the Secretary of Commerce because that's how they're going to make money.
17:04The Lums created something called the Asia Pacific Advisory Council, APAC, which they said was part of the Democratic National Committee.
17:14People who saw APAC in action said it was like no political organization they had ever seen.
17:20It was a major operation. It didn't do much precinct walking. It didn't do much targeting likely voters.
17:28It wasn't that. If you measure it on that account, it makes no sense at all.
17:33I don't recall seeing them at any local Asian American candidates fundraiser.
17:42I don't recall seeing them having any close relationship with any Asian American elected officials.
17:50The offices, you have to imagine a large warehouse in an area that is really not a residential area.
17:57It's warehouses.
17:59And it's the front part of this warehouse has got some partitioning and carpeting and foam lines.
18:05But the physical plan wasn't much.
18:07She said it's only to register voters.
18:09I was there for two and a half months in that office.
18:13And that office was purely to raise money.
18:16The Lums' friend and business associate from Hawaii, Charles Chidiak, joined them at APAC as a volunteer.
18:24The trouble was he wasn't an Asian, so Nora created the Lebanese American Advisory Council.
18:32The Lums' foray into national fundraising culminated with a ceremony shortly before the election.
18:38It was an awards program.
18:40I, you know, I was an awardee and the awards were like, you know, 31 flavors.
18:46One person out of each community was identified to get the award.
18:50Wakabayashi represented Japanese Americans.
18:53There was a Korean American, a Pacific Islander.
18:57There's Charles Chidiak.
18:59There's Nora herself.
19:01Melinda Yee, Ron Brown's emissary to the Asian community.
19:05And then there's this man, John Wong.
19:09There from the start of the Lums' operation and soon to become the central figure in the Democratic fundraising troubles.
19:16In a letter bearing his signature, candidate Bill Clinton said the event would honor those affiliated with the Lums' group for their hard work on behalf of the campaign.
19:26The awards were kind of neat.
19:28There was a plaque with a rock that was from Little Rock.
19:33You know, and it was an interesting kind of rock and we had some formations and some things in it.
19:37The event seemed a success, but it was hard to judge because no one seemed to know just how much money it raised.
19:45I think that was either a $50 or $100 a ticket kind of event.
19:49So I just multiplied that by the crowd size that I saw and that's how I estimated what was made in that event.
19:56And what was the number?
19:57I guess that the amount was around $10,000.
20:00Estimates from others who were there range from $25,000 to several times that.
20:06But the Lums apparently kept the information to themselves, and the DNC has no record of the event.
20:13For that matter, the DNC has no record of any money raised by AIPAC during that campaign.
20:19That doesn't surprise Charles Chidiak.
20:22They had a back room in the place.
20:25She had a big checkbook on her desk.
20:29She wouldn't talk to anybody in the back.
20:33She always came to the front.
20:35That was her secret operation.
20:38She and her husband and only her daughter could go in.
20:41One time she showed me $50,000 and I saw stacks of $100 bills.
20:46She had like a shopping paper bag.
20:49She showed me the money.
20:51According to Chidiak, a lot of the AIPAC money came from fellow council member John Wong.
20:57John Wong, he used to come every day to the AIPAC office.
21:01She introduced me to him as the guy who donated $350,000 to the campaign.
21:06This is 92.
21:07They learned all the techniques in 92.
21:11And she told me that in total, you know, the end of the campaign, she told me that this office raised $700,000.
21:19But the money disappeared.
21:21Nobody knows what happened to the money.
21:26No one knows, Chidiak or anyone else.
21:31However much money they raised and whomever it came from, the Lums did their part and Ron Brown did his.
21:39Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States.
21:51As Secretary of Commerce, I am nominating someone who will make the Commerce Department a powerhouse, Ron Brown.
21:58Ron Brown received his reward, Secretary of Commerce.
22:03Today is also a special day for me because Mac McLarty is standing beside me, as he has since we were children in kindergarten.
22:12Thomas Mac McLarty became President Clinton's chief of staff.
22:16He was a genuine friend of Bill.
22:19But in his life as a businessman, there was a potential problem developing, a possible embarrassment.
22:25The problem was in Oklahoma.
22:35His company, Arkla, had made a fortune in the gas and oil business.
22:41As things would turn out, the gas business in Oklahoma is where we're about to find the Lums.
22:47But we're getting ahead of the story.
22:50It starts back with the oil and gas boom of the 1980s.
22:56The boom in the early 80s was unbelievable.
22:59There were rig workers who would come in and lay down $100 bills and buy big gold wristwatches like we had never seen before.
23:06It was a frenzy mentality.
23:09It was like watching Dallas, the television show, except taking place in Oklahoma.
23:15Limousines were around a lot. Corporate jets were in vogue.
23:20The real affluence used to fly Bell Jet Ranger helicopters to go out for dinner.
23:24The prices were so high, they would be getting, instead of $10 or $20 or $100 an acre, thousands of dollars an acre for oil and gas leases.
23:35But then the gas business went bust.
23:39And one tiny gas company out here was especially up against it.
23:44The Gage Corporation was caught in a nasty life and death legal dispute with Oklahoma's dominant utility and Gage's only customer, the giant Oklahoma natural gas.
23:56Out of the blue, they just called us up and said, shut your pipeline down.
24:01It was a gut shot because it potentially was a death blow.
24:06So Gage hauled ONG before Oklahoma's utility regulator, the Corporation's Commission.
24:13Every time we would make an appearance, to me it was sort of obvious that the rulings that we were getting were bizarre.
24:22And I went to our attorneys, McAfee Taft, and told them that I thought that there was some hanky-panky going on.
24:32I knew of the history of corruption in Oklahoma government.
24:36I had no idea that within the first few weeks of my taking office in this agency that utility lawyers, utility lobbyists, utility executives would come into my office, close the door, and count out thousands of dollars and $100 bills.
24:54There was a utility lawyer who actually represented three of the five biggest utilities in the state.
25:01And his business is to get things done at the Corporation Commission.
25:05And I was elected commissioner, and he wanted to establish a relationship.
25:09And I guess his pattern of doing that was to provide money.
25:13And I can remember the first time he actually came into my office, he even said, you know, sometimes I get money for the commissioners.
25:23He called it walking around money.
25:24He said, I can get you $300 or $400 walking around money.
25:27I do that for the commissioners.
25:29That was kind of a shocking thing.
25:33His friends called William Anderson Tater.
25:36For 30 years, he represented all the big utilities, including Mack McLarty's company, Arkola.
25:44Commissioner Anthony decided to keep a secret from Tater.
25:48He had told the FBI about the walking around money, and they had decided to bug his office.
25:54There's a $5,100 bill, sir.
25:56Mr. Anderson walked in with a wad of $100 bills, and I counted them out for the benefit of the FBI's tape recorder and counted them up to 50.
26:11$29,50.
26:12I wish you'd want more, and I'd grab your trust.
26:14That's $5,000.
26:16After money changed hands, I'd look the person in the eye and say, you and I both know this is illegal.
26:22Sometimes I would quote the Oklahoma statute, Title 17 section.
26:26Look at that Oklahoma statute, Title 17, that's all interfering with it.
26:30The law makes hypocrites out of all of them.
26:33Mr. Anderson would say, that law makes hypocrites out of all of us.
26:38In the next sentence, he mentioned that the Arkola representative would be in on Friday to make arrangements for some more.
26:46Talks to Arkola people, Arkola people are telling me that...
26:49Arkola was Mack McLarty's gas company.
26:52The efforts to buy influence were the greatest when it comes to Arkola.
26:59Mr. Anderson would bring me money.
27:02The senior vice president would be there a week or two later, and the president and chief operating officer of Arkola, Milt Hone, was the source of $500.
27:14He became chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Arkola after Mack McLarty went to become chief of staff of the White House.
27:24For nearly four years, Commissioner Anthony secretly taped the transactions.
27:30Ron Miller wondered why Gage continued to lose before the corporations commission.
27:35We kept trying to get some justice, and it was ruling upon ruling upon ruling.
27:42But then our attorneys received a phone call from the corporate commission requesting that they come up to the commission the next morning and bring their clients with them.
27:53At the Jim Thorpe building in Oklahoma City, Commissioner Anthony had a little surprise.
27:59He was about to tell his secret in an open hearing.
28:03So we appeared up at the corporate commission about 9 o'clock the next morning, and there were television cameras and there was a room full of people.
28:12Lots of people knew there was something big going on. The courtroom was full, and it was full of the parties to these cases and their lawyers wondering just how much I knew and how much I was going to say.
28:23Commissioner Anthony came out and basically read a statement.
28:28On several occasions, I have received thousands of dollars in cash, which I immediately gave to the FBI as evidence in their investigation.
28:37In cases where cash was received, a utility attorney, a utility lobbyist, and or a utility officer was involved.
28:47It was a shock, but it was an exhilarating thrill of realizing that we had basically been right in what we had assumed.
28:57For the first time, Miller thought he might have some leverage in his fight with ONG.
29:03He sued Tater Anderson in the hope that the fear of a very public trial and further embarrassment for ONG and for McLarty's Arcla might force a settlement in the dispute.
29:15And having these lawyers issuing subpoenas and doing depositions and putting witnesses on the stand and getting testimony under oath, all heck would have broke loose.
29:23Because we're not just talking about gauge systems and ONG and a gas purchase contract.
29:30We're talking about a 30-year history of bribery and corruption and wrongdoing in the state of Oklahoma.
29:38And there's a lot of people that just couldn't afford to have any of that story told.
29:44The cost of Ron Miller's legal fight nearly drove his company to ruin.
29:49We'd been fighting the equivalent of the Second World War.
29:53And it cost us a lot of money.
29:55And at some point in time, you finally just say, I've had enough, I want out.
30:00And then, something unexpected happened.
30:04Ron Miller's partner, Jim Kitchens, called about a mysterious message.
30:09He said that he had had a phone call from a friend that had overheard a conversation in California at a D&C fundraiser,
30:17and that he had heard Gage mentioned, and that it was this friend's understanding that Jim was going to get a phone call,
30:24and Jim was passing that story on to me.
30:27Where in California?
30:28I think he said it was in Torrance.
30:32The problem in Oklahoma had a political dimension.
30:35And the only thing that could make it go away was if Ron Miller would go away.
30:39And what would accomplish that?
30:41A buyout of Miller's Gage Corporation, a deal in which all sides made out.
30:47ONG made just such a deal possible when it agreed to offer a lucrative gas contract to a potential buyer of Gage.
30:56Of course, the offer was contingent on Gage dropping its lawsuit.
31:00This was damage control.
31:02The Gage Corporation had somebody by the throat, and Mack McLarty had a motive and an interest in seeing that these lawsuits and the discovery and the public disclosure go away.
31:15And in fact, just as Mack McLarty was being appointed President Clinton's chief of staff,
31:22the mystery buyers began negotiating the purchase of Gage with Miller's partner.
31:27When I would ask who these meetings were with, he said that it was a woman.
31:32That was what my ex-partner said.
31:34And then he said that it's a woman and her husband is a lawyer and that they work for the DNC.
31:42But I didn't know the name or know anything about it.
31:45And any time that he would discuss it with me, it would be the lady or the woman.
31:50I mean, that was how he referred to it.
31:55I finally was given the name, Nora and Jean Lum.
31:59They were very close friends and very involved with Rob Brown.
32:04The Lum's knew little about Oklahoma.
32:06They had no expertise about pipelines, and the closest they'd been to the oil and gas business was their local filling station.
32:14I got a phone call saying that they were flying in town and that they would meet me at our office at 1 o'clock in the morning.
32:22She was very friendly to me, cordial and congenial.
32:25Her husband was a little bit more withdrawn.
32:28She did a lot of the talking.
32:30I don't think you have to be too smart to know that Nora Lum didn't wander into Oklahoma just coincidentally after having served as the executive director of the APAC organization that collected all those Asian Pacific campaign contributions.
32:49I think somebody at an awfully high level had the connections to get something done that they needed to get done.
32:57The Lum's called their new gas company Dynamic Energy Resources.
33:02Commissioner Anthony believed it was all a political fix.
33:06Dynamic Energy Resources was a startup company that had no experience in the natural gas business.
33:14They had no reserves, and they end up getting a contract to sell enormous volumes of natural gas that they don't have over a 10-year period of time.
33:25And their biggest claim to fame seems to be their political connections.
33:31When they started coming over to the office, practically the first thing that would come out of their mouth is,
33:36we're from Washington and we're here to help.
33:38I mean, it was a bizarre thing.
33:41The Lum's delighted in their political connections.
33:44To close the deal, they hired a lawyer.
33:48But it wasn't just any lawyer.
33:50It was this man, John Tisdale, President Clinton's own lawyer.
33:56My secretary came to me and said,
33:58Ron, we're getting faxes from the White House.
34:01Tisdale would be over there grabbing them off the fax machine.
34:04And John Tisdale represented Dynamic at the closing.
34:08So from my standpoint as a little old Oklahoma utility regulator is,
34:13what's going on here?
34:15Here's what was going on.
34:17In buying age, the Lum's got a very sweet deal.
34:21They got a 10-year gas contract worth millions of dollars,
34:25part of which they were able to pre-sell.
34:28They used that money to buy the company.
34:30Then they sold the rest of the contract.
34:33So after paying Miller and his partner nearly $6.5 million,
34:37their gas company had no gas contract.
34:40But it did have a $12 million pile of cash.
34:44Now the Lum's were bona fide Oklahoma millionaires.
34:56The time had come to talk to Nora Lum.
34:59Good morning, Dynamic Energy.
35:08Mrs. Nora Lum, please.
35:10She's not in right now. Do you want me to take a message?
35:12Yes, ma'am. This is Peter Boyer.
35:14I'm in Tulsa, and I would dearly love to speak with her.
35:19Is Mr. Lum in?
35:21No, he's not on the answering service.
35:23Okay. If you'd be kind enough, say message to Mr. Lum.
35:26Okay, I will get this message to ma'am.
35:29But Nora and Jean proved elusive, even at home.
35:33Sorry to miss your call.
35:39Please leave your name, number, and a message,
35:42and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
35:44And thanks for calling.
35:46Good morning, Mrs. Lum. This is Peter Boyer.
35:49So I continued to track the Lum's through documents
35:52and those who knew them.
35:54I'd be grateful for a call.
35:55The Lum's first major act as majority shareholders
35:58of Dynamic Energy was to hire Michael Brown,
36:02whose father was now President Clinton's Secretary of Commerce.
36:06Like the Lum's, the younger Brown had no experience
36:09in the oil and gas business.
36:11Nora Lum, from her 70% interest, for which she paid nothing,
36:18which was worth 70% of $10 million,
36:22Nora Lum gave five percentage points of her 70 to Michael Brown,
36:28the son of the Commerce Secretary.
36:30And that was done to buy influence with the Commerce Secretary's office.
36:36But the cross-pollinization with the U.S. Commerce Department doesn't stop there.
36:41The Lum's also reached out to Clinton White House staffer
36:44and Ron Brown senior aide, Melinda Yee,
36:48who they befriended back at APAC in Los Angeles.
36:51They placed Yee's mother, Helen, on Dynamic's board of directors,
36:55giving her an ownership stake and a $14,500 dividend.
37:00Mrs. Yee also had no previous experience in the oil and gas business.
37:10Morning, Miss Lukey, please.
37:12Yee was proving hard to get on camera.
37:14Peter Boyer.
37:15I tried convincing her lawyer to let her talk.
37:18I'm going to be in California, and I thought if she's inclined to do it...
37:21I was told that I was pressuring Melinda, and she didn't like being pressured.
37:25It's my job. It's what I do for a living.
37:27Apparently, she wanted no part of the story about the Lum's.
37:31The Lum's aren't exactly irrelevant to her position in the last few years.
37:35In the end, Yee would not comment.
37:40It was becoming the standard response.
37:43Maybe at least the Lum's lawyer, John Tisdale, would go on the record with us.
37:48Mr. Tisdale's office, please.
37:50He would not go on camera, he told me, and neither would the Lum's.
37:54Hi, this is John Tisdale.
37:55But for the record, he offered what amounted to a blanket denial.
38:00Nora denied making political payoffs in Hawaii and said she had never claimed to be able to launder campaign money.
38:08And in California, she says, there never was any bag with $50,000 in cash.
38:13And she had no knowledge of John Wong donating $350,000.
38:18As for Oklahoma, she says she was not part of any grand plan to help Mac McLarty.
38:24And the reason she hired Michael Brown was because she and Jean thought of him as the son they never had.
38:31But the Oklahoma interlude was a profitable one for the Lum's.
38:36Nora Lum fronted a transaction that benefited Mac McLarty and helped him deal with the skeletons in his closet, and it was worth a whole lot of money to somebody.
38:49Now, she was giving it away to people associated with the Commerce Department, but she had plenty left over for herself.
38:56She was still quite a player, I understand, at some of the big gala events, so we'll see.
39:03The odyssey of Jean and Nora Lum carried them to Washington, D.C.
39:12No longer were they simply a pair of mysterious fundraisers from Hawaii.
39:17Now they were Oklahoma millionaires.
39:19They had a business card identifying them as executives in the gas industry.
39:24In Washington, especially in the heat of the Asian connection scandals,
39:30the Lum's closest connections are no more eager to be drawn into their unfolding saga
39:36than were people who knew them in any of the other locales.
39:39Public figures speak to the press all the time.
39:42The Lum's had gotten close to some connected people in Washington,
39:45people who wanted no part of their story now.
39:48Litigation and criminal proceedings and congressional hearings.
39:51We're not, I'm not, my purpose isn't to ask for particulars about,
39:55did you make telephone calls to John Wong on the Commerce Department?
39:59I don't, I couldn't care less about that.
40:01But if Washington does anything well, it creates paper.
40:06And the Lum's left a paper trail through this city.
40:09It begins here, in the old executive office building, where the Clinton administration
40:14has set aside some information about contributors.
40:18In a small room on the fourth floor, there are files for all the headline grabbing names.
40:23John Wong, he was the banker who was a member of APAC.
40:27Charlie Tree, the Little Rock Chinese restaurant owner.
40:31Johnny Chung, who handed $50,000 to Hillary Clinton's aide next door in the West Wing.
40:38There are lists of the 938 people who slept in the Lincoln bedroom.
40:43Some of them paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege.
40:47And of course, there are the Lum's.
40:50Using her new connections to the inner circle,
40:53Nora visited White House offices more than a dozen times.
40:58Nora's friend, Melinda Yee, was posted to the Office of White House Personnel.
41:04And Jean was highly recommended for a job in international trade or transportation.
41:10Their daughter, Trisha, was hired.
41:13She landed close to Ron Brown, over at the Commerce Department.
41:17That's where John Wong also got a job, as did Melinda Yee,
41:22and more than a dozen of Brown's assistants from the DNC.
41:27In a special room deep inside the labyrinth of the Commerce Department,
41:31the paper trail continues.
41:33Once again, our familiar cast of characters.
41:36John Wong, Melinda Yee, and of course, the Lum's.
41:41Much of this material was released after a lawsuit filed by public interest attorney Larry Clayman.
41:48Given the fact that the Lum's participated in trade-related activities with the Department of Commerce.
41:54Given the fact that Mrs. Lum's daughter, Trisha Lum, worked at the Department of Commerce.
41:59Given the fact that Melinda Yee's mother is reported to have owned stock in dynamic energy.
42:05Given the fact that Melinda Yee herself was a high official at the Commerce Department.
42:10The facts add up to the Lum's trying to buy influence with Secretary Ron Brown and the Clinton administration.
42:17The Lum's deny the charge, but they had plenty of reason to stay close to Ron Brown.
42:23He was a new sort of Commerce Chief, aggressively using his department to help American companies looking for international deals.
42:31His trade missions were business trips that resulted in billions of dollars worth of deals.
42:37And seats on those planes were highly coveted prizes, fiercely sought.
42:42Brown once told Frontline why.
42:45When the Secretary of Commerce gets off an airplane, the airplane has emblazoned on it the words United States of America.
42:52And I walk down to the tarmac accompanied by 25 or 30 chief executive officers of American companies large and small.
43:01That reverberates throughout that country.
43:03And yes, it makes a difference. And yes, it has an impact. And yes, it helps create economic growth.
43:08And yes, it helps create jobs in the United States. And I'm very proud of that record.
43:12Perhaps no trade mission was more widely coveted than the trip to China.
43:17And 25 business leaders made the list.
43:20Nora Lum actually was scheduled to go on one of these trips.
43:24These individuals obviously are not sophisticated international traders.
43:29They have no known background in international trade.
43:33There is a great effort here to become involved.
43:36But for them to be chosen, one can only conclude it was based on their contacts with Ron Brown.
43:41In the end, Nora didn't go.
43:44But the Lum family was well represented on the trip by their daughter at the Commerce Department, Tricia.
43:50Back on the paper trail in that room at the Commerce Department.
43:55More evidence of the Lums.
43:57Here, a document about a select group of executives that met to advise members of the President's Cabinet on Asia trade policy.
44:06Included in that group were the CEO of Hughes Aircraft, the President of Martin Marietta, and Chairman of Dynamic Energy, Nora Lum.
44:20The occasion is a state dinner at the White House for South Korean President Kim Young-sam.
44:27There's Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Kim, Senator Sam Nunn, Secretary of Defense William Perry, Senator John Glenn, the President, and Noel Lum.
44:45And her daughter, Tricia.
44:55It was a long way from the tourist shop in Waikiki.
45:02They had come so far, so fast.
45:09Would anybody raise questions about their access, their connections?
45:13Someone did.
45:15By the winter of 1995, Congress was taking a hard look at Ron Brown's activities.
45:21It was open season, everywhere Ron Brown had worked, every deal he had done, especially those trade missions at the Department of Commerce.
45:31There were questions about criminal conduct, so an independent counsel was appointed.
45:36The counsel and his team of investigators reached back into Brown's past.
45:41One of the trails even extended all the way back to the Lums in Hawaii.
45:46FBI agents were dispatched to interview Tony Lucrecchio.
45:50They were interested in a deposition, which Eugene and Nora had given in our case, in which Eugene claimed he had no income whatsoever.
46:03Gene had taken the Fifth Amendment when asked about political contributions.
46:08But the FBI was interested because the deposition was taken right after a big payout in the dynamic energy deal.
46:15There was a $5 million check put in his bank account when he said under oath he did not have any money.
46:24The FBI made the comment, liar, liar, pants are on fire, when they looked at Eugene's statements.
46:31Then, agents worked Los Angeles.
46:35They were most interested in the Lums, Ron Brown, and what happened to the money from APAC.
46:41Remember there were no records from APAC?
46:44Well, the Lums have an unusual explanation.
46:47They say all their records were destroyed when a car crashed into the corner of their house.
46:54And the investigators turned to Oklahoma, where they examined the Lums gas deal.
47:00They wanted to talk to the former owner of Gage, Ron Miller.
47:04What do they want to know?
47:06Probably the same things that I'd like to know.
47:09I think they're trying to put their hands on the weirdness of the whole thing.
47:18Trying to put some real resolve to it.
47:21Because there's so many things that just don't make sense in it.
47:24They were asking about Ron Brown, Michael Brown, Melinda Yee, offshore banking accounts, political donations,
47:33and, of course, Nora and Jean Lum.
47:38There was one source I really wanted to talk to.
47:41Someone close to Ron Brown.
47:43I'd been trying to make contact for months.
47:46Then I got a call.
47:48We were to meet in another city.
47:50We agreed to tape an interview.
47:52But the source backed out of going on camera.
47:55Hello?
47:56This is Peter Boyer calling.
47:58We talked for five hours.
48:00This is what I can report.
48:02The source told me that Ron Brown encouraged the Lums to invest in the Democratic Party as a business investment.
48:09And that partly explains why they got the Oklahoma gas deal.
48:13Both Michael and Ron Brown benefited from the Oklahoma deal.
48:18But that was as far as the source would go.
48:22The Lums deny it.
48:24And Michael Brown won't talk.
48:27It was back to trying to find out what happened with the Independent Council's investigation.
48:32Here at the Federal Elections Commission, we ran all the political donations.
48:37Nora had spread some of her newfound wealth.
48:40To Senator Edward Kennedy's campaign.
48:43To a congressional race in Oklahoma.
48:46And to President Clinton's re-election effort.
48:49Then, fate intervened.
48:53Ron Brown died in a plane crash while on a trade mission in Europe.
48:58For the Independent Council investigators, at least, the inquiry into the Lums ended with Ron Brown's death.
49:05But for all that attention, the Lums were not cast off by the Democratic Party.
49:12Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton.
49:18At last summer's National Convention, they were listed as hosts and sponsors.
49:24They gave $20,000 at a gala for the President that netted over $2 million.
49:30Last fall, Nora again visited the Commerce Department, looking for contacts in China and help with business in Russia.
49:39In January, the big prize.
49:42And as Bill Clinton claimed his second term, Gene and Nora were there.
49:48Accompanied by Ron Brown's son, Michael.
49:52But for many others, the wider scandals about Asian American money made it a sad occasion.
49:59It could have been a crowning achievement for the Asian American community.
50:03But, unfortunately, it wasn't the case.
50:05Okay.
50:06And so far, we haven't seen any major appointments.
50:11In the Asian community.
50:14The investigation is going on.
50:16All our efforts in getting people involved politically in the last six, seven years has somewhat been affected.
50:27I don't want to use the term going down the drain.
50:30But I think our involvement at the national level is a serious setback.
50:37I think it's a serious setback.
50:39Ten days after Bill Clinton won a second term as President, he set off on a trip to Asia.
50:47On the way, he stopped in Hawaii for a round of golf with his old friend, former Governor John Y. Hay.
50:54In Hawaii, some people believe in the Taoist circle, what we mean when we say, what goes around comes around.
51:06Remember Jenny Ohlinger, who placed a curse on anyone associated with the golf course?
51:11Well, it just so happened that the president had been invited to play golf on that very course.
51:22And it rained.
51:26The weather was not just wet, but ruinously so.
51:31Clinton pressed on.
51:33Aqua golf, one participant called it.
51:36It was such a bust that it seemed as if the site had been cursed.
51:41And one last note.
51:42The Justice Department confirms that FBI agents are once again back in the field, asking questions about Gene and Nora Lum.
51:55Still interested?
52:07Visit Frontline's website at www.pbs.org.
52:12Play the Fixers game of perks, access, and influence.
52:16Enjoy the collection of money scandal cartoons.
52:19Special reports on Asian American political involvement.
52:22And join in our discussion board.
52:25How would you clean up the system?
52:27And more at www.pbs.org.
52:33Next time on Frontline, this is pure plutonium.
52:38It remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.
52:43The thing we fear most about nuclear power, this radiation, can be blocked by a thin sheet of paper.
52:55What are we so afraid of?
52:57Nuclear reaction.
52:58Next time on Frontline.
53:08Many of your letters about our program on the Rwandan genocide conveyed your horror at the scale of it, and the larger question of why we stood by.
53:18Dear Frontline, it makes me ashamed of our country's response to the genocide.
53:23Why was nothing done once we knew that thousands of people were being slaughtered?
53:27If this were happening in France, the whole Western world would respond.
53:31Yet since it's in Africa, nothing is done.
53:33How shameful.
53:34Marcy Harris.
53:35Dear Frontline.
53:36Claiming ignorance of the magnitude of human suffering is unacceptable.
53:39If journalists are both willing and capable of entering into scenes of mass murder, surely well-armed soldiers of the UN or US could.
53:47John Yacoputi.
53:48Dear Frontline.
53:49What amazes me that we can remain a spectator when close to a million people are massacred.
53:55We write books, make movies about Holocaust and Second World War, and then give them all the awards.
54:01But when it comes to real genocide going on right now, we as a nation turn our head away as if it never happened.
54:08It is such a shame.
54:10Dear Frontline.
54:11The phrase, just following orders, never seems to go out of style when mass murder is justified.
54:17Never again has become a mockery for a world that has turned a blind eye to what happened in Armenia,
54:23in the Nazi occupation, in China's invasion of Tibet, and lately in Rwanda.
54:28Blanche Wattenberg-Nankin, Windmoor, Pennsylvania.
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