Reply #3: More.....

[kuozzman]

October 29, 1997; Wednesday 05:11 Eastern Time

SECTION: Domestic, non-Washington, general news item

HEADLINE: GOP Aided by Wealthy Conservatives

BYLINE: JIM DRINKARD

BODY:
A wealthy Pennsylvania businessman who gave $1.8 million was among dozens of donors listed in bank records as supporters of conservative nonprofit groups that aired TV ads to help Republican congressional candidates.

The documents show that Robert L. Cone, former chairman of Graco Children's Products and now a management consultant, gave $600,000 in start-up money to Triad Management, a political consulting firm that matches wealthy donors with conservative campaigns, according to two people familiar with the investigation. Triad is headed by Carolyn Malenick, a former fund-raiser for one-time Virginia GOP Senate candidate Oliver North.

Cone also donated $1.2 million to two nonprofit groups associated with Triad: Citizens for the Republic Education Fund and Citizens for Reform. Both spent heavily last year on often hard-hitting television spots attacking Democratic candidates.

Such groups can receive unlimited amounts of contributions and do not have to disclose the names of donors.

The records were turned over to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which is investigating allegations of improper fund raising in the 1996 elections.

Reached at home in Elverson, Pa., Cone declined to be interviewed. ''I'm not confirming or denying anything at the moment,'' he said.

The panel's investigators also believe the family that owns Koch Industries, a Kansas-based oil company, gave heavily to the nonprofit network through a foundation that appears in the bank records. Neither a spokesman nor a Washington lobbyist for the company returned telephone calls Tuesday.

Most of the committee's work, including its televised hearings, has focused on fund-raising abuses by President Clinton's re-election campaign and by the Democratic Party. But minority Democrats on the panel have sought to show that abuses were bipartisan.

The Democrats are pushing to devote hearing time to Republicans' use of nonprofit groups to run millions of dollars worth of issue ads, using donated money that is unregulated, unlimited and unreportable under the laws that govern political contributions. The use of nonprofit conduits allows wealthy individuals to affect elections while concealing their identity, the Democrats contend.

The bank records received by the Senate panel came from Crestar Bank in Richmond in response to a subpoena from the committee. In an apparent mistake, the records included names of donors, even though the panel had previously agreed to allow the names to be deleted before the records were turned over.

Crestar had invited lawyers for Triad to sanitize the records, but they failed to do so, and after six weeks of waiting the bank turned over the records complete with names.

Republicans on the panel are asking that the records be returned and that the names not be made public. Democrats have refused so far to return them.