Fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho is the CEO of Hong Kong-based private equity investment and advisory firm Jynwel Capital.
THE U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether $100,000 donated to a Trump-related political fundraising committee originated from a fugitive Malaysian businessman alleged to be at the center of a global financial scandal, according to people familiar with the matter.
The $100,000 donation was made in December 2017 to the Trump Victory committee—which is involved in helping re-elect President Trump in 2020—by Larry Davis, a U.S. citizen who co-owns LNS Capital, a Hawaii-based investment company, people familiar with the investigation say.
Authorities are seeking to determine whether transfers totaling $1.5 million to LNS Capital seven months earlier—originating with the Malaysian businessman,Jho Low—financed Mr. Davis’s donation to Trump Victory, say the people familiar with the matter.
It is a federal offense for foreign individuals or companies to make direct or indirect donations to U.S. politicians or fundraising committees. The rules are designed to stop foreigners from using cash to try to influence U.S. politics, including payments made indirectly through entities or U.S. citizens acting as intermediaries, who also could face charges.
Mr. Low was indicted last year in the U.S. on three counts of conspiring to violate foreign antibribery laws and launder money, and also faces charges in Malaysia, for his alleged role in a scheme to steal billions of dollars from a Malaysian state investment fund called 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB.
Mr. Low denies wrongdoing and is believed to be living in China, people familiar with the matter say.
In an email response to questions, Mr. Low denied any knowledge of Mr. Davis or the donation. In a follow-up email three minutes later, he asked The Wall Street Journal to ignore his first message, saying it was meant for his lawyers.
Mr. Davis didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Trump Victory is a joint financing committee for the 2020 presidential election involving the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and a number of state Republican parties.
After Mr. Davis donated the money to the committee, more than $60,000 of it was given to the RNC and $5,400 was given directly to the campaign to re-elect Mr. Trump, federal records show. The rest was distributed to state Republican parties and related campaigns.
Cassie Smedile, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said in a statement: “Trump Victory does not accept contributions from corporations or foreign nationals in accordance with the law. We vehemently deny any wrongdoing on the part of the RNC or Trump Campaign.”
The Justice Department inquiry into the source of the funds is part of a broad public-integrity investigation connected to Mr. Low’s alleged efforts to persuade the U.S. government to drop its investigations into him and, separately, to help China extradite Guo Wengui, a wealthy critic of Beijing seeking political asylum in New York City, where he lives.
Beijing wants Mr. Guo returned to China to face allegations of corruption. U.S. officials believe Mr. Low has wanted to curry favor with Chinese officials while he continues to live in that country. Mr. Guo denies the allegations.
The Justice Department has sent out multiple subpoenas to people allegedly connected to Mr. Low’s efforts to get the investigation dropped and to extradite Mr. Guo, seeking any connections they had to elected officials or people close to them, the people familiar with the matter said. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment.
The investigation into Mr. Davis’s donations to Trump Victory came out of the Justice Department’s probe of 1MDB, say the people familiar with the matter. The probe is separate from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigations into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, which Russia denies, and another federal probe that is looking at whether foreigners illegally donated to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee.
Mr. Davis wasn’t previously a major political donor, and LNS Capital, a company set up in 2014 and based in a strip mall in Honolulu, has a low profile. Besides the $1.5 million in transfers it received in 2017, little else about the company or any of its businesses could be discovered from public records.
Mr. Davis earlier made a $100,000 donation to Trump Victory in October 2017, but he canceled it and the money was refunded, public donor records show. The two donations appear to be the only ones attempted by Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis’s wife, Nickie Lum Davis, the co-owner of LNS Capital, is described in U.S. court filings by the Justice Department made public in November as a “longtime political fundraiser” who helped Mr. Low in his efforts to persuade the Trump administration to drop its 1MDB investigation and extradite Mr. Guo, the Chinese businessman.
Her parents, Nora and Eugene Lum, pleaded guilty in the 1990s to illegal campaign financing for Democrats during the Clinton era.
The November court documents were unsealed in the case of a former Justice Department employee who pleaded guilty to secretly aiding Mr. Low to move tens of millions of dollars into the U.S. in 2017 to lobby the Trump administration. The employee, George Higginbotham, said Mr. Low’s plan included efforts to get Washington to end 1MDB investigations and extradite Mr. Guo.
According to the November documents, Ms. Davis had gotten to know Mr. Low earlier in 2017. She tapped a business contact, Elliott Broidy, a longtime Republican donor, whose wife, Robin Rosenzweig, owned a law firm that the Justice Department alleges received millions of dollars from a Hong Kong-based shell company controlled by Mr. Low.
That firm then passed on $1.5 million to LNS Capital, the U.S. court documents say.
Chris Clark, a lawyer for Mr. Broidy and Ms. Rosenzweig, previously confirmed they were hired by a friend of Mr. Low “to provide strategic advice as part of a broader team to Mr. Low.” Neither Ms. Davis nor a lawyer representing her in the case responded to requests for comment.
Apart from Mr. Low’s alleged ties to Mr. Broidy and Ms. Davis, the Journal has reported that he hired several lawyers connected to Mr. Trump to advise him in his efforts, including Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor; Marc Kasowitz, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers; and Bobby Burchfield, who advised Mr. Trump on ethics matters.
Representatives for Messrs. Christie, Kasowitz, and Burchfield previously confirmed their work for Mr. Low on his continuing legal cases.
Moreover, Mr. Low met with Erik Prince, the brother of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, for lunch in Hong Kong in 2017 to discuss his case, according to people familiar with the matter.
There is no evidence any of Mr. Low’s efforts bore fruit. The Justice Department indicted him in October on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to pay bribes under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Mr. Guo, the Chinese businessman, remains in New York.
Nora and Eugene Lum and another daughter, Trisha Lum, became star fundraisers in the Democratic Party in the early 1990s, helping to raise money from Asian-Americans.
But in 1997, Nora and Eugene Lum pleaded guilty to using straw donors to finance Democratic congressional election campaigns. The conviction was part of a broader Justice Department investigation into illegal foreign funding of the Democratic Party ahead of President Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996.
The U.S. court documents in the Higginbotham case detail emails between Trisha Lum and Nicki Davis, in which they discuss paying a portion of the money from Mr. Low to their parents, now in their 70s. The purpose of the payments isn’t stated. - WSJ
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