WSJ reveals ties between indicted Chinese casino owner and Trump... and Hillary too

In a strange twist in an already unorthodox election year, documents show that a billionaire Chinese power broker, now facing trial in the U.S. for his role in an alleged United Nations bribery scheme, earlier crossed paths with both major-party presidential nominees.

The Chinese business mogul, Ng Lap Seng, joined Donald Trump and other investors in a 2001 bid for a casino license in Macau—three years after congressional reports detailed Mr. Ng’s alleged role in a campaign-finance scandal linked to President Bill Clinton’s re-election, documents and people familiar with the matter say.

Messrs. Trump and Ng were part of a consortium of billionaires who formally bid for the coveted right to operate casinos in Macau, the papers and people indicate. Macau, a partially autonomous Chinese enclave, has since become the world’s most lucrative gambling hub, far outpacing Las Vegas.

Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, played down the unsuccessful bid. “This was not a deal Mr. Trump was seriously considering,” she said in an emailed statement.

Three years earlier, in 1998, House and Senate committee reports found that Mr. Ng was among those who had illegally funneled foreign money to the Democratic National Committee, though he was never charged in the matter. Citing media reports, lawmakers also identified Mr. Ng as having ties with criminal gangs in Macau, a charge he has categorically denied.

Mr. Ng couldn’t be reached for comment for this article. His lawyer declined to comment.

The House report, citing testimony from a business associate of Mr. Ng, said that despite Mr. Ng’s peasant roots in southern China, he “somehow had been selected to act as a front for municipal and provincial authorities in the People’s Republic of China.”

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While Mr. Ng’s business activities brought him together with Mr. Trump, his political activities put him in touch with the Clintons

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He donated to the Democratic National Committee in conjunction with Charlie Trie, a friend of his and the Clintons, and was invited to exclusive events such as a 1994 presidential gala in Washington, D.C., the House report said. There, Mr. Ng had his photo taken with Mr. Clinton and then-first lady Hillary Clinton, according to the report.

“Intriguingly, Ng, who had no ties to the President except through Trie, also visited the White House 10 times between June 1994 and October 1996,” the Senate report said.

Mr. Ng told investigators in the United Nations case that he had given money to Mr. Trie, according to a transcript of an interview he did with the Federal Bureau of Investigation last year. But the billionaire denied knowing what Mr. Trie, who ended up pleading guilty to campaign-finance violations, had done with his money.

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The Clintons weren’t implicated in the scandal, but administration officials faced criticism from Republican members of Congress that they had been too loose with campaign-finance rules

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Representatives for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign declined to comment. A representative for Mr. Clinton also declined to comment. The former president defended his actions at the time.

A few years after the campaign-finance controversy, Messrs. Ng and Trump, along with other partners, went in on the 2001 Macau bid together, according to documents and people familiar with the matter. The consortium planned to operate initially out of Mr. Ng’s existing Fortuna casino-hotel in downtown Macau and pledged to invest about $1.4 billion in Macau projects if awarded a license, documents show.

The Fortuna, covered in rainbow-colored lights, is known in Macau for being popular with the Chinese military. Although Mr. Ng himself never got a casino license for the property, it continues to operate under another company’s license in a legacy deal.

Mr. Ng has been back in the news recently after last year being charged in Manhattan federal court with bribing a now-deceased U.N. diplomat. He pleaded not guilty and remains under house arrest in New York, secured by a $50 million bond as he awaits a trial scheduled for January.

Macau last year brought in $29 billion in gambling revenue, 4½ times as much as the Las Vegas Strip. Unlike the U.S., where there are casinos in more than 40 states, Macau is the only place in China where casino gambling is legal, and the Chinese territory has tightly controlled the number of licenses in the city, making each one highly valuable.

Following the 2001 bidding process, Macau initially awarded just three licenses. Mr. Trump’s consortium finished in the bottom half of a pack of 18 bidders, based on such factors as experience, pledged investment levels and ability to create jobs, according to the documents.

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Under the terms of the bid, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Holdings would have been the casino operator for a Macau company called Baia da Nossa Senhora Entertainment Company, whose shareholders included several other local billionaires and their associates, documents show

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The documents don’t specify how much each investor would have contributed.

Mr. Trump’s other partners on the proposed deal, shown on corporate records, included Joseph Lau, a billionaire Hong Kong property developer who has since become a fugitive after being convicted in absentia of corruption in Macau in 2014 and sentenced to more than five years in prison.

Mr. Lau made news last year when he set a world record paying more than $48 million for a 12.03 carat blue diamond at an auction in Geneva. He renamed the gem after his young daughter Josephine.

Representatives for Mr. Lau didn’t return requests for comment.

Also part of the planned Trump deal was the late Nina Wang, a Hong Kong billionaire property developer and philanthropist who, when she died in 2007, was Asia’s richest woman. She went by the nickname “Little Sweetie” and was known for wearing pigtails.