Capital Gang on Wen Ho Lee

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0009/16/cg.00.html
SHIELDS: Welcome back.

Nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee ended nine months of solitary confinement on espionage charges with a plea bargain. Judge James Parker scolded the prosecution.

Quote, "Government officials caused embarrassment not just for me but also have caused the nation embarrassment. I sincerely apologize for the unfair manner in which you were held," end quote.

The attorney general refused to apologize, but the president did.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JANET RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think Dr. Lee had the opportunity from the beginning to resolve this matter, and he chose not to. And I think he must look to himself.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think that you can justify, in retrospect, keeping a person in jail without bail when you're prepared to make that kind of agreement? So I, too, am quite troubled by it. (END VIDEO CLIP)

SHIELDS: Al, who's right, the president or the attorney general?

HUNT: If the president means what he says, he ought to demand either immediate accountability or the resignation of Janet Reno, Louis Freeh, the FBI director and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

Mark, as "The L.A.Times" said this week, what those three did is they kept this man in solitary confinement for nine months under shackles, denied him bail in order to pressure him to confess to a crime that he didn't commit. That is Constitutionally impermissible, and it is an absolute outrage.

I also think it's quite clearly this was a case of racial profiling. If his was name was Lee H. Winston, he never would have been, you know, picked on like this.

And, Mark, you may -- he illicitly downloaded classified material. So did John Deutsche, the former CIA director. He hasn't been put in shackles yet. This is a shameful episode. Clinton ought to act on what he said.

O'BEIRNE: I totally agree with Al on this one, except I -- well, except look what Bill Clinton's doing here. He acts as if the Justice Department is an independent fourth branch of government. They all work for him.

And, of course, it's the legacy of having an incompetent attorney general. This is not the first time she's in over her head because she was so detached. But look, why didn't Bill Clinton interfere sooner? Well, the explanation because he always felt uneasy about the fact that this man was being held in solitary for nine months. Well Joe Lockhart tells us, well, he didn't want the bad press, You would have been all over him. He didn't mind bad press when he was protecting his own disordered, predatory behavior, but he didn't want to risk bad press to protect the civil rights of this poor man.

SHIELDS: You've been an officer of the court, Ed Rendell -- your reaction?

RENDELL: As a district attorney, obviously the result is very strange. It doesn't in any way justify being held without bail, clearly. But I think -- I don't know if the president had all the facts. I think before I would totally commend this case, I'd want to know what the facts were. If Al's correct, and that was the sole reason he was being held in jail, that is inappropriate conduct. I just don't think we know all the facts.

NOVAK: Oh, Ed, the president was exactly right -- I don't often say that -- when he says...

SHIELDS: I'll say.

NOVAK: ... that if you have a plea bargain for one count out of 59, you shouldn't have had him in solitary confinement for nine months. It doesn't matter what the facts are.

Now I would say this...

RENDELL: But, Al, I can tell you...

NOVAK: ... I think that the president has got a confusion. I think he has already begun his new career as a commentator, because he's kind of acting, well, I don't have anything to do with that. It's not my responsibility. I'm not going to do anything in the future.

But I will say one thing. I've been saying at this table for a long time...

SHIELDS: You have not at this table.

NOVAK: The old table -- that Janet Reno is a disaster.

O'BEIRNE: Correct.

NOVAK: She was a poor appointment, she is a pathetic old woman. I feel sorry for her because she's ill, but she gets these terrible cases all the way from Waco to this and she says, well, we've acted on the basis of the law and the evidence. She never says anything, and she gets a soft press outs of it. She's a disgrace.

HUNT: And I disagree with you, but on this one you're right. An FBI agent named Robert Messner (ph) lied under oath. Why hasn't he been fired?

SHIELDS: Last word -- Al Hunt. Ed Rendell, thank you for being with us.

THE GANG will be back with the "Outrage of the Week."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SHIELDS: And now for the "Outrage of the Week."

Ronald Reagan was a popular two-term president who many Republicans and most conservatives continue to revere. The National Airport has been renamed for Mr. Reagan, and so, too, has an enormous new federal office building in Washington. Now, on direct contradiction of U.S. law which bars memorials to anyone American until at least 25 years after his or her death, Republicans on a House committee want to build a Republican memorial to join Abraham Lincoln and George Washington on the national Mall. Let's obey the law and wait the required 25 years, for goodness sakes.

Bob Novak.

NOVAK: The teachers in Buffalo, New York, are something else. Not only have they defied state law by going on strike but ignored a judge's back-to-order -- back-to-work order until temporarily complying yesterday. The only people who suffer are the children. But the Buffalo Teachers Federation doesn't care. Like other teachers unions, it is arrogant, entrenched power in the Democratic Party and intimidating the Republicans. They block school reforms, then hit the streets for contract demands. Clearly, decline in public schools has accompanied rising union power by teachers.

SHIELDS: Kate O'Beirne.

O'BEIRNE: It's wrong to profit from messages that poison our culture and teach our children that killing is cool. That was Senator Lieberman in the past, criticizing the music industry, This week, he joined the vice president for a $6 million fund raiser with their friends in the music industry, where his campaign directly profited from the sex and violence Hollywood peddles to our kids.

SHIELDS: Al Hunt.

HUNT: Mark, Senators Mitch McConnell and Judd Gregg tried to sneak through a provision to let federal judges rake in honoraria from any manner of special interests. Incredibly, this had the blessing of Chief Justice Rehnquist. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott may have let the cat out of the bag by declaring that this could pave the way to lift the honoraria ban on senators, too. If judges or senators need more money, do it through the front door of pay increases, not the back door of legalized bribery.

SHIELDS: This is Mark Shields saying good night for THE CAPITAL GANG.