http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/08/ED1G14IQH0.DTL
George Koo
Monday, December 8, 2008
Many, including Bill Richardson himself, are probably wondering why anyone would object to him serving in the Obama administration. They surely have forgotten the Wen Ho Lee case and Richardson's role in one of America's most disgraceful cases of miscarriage of justice.
The objection to his nomination as President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of commerce arose from the fact that Richardson, while serving as Clinton's energy secretary, never owned up to his responsibility in the case of the United States vs. Wen Ho Lee. Until he does, he cannot be allowed to forget.
The organized opposition to the appointment originated in the Bay Area and, as of last week, had more than 4,000 signatories to a petition asking Obama to reconsider Richardson's nomination.
In March 1999, as secretary of energy, Richardson fired Wen Ho Lee without cause from his job as an atomic scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and falsely identified him as a spy for China, which led to Lee's arrest and solitary confinement without the benefit of due process.
Even after the FBI apologized for lying under oath, and the presiding judge apologized to Lee for the arrest on behalf of the federal government for judiciary misconduct, Richardson has continued to defend his actions in the case as proper.
He justifies his conduct by pointing out that Lee is a now a convicted felon, conveniently overlooking that 58 of the original 59 counts of the indictment were thrown out by the court.
The final count was a face-saving way out for the government. Federal prosecutors had Lee plead guilty on a count of downloading information to his computer against laboratory regulations in exchange for the nine months of jail time already served. Because no individual can withstand indefinitely the full legal weight of his own government, Lee copped a plea despite the injustice of the circumstances.
Richardson's actions legitimized racial profiling as practiced then, and now, by the law enforcement agencies. To this day, the FBI continues to assert that ethnic Chinese are potential spies for China.
Those of us protesting Richardson's appointment are asking him to disavow racial profiling as an accepted practice. He should do this, and he can do so by simply admitting he made an error in judgment, and in no way condones racial profiling.
The protest has nothing to do with Richardson becoming the highest ranking Latino appointee in the Obama administration. We applaud the appointment of the most talented and able men and women, regardless of ethnicity, to serve our country.
However, so long as the Wen Ho Lee case is a blot on Richardson's record, we challenge the notion that he is among the most qualified to serve.
Perhaps the Obama transition team is unaware of Richardson's baggage. It is our duty to call this matter to its attention.
As the first African American president-elect, Obama has electrified the world. However, if Richardson's confirmation is not preceded by a public apology, the act would only confirm that politics as usual prevail.
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4 comments:
As the lead blogger at America for Richardson, I have to take issue with your assessment of how then-Secretary Richardson handled the Wen Ho Lee case. I know the points I make won't change your mind, but the public deserves to know the truth.
The FBI investigation of Wen Ho Lee began before Richardson became Secretary at DOE. His improper meeting with the Chinese came in the 1980s during a Republican administration. The FBI found that he had: illegally downloaded an enormous amount of nuclear weapons code material, failed lie detector tests, and had improper contacts with the Chinese government that he did not disclose to investigators.
Because of these reasons Wen Ho Lee was deemed a security risk. Bill Richardson fired Wen Ho Lee because the security of our nuclear facilities is paramount and he clearly had violated a number of security regulations.
Prisoners who are accused of spying are often kept in solitary confinement in order to prevent them from continuing to represent a security risk to the U.S. The evidence available at the time supported the determination that Wen Ho Lee was a security risk. When he became aware of the harsh conditions of Wen Ho Lee's incarceration Richardson protested to the Justice Department.
Ken:
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I urge you to read a couple of news articles:
1. By Robert Scheer, How the NY Times Convicted WHL, and
2. By Bob Drogin, How FBI's Flawed Case Against Lee Unraveled
I agree WHL was investigated by the FBI when he made a phone call to a suspect, back in 1996, I believe. But he was cleared by the FBI before his name was leaked to the press as the suspect for providing W-88 nuclear secrets to the Chinese (that in itself is subject to debate as there were mounting evidence that the Chinese themselves came up with miniaturizing the missile heads).
Indeed, WHL was not charged with spying or espionage. Just mishandling data.
Additionally, the government did not know about the downloading until WHL voluntarily gave his permission to the FBI to search his computer, after the NY Times sensational article on March 6, 1999, much of which have been proven wrong.
Also, there were no improper meetings with the Chinese. His trip to Hong Kong was suggested by his superior and WHL filed a full report upon his return. In fact, WHL has reported all of his overseas trips to his superiors.
The data he downloaded was no nuclear secret. It was equivalent to a graduate course and was not classified until Richardson found out WHL had downloaded it. At the time WHL downloaded the data, it was considered "PARD" (protect as restricted data).
Downloading data from secured computers was a common practice at the National Labs as security was rather lax. WHL is the first and only person being charged.
The W-88 information was also not the "crown jewels" of nuclear secrets as the government alleged. It was mailed to 538 addresses via the post office before 1999 when WHL was named. So any number of people could have provided the information to the Chinese, if it were provided to the Chinese. Also, the information the Chinese allegedly had contained two errors, errors that were not made by the Los Alamos National Lab. So it would suggest any leak would not have been made by someone at LANL.
WHL passed two successive lie detector tests. The government lied that he had failed. The DOE polygraher passed WHL, so did the local Albuquerque FBI office. Washington reversed those findings.
When Judge Parker made his apology, he repeatedly said he was misled by the Department of Energy, among other. He also said WHL should never have been detained without bail pending trial.
I sincerely hope you will read the two articles I cited above. Just click on the reporters' names.
You may also want to read this Congressional Record.
FBI did not find that WHL had downloaded nuclear weapons code at the time of his arrest but afterwards, they found that he had downloaded his own work from secured computer to his desk top which was unsecured and therefore against procedure. In court, FBI special agent in charge admitted that he made up some of the evidence including the lie detector results.
At the time when Richardson dismissed WHL, he would have known only that FBI had been investigating him, not that there were any hard evidence. One of hysterical accusations against WHL at the time was that he leaked multi-headed missile technology to China. Later it was determined that he never had access to that part of the database.
The presiding judge apologized to WHL for the way the government treated him. Why can't Richardson admit that he made a mistake and also apologize?
George is indeed correct. See this memo from Jude Wanniski to Bob Novak, http://nobillrichardson.blogspot.com/search/label/Jude%20Wanniski
Here are a few excerpts:
(QUOTE)
The latest Lie by the Designated Liar is that he, Richardson, "fired" Wen Ho Lee because he had been discovered to have committed the "most massive violations of DOE rules for handling classified information" in history. Richardson was talking about Wen Ho Lee having downloaded the so-called "legacy files" from a "secure" computer network at Los Alamos to a less "secure" [but still practically impenetrable desktop computer] in Wen Ho Lee's office in "X" Division at Los Alamos [one of the most "secure" facilities in the whole country]. The problem for Richardson is that he did not know about these "massive violations of Los Alamos Security procedures" at the time he "fired" Wen Ho Lee. Richardson told Mike Wallace that he did, in response to a specific question about what he knew when he fired Wen Ho Lee. But Richardson lied. No one -- except Wen Ho Lee -- knew.
But as I have said, Bob, nobody at DOE/FBI even knew what the "legacy codes" were until after Wen Ho Lee was "fired" on March 8, 1999! They could not possibly have listed that as one element of probable cause presented to Janet Reno two years ago.
(END QUOTE)
And it gets worse:
(QUOTE)
It did not seem to occur to any Committee Member that the FBI really had no "probable cause" at that time, no justification for believing that a crime may have been committed. It follows that the Cox Committee had no "probable cause" to accuse the "unidentified Los Alamos suspect" of any crime either. As to the reports leaked by the Clinton Administration of the "evidence" they found when they searched Wen Ho Lee's computer at his office in a secure area at Los Alamos, that search happened after the Cox Report was "filed" and so could not have been included.
(END QUOTE)
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