No to Bill Richardson

Richardson considers pardon for Billy the Kid

2010-07-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

Sounds like Bill Richardson would do anything to grab attention.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100730/ap_on_re_us/us_billy_the_kid_pardon
By BARRY MASSEY, Associated Press Writer Barry Massey, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 30, 7:43 am ET

SANTA FE, N.M. – The showdown between Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid has fascinated the American public for nearly 130 years with its classic, Old West storyline of the frontier lawman hunting down the notorious gunslinger.

As it turns out, the feud isn't completely over.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is considering granting a posthumous pardon to Billy the Kid, angering descendants of Garrett who call it an insult to recognize such a violent outlaw.

Three of the late lawman's grandchildren sent a letter to Richardson this week that asked him not to pardon the outlaw, saying such an act would represent an "inexcusable defamation" of Garrett.

"If Billy the Kid was living amongst us now, would you issue a pardon for someone who made his living as a thief and, more egregiously, who killed four law enforcement officers and numerous others?" the Garrett family wrote.

The issue has resurfaced because Richardson asked a New Mexico columnist earlier this year to check with historians to measure their support for issuing a pardon. The governor plans to meet with Garrett family members next week to discuss the issue.

Garrett shot Billy the Kid down on July 14, 1881. Garrett tracked him after the outlaw escaped from the Lincoln County jail in a famous gunbattle that left two deputies dead.

The Kid's status as an Old West folk hero grew as countless books, films and songs were written about the gunslinger and his exploits. According to legend, he killed 21 people, one for each year of his life, but the New Mexico Tourism Department puts the total closer to nine.

The pardon dispute is the latest in a long-running fight over whether Garrett shot the real Kid or someone else and then lied about it. Some history buffs claim Billy the Kid didn't die in the shootout with Garrett and landed in Texas, where he went by "Brushy Bill" Roberts and died of a heart attack at age 90 in 1950.

Richardson joined the tussle in 2003 by supporting a plan by then-Lincoln County Sheriff Tom Sullivan to reinvestigate the century-old case.

The governor said he was willing to consider a pardon for the Kid — something the outlaw hoped for but never received from New Mexico territorial Gov. Lew Wallace.

"Governor Richardson has always said that he would consider making good on Governor Wallace's promise to Billy the Kid for a pardon," Richardson spokeswoman Alarie Ray-Garcia said Thursday. "He is aware of the Garrett family's concerns and will be meeting with them next week."

Susan Floyd Garrett of Santa Fe is one of the grandchildren who signed the letter to Richardson. She said the family decided to speak out because a pardon represents a "defamation of character" to their grandfather. She described the Kid as a "gangster."

"Everybody wants to mythologize Billy the Kid," she said.

Garrett and her brother, Jarvis Patrick Garrett, met Thursday with descendants of another key figure in the Kid's story — John Henry Tunstall, a rancher whose murder in 1878 triggered a bloody feud known as the Lincoln County War. Billy the Kid, also known as William Bonney, worked as a ranch hand for Tunstall.

Hilary Tunstall-Behrens of London, a great-nephew of Tunstall, said he's not backing a modern-day pardon for the Kid.

"I wouldn't join the cause," said Tunstall-Behrens, 83. "There is so much strong feelings."

Gale Cooper, an amateur historian who lives near Albuquerque, said a pardon by Richardson would be the "culmination of the hoax that contended Pat Garrett was a nefarious killer and Billy was not buried in his grave."

Cooper has written a book, "MegaHoax," to debunk claims that Garrett killed someone other than the Kid.

After serving as Lincoln County sheriff, Garrett's career soured. He ran unsuccessfully for higher political office, served as a customs collector, but ran into financial problems as a rancher.

He was shot and killed in 1908 in a dispute over his land.

New Mexico Revisits Scandal

2009-10-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125495665328271893.html
Investment Manager Admits Pushing Contracts Aiding 'Politically Connected'
By STEPHANIE SIMON

SANTA FE, N.M. -- Corruption allegations are again swirling around Gov. Bill Richardson's administration, after a longtime investment manager for the state admitted giving into pressure to push financial deals that would enrich political heavyweights here.
Associated Press

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, pictured in September, has denied wrongdoing over the latest investigation into the state's financial dealings.

Saul Meyer, a founding partner of the Dallas-based firm Aldus Equity, made the admission in a plea agreement unsealed this week in New York, where Mr. Meyer pleaded guilty to securities fraud for a kickback scheme involving New York state's pension fund.

Mr. Meyer said he violated his fiduciary duty in New Mexico "on numerous occasions" by urging investments for two state boards that he knew would prove lucrative for unnamed "politically connected individuals."

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, in a statement about the New Mexico investments, said they "were not necessarily in the best economic interest of New Mexico."

The new developments come just five weeks after federal prosecutors in a separate investigation dropped a long-running, pay-to-play probe involving Mr. Richardson, a Democrat. In that investigation, allegations that Mr. Richardson steered state bond business to a major political donor forced him to decline a nomination in January to an Obama administration cabinet post.

In late August, the U.S. attorney for New Mexico issued a scathing letter saying that "pressure from the governor's office" led directly to "corruption" in the bond deal process, but did not charge Mr. Richardson.

The governor has denied any wrongdoing in that case, as well as the probe by state and federal authorities involving Mr. Meyer. Authorities would not comment on their investigation.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice subpoenaed documents related to Mr. Meyer's firm, as well as emails dating back to 2003 that were exchanged with a trustee of one of the state boards, Bruce Malott. Mr. Malott served as Mr. Richardson's campaign treasurer in 2006 and is a close ally. He also kept the books for Mr. Richardson's political action committee and charitable foundation.

In an email message Wednesday, Mr. Malott said he was "very disappointed to read that Saul Meyer recommended investments on any basis other than" their quality, and added that he has "a particularly strong interest in the Justice Department conducting as thorough and prompt an investigation as possible."

Mr. Malott was reappointed to one of the boards in question, the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board, by Mr. Richardson. The governor also appointed the head of the other board under scrutiny, the State Investment Council, and serves on it himself.

Both boards turned to Aldus Equity to advise them on complex investments, each worth tens of millions of dollars. State officials and political appointees would review the recommendations from Aldus, and rarely disagreed, according to a person close to the process.

Reviewing those transactions earlier this year, the boards found that the firms they invested with had paid substantial sums to third-party brokers. Prominent among the brokers: Marc Correra, a wealthy Democratic donor whose father, Anthony Correra, is a notable financial supporter of the governor.

The younger Mr. Correra and his partners received nearly $22 million in fees associated with the various investments. Both boards later said the size of the fees paid to Mr. Correra had not been fully disclosed to them.

"Certainly the depth and breadth of these fees were not disclosed -- the majority of the time we were unaware of them," said Charles Wollman, a spokesman for the State Investment Council.

Mr. Wollman said state officials still did not know whether the money for Mr. Correra's fees came directly out of public funds or were paid for by the state's investment partners. Either way, he said, the disclosure "absolutely" raised concerns.

Gov. Richardson said through his spokesman that he never discussed state investments with Mr. Correra. Mr. Correra's lawyer, Sam Bregman, said his client "has committed absolutely no crime."

Anthony Correra couldn't be reached for comment. His lawyer didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this year, Marc Correra was part of an investment group that won a coveted state license for a racetrack casino. He later dropped out of the project after news reports raised questions about his ties to Mr. Richardson.

Political observers here said Mr. Richardson had appeared to regain a bounce to his step after being cleared in the federal bond-deal probe in late August. He hosted a delegation of North Korean officials, flew to Cuba on a trade mission and told reporters that he was running again at full steam. Political analysts began suggesting that Mr. Richardson might yet join the Obama administration, perhaps as an international envoy.

Now, even members of the governor's party say they sense a new swirl of scandal erupting from Mr. Meyer's admissions.

Political analysts said the potential for a new scandal in Sante Fe could boost Republican chances in the 2010 governor's race. Mr. Richardson is barred by term limits from seeking re-election.
—Ana Campoy contributed to this article.

Write to Stephanie Simon at stephanie.simon@wsj.com

Suit claims NM lost $90 million due to Pay to Play

2009-01-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/14/AR2009011403242.html
By TIM KORTE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 14, 2009; 7:13 PM

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A former investment officer for the state's educational pension program claims New Mexico taxpayers lost more than $90 million in an alleged "pay-to-play" scheme in which political contributions to Gov. Bill Richardson influenced the awarding of investment business.

Frank Foy says in a lawsuit that the Educational Retirement Board made a $40 million investment through Chicago-based Vanderbilt Capital Advisors and Vanderbilt Financial because of pressure from a Richardson appointee who served as chairman of the pension system's governing board. The investment went bust, as did another for $50 million made through Vanderbilt by the state Investment Council that Foy also claims was the result of political influence.

Foy, chief investment officer at the Educational Retirement Board from 1996-2006, claims Vanderbilt executives later contributed at least $15,100 to Gov. Bill Richardson's failed presidential campaign.

The whistleblower lawsuit was filed in July on behalf of the state under a 2007 law but had been sealed until this week. Plaintiff's attorney Victor Marshall said at a news conference Wednesday that damages could total more than $300 million. Defendants include two of the governor's appointees, Vanderbilt and several of its employees, but the governor himself is not named.

"The reason I came forward was not to inflict harm on the state of New Mexico," said Foy, who contends he was forced to retire from state government last year. "My hope is to help the state recover more than $300 million that is owed to taxpayers and teachers."

Gilbert Gallegos, a spokesman for Richardson, said the governor "is confident that the state agencies named in this lawsuit acted properly and in the best interest of New Mexicans.

"This lawsuit, filed by a disgruntled former employee who was accused of serious misconduct during his time as a state employee, makes absurd claims against state agencies," Gallegos said. "The state will vigorously defend those agencies."

The lawsuit adds to the cloud gathering over Richardson because of pay-to-play allegations. Foy is the first high-ranking state employee to go to court and publicly allege Richardson political appointees helped steer state business to the Democratic governor's campaign contributors.

In announcing his decision to withdraw his nomination as U.S. commerce secretary this month, Richardson expressed concern that the investigation was dragging on and could become an unnecessary distraction to President-elect Barack Obama's economic initiatives.

The governor has denied any wrongdoing in the federal case.

The investments at issue in Foy's lawsuit are collateralized debt obligations _ securities backed by pools of mortgages or other assets. CDOs have sharply dropped in value since a credit crisis erupted more than a year ago as investors abandoned all but the safest forms of debt.

The lawsuit characterizes the investments as "liars' loans, lethal leverage and toxic waste."

The $90 million investment was wired to Vanderbilt in August 2006 but was worthless when the funds collapsed four months later, Foy said. Contributions to Richardson's campaign were made by several Vanderbilt employees in February, June and December 2007.

A spokesman for Pioneer Investments, Vanderbilt's parent company, didn't return messages seeking comment.

Foy said he actively opposed the Vanderbilt transactions and was targeted for retaliation by Education Retirement Board members who acted on instructions from Bruce Malott, the board's chairman and a Richardson appointee, and from a defendant identified as "John Doe No. 2," whose identity remains under seal.

The lawsuit said Malott "insisted that the ERB invest in this particular product from this particular vendor."

Malott, who served as treasurer of Richardson's 2006 gubernatorial re-election campaign, called the lawsuit baseless.

"I simply lost faith in Mr. Foy's appropriateness for the position," Malott said.

Foy was the retirement board's chief investment officer for a decade until he says he "was forced to protect himself" and took a demotion to deputy chief in 2006, a position that protected him from firing without cause.

According to the lawsuit, Foy continued to speak out against "pay-to-play" operations until he retired. He was accused of sexual harassment in December 2007, an allegation the lawsuit contends was "contrived" to force Foy into retirement.

Jan Goodwin, executive director of the Educational Retirement Board, said managers concluded the complaint against Foy had merit "and we took appropriate action."

The lawsuit also alleges that another Richardson appointee, State Investment Officer Gary Bland, and others at the State Investment Council "carried out instructions from John Doe #2 and perhaps others to invest state money in exchange for political contributions or other illegal or improper inducements."

"The state investment officer has not participated in any wrongdoing and will vigorously fight the reckless allegations made today," said Charlie Wollman, a spokesman for Bland.

Foy's lawsuit was brought under a state law that allows private citizens to sue on behalf of the government for claims of fraud against taxpayers. Plaintiffs can receive a share of monetary damages that might be awarded.

Such lawsuits are initially sealed after being filed. Damages can be tripled, which is how Foy arrived at the $300 million figure.
__________
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/15/AR2009011503269.html for a follow up story that SEC is investigating the allegation.

Richardson on Hot Seat

2009-01-10T18:36:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/us/11newmexico.html
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. and MICHAEL HAEDERLE
Published: January 10, 2009

SANTA FE, N.M. — Gov. Bill Richardson tried to return to the public routine of being governor last week, cutting ribbons and making announcements, but at every turn reporters peppered him with questions about a federal investigation into whether his aides had steered a consulting contract to a political backer.

The investigation forced Mr. Richardson to forgo a cabinet post in the Obama administration and focused attention on the state’s loose campaign-finance laws. New Mexico is one of a handful of states with no caps on campaign donations and no independent ethics commission to look into conflicts of interest.

“This is the Wild West,” said State Senator Dede Feldman, an Albuquerque Democrat who has pushed a campaign-finance overhaul. “There are few restrictions, there are no limits on campaign contributions.”

Since taking office in 2003, Mr. Richardson has been dogged by accusations that big contributors to his campaign received favors from the state — patronage jobs, infrastructure projects, contracts, approvals from state boards. Those accusations, never proved, have not hurt Mr. Richardson’s popularity.

But now the governor, who has promoted campaign-finance limits in recent years, finds himself on the defensive.

Two of his closest political advisers and campaign aides are under scrutiny by federal prosecutors for their roles in awarding a lucrative contract in 2004 to a bond consulting firm that, around the same time, donated more than $100,000 to Mr. Richardson’s political committees (See this Washington Post article and this Bloomberg story. Also see http://newmexicoindependent.com/14282/feds-looking-at-guv%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98most-senior-and-trusted-aide%E2%80%99 on David Contarino, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/07/AR2009010702354.html and http://articles.latimes.com/2009/01/08/news/na-richardson8 on Michael Stratton).

“In my view, the state and its officials have done nothing wrong,” Mr. Richardson said Wednesday after a ribbon-cutting in Albuquerque. “They behaved with the best of intentions and the best conduct.”

Another big Richardson supporter, Sonny Otero, a contractor, made a hefty profit in 2006 when the state bought 12 acres of vacant land from him in Santa Fe, paying $3.2 million more than his family’s business paid for it two years earlier.

Before the sale could go through, the Legislature had to amend a land-acquisition bill to enable the purchase of the Otero parcel, and Mr. Richardson signed the bill. Two months after the sale, Mr. Otero made a $50,000 donation to Mr. Richardson’s re-election campaign, part of the $86,000 he has given the governor since 2002.

Mr. Otero said that the State Department of General Services first contacted him about the property and that he never spoke to the governor about the sale. Mr. Richardson’s spokesman, Gilbert Gallegos, said, “The governor had no involvement in and no knowledge of the land deal.”

Some critics say the governor’s problems were inevitable in a system with no restrictions on political donations or any official watchdogs. The state’s lawmakers hold part-time, unpaid positions and rarely have the legislative resources, much less the political will, to investigate the executive branch. Many fear the governor, who has the deep pockets to finance opponents and the power to slash projects in the districts of his political enemies, legislators and lobbyists said.

“We have a system that is wholly out of whack and out of sync with what other states have done and what the federal government has done to try to regulate money and politics,” said Matt Brix of the Center for Civic Policy, a good-government group. “That invites all kinds of problematic situations.”

Before being elected governor, Mr. Richardson, 61, served more than 14 years in the House of Representatives, and under President Bill Clinton he was ambassador to the United Nations and the energy secretary.

Mr. Richardson’s political background, especially his Washington ties, has made him easily the most formidable fund-raiser in state history. He amassed $21 million for his two races for governor alone. An additional $4 million has been donated in recent years to two political action committees he controls, and he raised $24 million for his presidential bid last year.

“Governor Richardson brought us a whole new level of fund-raising here and campaigning that never stops,” said State Senator Tim Jennings, a Democrat of Roswell who has been critical of the governor. “We were always a lot more laid-back before that.”

For his part, the governor, who declined to be interviewed, has maintained that campaign donations do not influence his decisions. In at least two cases, he canceled state contracts his political supporters had won after the deals became public. He also gave back a $10,000 contribution from a company that won a contract to provide health care to prisoners.

Yet in an interview on NBC in 2007, Mr. Richardson acknowledged that giving money to a politician gives the donor “a little bit of an edge.”

“I don’t give any extra access to somebody that contributes,” he said. “But I’ll remember that person, and I’ll say: ‘Jeez, that guy helped me. Maybe I can help them.’ ”

Over the last three years, as the state was rocked by corruption scandals, the governor has pushed measures to limit campaign donations and to form an independent ethics commission, though he failed to get them through the Legislature. In 2006, he signed legislation barring bidders from giving money to public officials during the contracting process.

“The governor has been the single champion for changing the laws in New Mexico,” Mr. Gallegos said. “It’s been an uphill battle.”

Still, he has not stopped taking large contributions from individuals and businesses who want something from the state government.

“We have these problems over and over again, and whether something illegal occurred or not, it’s the system that is really corrupt,” said Steven Robert Allen, the director of Common Cause New Mexico.

One of Mr. Richardson’s biggest individual contributors, for instance, is Paul Blanchard, the president of the Downs at Albuquerque, a racetrack and casino on the state fairgrounds. Mr. Blanchard not only served as the finance chairman of Mr. Richardson’s 2006 campaign, but he, his businesses and his wife, Kandace, have donated $300,000 to Mr. Richardson in the last two statewide elections.

Mr. Blanchard, as a racetrack and casino owner, has many dealings with the state. In May, for instance, the State Racing Commission, appointed by Mr. Richardson, approved a controversial request from Mr. Blanchard to move the racetrack off the fairgrounds to the city of Moriarty and expand its casino operation.

Critics of the governor say there are other examples of Mr. Richardson taking positions that benefit his donors. For instance, Mr. Richardson strongly supported building an interchange off Interstate 25 that is wanted by a California developer, Jim Foster, who plans to build a housing development nearby. Mr. Foster gave $75,000 to the governor during his 2006 re-election campaign and donated the use of his personal jet to the governor for campaigning.

“I support governors who support jobs,” Mr. Foster said.

Mr. Gallegos said the governor supported the interchange because it would create jobs, not because of Mr. Foster’s donation.

One of the largest donors to Mr. Richardson has been Forest City Covington, a joint venture that is developing Mesa del Sol, a 12,900-acre tract of state-owned land just south of the Albuquerque airport.

From 2002 to 2007, Mr. Richardson’s two political action committees, his re-election campaign and his presidential campaign received more than $290,000 in cash and in-kind contributions from Forest City Covington and members of the families that control the company.

In that time, the University of New Mexico’s board of regents, controlled by Mr. Richardson’s appointees, and the state land office engineered a complicated three-way deal that made it possible for the developer to buy a 3,000-acre piece of the tract from the university for $9 million and a share of future profits. Overseeing the deal was the regent’s board president, Jamie Koch, a Richardson appointee and former state Democratic Party chairman.

The Legislature, with strong urging from the governor, also changed state law to let the developer divert tax receipts to underwrite bonds that would be used to pay for infrastructure on the site. In April 2007, Mr. Richardson signed off on legislation authorizing the developer to issue up to $500 million in bonds. Mr. Gallegos said Mr. Richardson supported the project because it would create jobs.

Michael Daly, president of Mesa del Sol, said the company donated to Mr. Richardson’s campaigns to support his pro-business policies, not to win particular legislation.

“Our job is to attract jobs to the state,” Mr. Daly said. “We think he does a great job to attract tenants.”

Richardson's Rise and Stall

2009-01-09T19:01:00.000-08:00

http://newmexicoindependent.com/14537/on-bill-richardsons-rise-and-stall
Richardson left the Clinton Administration to earn money. He worked for Kissinger Associates (Henry’s for-profit outfit) and sat on the boards of three oil companies. Also, he was an outside director at Peregrine Systems, a software company that went bankrupt, after which its CEO (a relative of Mrs. Richardson) was charged with securities fraud. Richardson said he was out of the loop.

As Governor, he skirted several scandals involving New Mexico public officials, evaded questions about campaign donations from executives of companies doing business with the state and played nicely with un-appetizing elements of the state Democratic Party.

Despite that and despite a reputation dating back to his congressional days for bullying and arrogance, he got projects off the ground. Still, each achievement seemed calculated to craft an image to exploit in future races –- Richardson, the pro-business liberal.

Thus, the Governor kicked off his reign by cutting income tax rates on the highest brackets. (Cue business applause.) He subsidized trains, movies and space business; environmentalists and intellectuals joined the business boosters and only libertarians grumbled.

He cajoled chambers of commerce into swallowing a modest hike in the minimum wage; thumbs up from business and labor. And while pushing incremental improvements in health coverage, Richardson stonewalled measures the insurance business feared; reformers were disappointed but he’d pleased an industry noted for helping its friends.

This was government tailored neatly to personal ambition.

What to make of him? Here’s a politician so nimble he dances, Astaire-like, right and left, then taps to center stage for his bow — but who never notices (or averts his eyes from) tawdry doings backstage.

I see Bill Richardson as a man of his times.

“Virtue never has been as respectable as money,” Mark Twain once pointed out, but surely the last 25 years have seen the apotheosis of market morality –- i.e., no morality. Oozing into every nook and cranny of American life, it dissolves ethics and justice wherever it seeps.

Permission to digress? Writing about our degraded public life reminds me of former Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, who died last week. In person, he was unassuming and soft-spoken. He thought himself a public servant. In this age of unapologetic materialism, he was quaint, a relic.

A man of our era, Bill Richardson blatantly used public office as a means to an end — his political ascent. I hope he powers out of the stall, but not before rebalancing his priorities, putting New Mexicans’ interests before his.

Richardson's Stumble Erodes Clout at Home

2009-01-08T09:15:00.000-08:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123138046278863199.html
JANUARY 7, 2009, 10:42 P.M. ET
By STEPHANIE SIMON

SANTA FE, N.M. -- Gov. Bill Richardson is returning to work in a weakened political state.

The New Mexico governor's withdrawal as nominee for commerce secretary could embolden his opponents -- not just Republicans, but also conservative Democrats intent on reining in state spending. And his return comes as New Mexico had already lost much of its voice in Washington.

Just a few months ago, New Mexico was riding high, enjoying national stature as a battleground in the presidential race and reaping a windfall in revenue from energy-production taxes. But the state treasury has taken an enormous hit from the collapse of energy prices. This year's $6 billion budget quickly developed a shortfall of nearly $500 million.

Lawmakers had planned to deal with the crisis by working with Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who was set to take over the state's top job as soon as Mr. Richardson was confirmed as commerce secretary. Now, abruptly, Mr. Richardson is back. Sunday he withdrew from his nomination to the cabinet post, citing a federal investigation into whether his administration steered a financial-advisory contract to a corporation that had donated to the governor's political committees. Mr. Richardson says he has done nothing wrong and expects to be cleared in the federal probe of CDR Financial Products.

But even some of the governor's legislative allies say he has lost face and clout, and can expect a bristly welcome.

"We're all surprised -- here he is again," said state Sen. Dede Feldman, a Democrat. "He has had his problems with the state senate in the past, and I don't think that will improve."

Mr. Richardson, who declined requests for an interview, has made his mark on New Mexico by spending money -- to improve roads, for example, and to build Spaceport America, meant to encourage tourist travel to the edge of space. With the legislature's assent, he offered financial incentives to woo businesses and movie productions to the state.

Now, his most urgent task will be cutting spending -- which will inevitably involve paring some of his pet programs, several legislators said. "It's not going to be a fun year for him," said political analyst and blogger Heath Haussamen.

Mr. Richardson has always been an aggressive, call-the-shots governor, and those close to him said they expect him to continue in that vein. But his stumble on the national stage could cost him politically.

"It's the wounded animal syndrome -- predators may sense blood and circle him, nipping at his flanks," said state Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, a Democrat.

More broadly, New Mexico is left without much heft in Washington. The state's six-term senator, Republican Pete Domenici, long a powerhouse on the budget committee, has retired. And all three of its House seats are occupied by freshmen.

Advocates for New Mexico say their struggling state needs as much help as possible from President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus plan -- but they now fear being cut out for lack of clout. "We're all definitely wondering what this means for New Mexico over the next couple years," said Gabriel Sanchez, a political scientist at the University of New Mexico.

The withdrawal of Mr. Richardson, a Mexican-American, also has deeply disappointed many Latinos. Even among a growing group of politically prominent Hispanics, Mr. Richardson stood out for his charisma, ambition and swashbuckling style on an international stage.

"A lot of our community sees their hopes and dreams reflected in what Bill Richardson has been able to do," said Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group. "We hold him out as a role model for our young people."

Two Latinos remain among Mr. Obama's cabinet picks: Sen. Ken Salazar as interior secretary and Rep. Hilda Solis as labor secretary. Other Latinos likely to be influential in national politics over the next few years include New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez; New York Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez; Miami mayor Manuel Diaz; and the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

People close to Mr. Richardson say he hopes to get a second chance to join the Obama administration. The question is whether any national comeback would be dramatic enough to restore Mr. Richardson's political reputation.

Meanwhile, scrutiny of Mr. Richardson's administration and associates intensified Wednesday.

William C. Sisneros, chief executive of the New Mexico Finance Authority, said in an interview that he had received calls from a senior member of the governor's staff, asking him to talk to firms including CDR; a woman who worked for a longtime adviser to the governor also called repeatedly to set up a meeting with CDR.

Neither effort prompted him to hire the firm, which was already doing business with the authority, Mr. Sisneros said. CDR made $1.48 million for its work, he said, which netted the authority $8.2 million.

Write to Stephanie Simon at stephanie.simon@wsj.com

Richardson Bows Out

2009-01-07T09:19:00.000-08:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123129988918059963.html
By JOHN FUND

Warning signs that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson would have trouble in his confirmation hearings to become Barack Obama's Commerce Secretary had been multiplying for weeks. It doesn't surprise seasoned New Mexico political observers that the two-term governor withdrew from his chance to join Mr. Obama's cabinet this week.

Mr. Richardson was caught up in what has become a major grand jury investigation into possible connections between the state's awarding of a lucrative contract and sizeable contributions a California company made to political action committees created by Gov. Richardson. While the governor himself has not been publicly implicated so far, many of his political employees have given testimony to the grand jury.

Aides to President-elect Obama are already blaming Gov. Richardson for the mess, saying that when his staff was asked for information on the grand jury probe "nothing" was forthcoming. But that's exactly the kind of answer a team of vetters for a future president isn't supposed to accept.

The problems with Mr. Richardson should have been evident to anyone with experience in machine-run Chicago. "Corruption is a way of life in New Mexico," says local blogger and novelist S.J. Reidhead, who maintains that the state's Democratic Party has been controlled by a corrupt machine for many decades. Perhaps it takes someone like Mr. Obama's Chicago pals to imagine Mr. Richardson's tainted backyard wasn't worthy of asking blunt questions about.

Another sign Mr. Richardson was in trouble came only a few days after he was appointed Commerce Secretary last month. On December 16, he abruptly ended a news conference by refusing to answer questions about the grand-jury probe of his office. Trip Jennings of the New Mexican Independent reported that Mr. Richardson's "abrupt departure was out of character for a governor who usually lingers at the end of news conferences to shake hands and mingle with individuals in the room. But on Tuesday he never made eye contact with the reporters."

Mr. Richardson's departure leaves Mr. Obama with a political dilemma, as Hispanic groups are already demanding that the Commerce Department vacancy be filled with another prominent Latino. Mr. Obama may feel he has checked off that diversity box with his appointment of California Rep. Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary. But he will face intense political pressure to make sure the Commerce Secretary post is held by an Hispanic too, especially since George W. Bush has had former Kellogg CEO Carlos Gutierrez in the job for the last four years.

CDR Financial Products

2009-01-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123129065062659481.html
By SARAH MCBRIDE and LESLIE EATON

The financial company under federal investigation in the sale of state-issued bonds in New Mexico has a history of making campaign contributions in the states and localities where it has worked in a largely unregulated corner of municipal finance.

Federal authorities are investigating whether CDR Financial Products contributed to two political-action committees belonging to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in exchange for more than $1.5 million in work advising the state's bond operations.

Mr. Richardson has denied any wrongdoing but withdrew his name Sunday from consideration for commerce secretary in the Obama administration, citing the investigation. A CDR spokesman, Allan Ripp, said the firm hasn't engaged in any illegal pay-to-play practices and "has steadfastly cooperated with any government inquiry."

Much of CDR's business involves helping cities and states invest the funds raised by the sale of government bonds slated for such projects as housing and transportation. Because municipal bonds are considered safe and are usually tax-exempt, investors accept lower interest rates. Complex federal regulations are supposed to prevent governments from reaping windfall profits by investing that low-cost money in higher-yielding securities. But for decades, Wall Street has come up with ways to get around those rules or to turn them to its own profit.

CDR has built an extensive business profiting from local bonds, but it hasn't always been smooth sailing. In 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled a civil case against the firm involving three Florida bond issues going back to 1999. The commission contended the firm had a secret deal to collect fees on bond proceeds that had been invested and not yet spent for housing or health care. CDR didn't admit wrongdoing, but agreed to a cease-and-desist order prohibiting it from violating antifraud provisions of the securities laws.

"Some of the regulations are quite confusing, but Mr. Rubin has always tried to abide by the law," said Dick Beckler, a lawyer for David Rubin, CDR's principal.

The Justice Department has investigated the municipal-bond market over the years to determine whether financial firms won jobs in exchange for political donations or other favors. In 1995, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board cracked down on bankers by restricting certain employees of broker-dealers from making political contributions. But such firms as CDR aren't subject to the same restrictions because they don't directly underwrite deals, acting only as unregulated advisers.

Since 1995, Mr. Rubin has donated more than $212,000 to federal election campaigns across the country, according to Federal Election Commission records. He also frequently has given to races in states where his firm did business, including at least $67,500 to campaigns in Pennsylvania and $35,000 to races in California since 2001.

Mr. Rubin's donations were "not to be pay for play, but to be active in the political process," said CDR's Mr. Ripp.

Among the donations Mr. Rubin's company made to Mr. Richardson's political-action committees was a $75,000 contribution in June 2004 to Si Se Puede Boston 04. Mr. Richardson formed the committee in February of that year to "undertake activities in relation to participation of the Latino community in the 2004 Democratic National Convention," according to the group's filings with the Internal Revenue Service.

The donation was by far the largest received by the group, and accounted for close to a quarter of the $331,000 that it raised. (The next-largest donations were for $25,000.) The group spent tens of thousands of dollars on hotels and airfare at the convention, according to IRS filings, but also transferred about $90,000 to the Democratic Governors Association, after Mr. Richardson became its chairman in December 2004; such transfers are permitted under campaign-finance rules.

The U.S. attorney for New Mexico, Gregory J. Fouratt, has declined to comment on the investigation, and a spokesman didn't return phone calls Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors have also begun to probe another CDR deal -- a $96 million bond issue sold in 2002 for the University of New Mexico. A university spokeswoman said it was complying with subpoenas it had received for documents, which show CDR was to receive a $56,000 fee for participating in the deal, and had already gotten $10,000. CDR declined to discuss the investigation.

The 47-year-old Mr. Rubin was born in Mexico and founded his firm at the age of 25, originally calling it Chambers, Dunhill & Rubin, but Mr. Rubin invented the other to names to "show that the firm had some mahogany polish to it," said Mr. Ripp.

In early 2003, Mr. Rubin served as an unpaid adviser to then-newly elected Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, advising him on revenue issues. Between 2001 and 2005, Mr. Rubin donated $40,000 to Mr. Rendell's election committee. CDR's business with the state has included monitoring derivatives and working with its housing agency, said Mr. Ripp.

Mr. Rubin donated $15,000 to Philadelphia Mayor John Street's election campaign from 2000 to 2003, records show. In 2003, Philadelphia hired CDR to advise the city on purchasing derivative contracts to hedge its interest payments.

Shortly before the transaction, Philadelphia Treasurer Corey Kemp attended the Super Bowl using tickets provided by CDR to a Philadelphia bond lawyer. Mr. Kemp in 2005 was found guilty of fraud by a federal court and sentenced to 10 years in prison for steering bond-underwriting business to certain bankers in exchange for gifts and favors. CDR wasn't named in any charges.

According to a federal affidavit in the case, CDR, with the help of the bond lawyer, solicited bond business from Mr. Kemp. The affidavit says CDR promised to provide more tickets to secure future bond deals.

In another situation, the IRS is conducting audits into whether CDR and French bank Société Générale SA fixed the prices of financial products used for proceeds from bonds issued in places such as Albuquerque, N.M. The IRS has said it believes the companies structured fees in a way that violated arbitrage regulations. Société Générale declined to comment; CDR's Mr. Ripp called the issue "a historic, long-tailed matter."

In 2006, CDR's offices were raided by federal agents, who removed documents and hard drives. CDR says the raid was likely in connection with an IRS audit.

But the IRS audits have led to further problems for CDR. Eighteen lawsuits by city and county governments and agencies were filed against CDR last year. Many of the suits cite IRS auditing in their complaints that prices were fixed on their own municipal bonds.

According to a search of federal court records, 11 of the complaints have since been closed, with some dismissed and others transferred to different courts.

Mr. Ripp notes that the municipal-bond markets froze up last year as the credit crisis grew, leading many clients to complain about "perfect storm conditions that had nothing to do with the terms of the deals that CDR worked on." He also says that CDR appears on the suits as one of multiple defendants, "including some of the biggest and best-known financial institutions in the world."
—Rhonda Rundle, Liz Rappaport and Nicholas Casey contributed to this article.

Write to Sarah McBride at sarah.mcbride@wsj.com and Leslie Eaton at leslie.eaton@wsj.com

Richardson, Obama Teams Trade Blame

2009-01-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503047.html
By Carol D. Leonnig and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, January 6, 2009; Page A01

Weeks before President-elect Barack Obama chose New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to head the Commerce Department, a small group of volunteers with ethics, tax and investigative expertise -- most of them lawyers -- scoured his background looking for embarrassing facts or political problems.

But the team underestimated a potential time bomb -- a grand jury investigation that had been focusing on Richardson's gubernatorial office. The investigation had been widely reported, but Richardson seemed convinced that the probe, which involved a campaign donor, was not likely to thwart his Senate confirmation.

Yesterday, however, Richardson abruptly withdrew from consideration. In the preceding weeks, the extent to which he had underestimated the seriousness of the FBI investigation became obvious both to Obama's vetting team and to Richardson's own staff.

Sources within the transition and the Justice Department said that Richardson had played down the importance of the probe and did not reveal that his office and staff could be at risk. The seriousness of the matter became apparent after the FBI began its own background check on Dec. 2. But Richardson's longtime aides defended his disclosures, noting that subjects under examination by a grand jury are rarely aware of its secret deliberations.

"This was out there, and he told them," said a senior Richardson aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. "I feel that they just missed the boat on it. The FBI or the campaign or something. I don't think it's fair that this is being portrayed as him holding anything back."

Yesterday, Richardson hired a prominent white-collar lawyer to represent him in the investigation, which centers on a California financial services firm that won a lucrative contract from the New Mexico Finance Authority after donating to political committees linked to the governor.

In a brief news conference yesterday in Santa Fe, the governor declined to comment on the ongoing probe.

"As you might expect, I'm disappointed in the turn of events," Richardson said. "There were a lot of ways in which I thought I could help this country in a time of financial crisis. Sometimes your own dreams and plans must take a back seat to what is best for the nation."

A Richardson aide said the governor did "nothing wrong" and noted that New Mexico news outlets had reported on the federal grand jury probe starting in August, when officials at the Finance Authority were first interviewed by the FBI about the agency's selection of CDR Financial and its president, David Rubin, a Richardson donor.

But a source with the Obama transition said Richardson's disclosures to the team were incomplete.

A Justice Department source also said Richardson neglected to mention the ongoing investigation on a background-check questionnaire.

FBI agents assigned to comb his background learned independently that an inquiry was underway in New Mexico, the source said. Staff members in the deputy attorney general's office relayed the existence of a "significant" probe -- but no details of the investigation -- to senior members of the transition team.

Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to comment yesterday on the probe, or on any conversations that may have occurred between the department and the transition team.

Obama's aides also declined to comment yesterday. Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs defended the process, saying: "The totality of our Cabinet picks, it's impressive, and I think our vetters have done a good job."

In New Mexico, the probe of CDR Financial evolved from a larger, nationwide investigation into allegations that investment firms were giving bribes and gifts to local officials to win lucrative work advising local governments on bonds.

The FBI became interested in the New Mexico finance agency, legal sources said, because CDR and its founder had donated $100,000 to two political action committees headed by the governor. The donations, in 2003 and 2004, were made near the time that the authority awarded two contracts to CDR.

In bidding for the first contract, state records show, CDR was not ranked as the most qualified firm to do the work. But the staff for the authority recommended splitting the work and awarding CDR a portion of it. The authority's executive director at the time of that recommendation was David Harris, the governor's former deputy chief of staff, who had gotten the job with Richardson's help.

Steve Flance, board chairman of the Finance Authority, said yesterday that he was interviewed by the FBI in August along with other board members, and that his office has provided numerous boxes of transactions to help federal investigators. He said he does not think the probe will find any wrongdoing by the governor or by state officials.

"I realize the FBI may have other information I am not aware of," Flance said. "But I believe in the end that it will be determined there has been no criminal activity by anyone in the state."

The investigation into CDR was not limited to New Mexico. Authorities have investigated the firm's actions and gifts to public officials in Charlotte; Philadelphia; Jefferson County, Ala.; and Florida.

CDR attorney Richard Beckler said the company has not been charged in any of these cases and has worked to cooperate with government investigations. He said the company has also helped local governments make millions of dollars in investments.

"CDR has always abided by the law and complied with these rules," he said. "There's no direct pay-to-play quid pro quo in any of this."

Pendleton James, who led the vetting process for President Ronald Reagan's nominees, called the situation "astounding." "Come on, they just found this out yesterday?" he asked. "If this was some misdemeanor, I could understand, but . . . a grand jury investigation anywhere near a sitting governor?"

Bill Richardson withdraws as Commerce pick

2009-01-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

Here is a blog on the Wall Street Journal, entitled, "Is an Indictment in the Offing for Bill Richardson?"
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/01/05/is-an-indictment-in-the-offing-for-bill-richardson/

“There is no indication that the grand jury has anything or is going anywhere with this,” the source said. However, a new grand jury is expected to be empaneled soon, and “we don’t know what to expect from them,” he added.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-richardson-cabinet5-2009jan05,0,5449942.story
By Mike Dorning
January 5, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- President-elect Barack Obama was dealt a setback to his incoming Cabinet on Sunday when Commerce Secretary-designate and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew from consideration amid a federal investigation into how a political donor from Beverly Hills won a lucrative state contract.

Richardson, a former presidential candidate who was secretary of Energy and U.N. ambassador in the Clinton administration, said in a statement that he was withdrawing because "a pending investigation" would have "forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process." He said the investigation "promises to extend for several weeks or, perhaps, even months."

Obama, en route to Washington for pre-inaugural meetings, said in a statement that he accepted Richardson's withdrawal "with deep regret."

"It is a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he has removed himself as a candidate for the Cabinet in order to avoid any delay in filling this important economic post at this critical time," Obama said.

A federal grand jury in Albuquerque is looking into whether CDR Financial Products in Beverly Hills received a contract with the New Mexico Finance Authority because of pressure from Richardson or other state employees.

The state contract came about a few months before CDR and its president, David Rubin, contributed more than $100,000 to two Richardson political committees, campaign finance records show.

CDR Financial Products acts as an investment middleman by helping government and nonprofit entities broker competitive bids from banks, insurance companies and others. It helped put together a complex bond financing deal for a $1.6-billion highway and transportation construction program for the New Mexico authority. The company collected $1.5 million in fees, state officials confirmed.

The federal probe heated up considerably last month, around the time Obama announced Richardson as his choice for secretary of Commerce, according to sources familiar with the investigation. New subpoenas were issued and testimony was scheduled from officials at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., who worked for the state with CDR, and the director of Richardson's political action committees.

CDR's selection drew FBI interest because the firm was not included on an initial list of the most qualified bidders. The bidding was later reopened for review, and a state committee headed by one of Richardson's former top aides helped select CDR.

The inquiry is part of a national investigation of "pay-to-play" practices in the municipal bond market, in which financial companies make political donations to officeholders in order to be considered for public business.

Richardson said Sunday that he had "acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact." He intends to remain governor of New Mexico.

CDR spokesman Allan Ripp also denied that his company had done anything wrong.

"CDR stands by the work it performed for the New Mexico Finance Authority as well as the propriety of the selection process by which the firm was chosen to serve as the state's swaps and investment advisor in 2004," Ripp said.

James Pfiffner, a public policy professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and author of a book on presidential transitions, said the withdrawal suggested flaws in Obama's screening process.

"It shows that they didn't quite do enough vetting, and something came up that they didn't quite foresee," Pfiffner said.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs defended the incoming administration's screening of its Cabinet choices. "The totality of our picks, it's impressive, and I think our vetters have done a good job," said Gibbs, speaking to reporters traveling with Obama on a flight from Chicago to Washington.

With Richardson's withdrawal, Obama's administration loses its most prominent Latino member, a national figure who endorsed the Illinois senator over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries and campaigned for him in the general election.

The federal investigation into Richardson's relationship with CDR Financial Products has been public knowledge since August, when it was reported by the Albuquerque Journal.

The Associated Press reported in 2004 that a political committee established by Richardson to pay costs for himself and his staff at that year's Democratic National Convention received more than two-thirds of its contributions from companies doing bond business with the state.

The largest donor to the group, with a $75,000 contribution, was CDR Financial Products. Other state contractors gave at least $55,000.

Sensitivity to allegations of "pay-to-play" politics has grown since the arrest last month of Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, accused of trying to use his power to fill Obama's vacant Senate seat to extort money or jobs from interested candidates.

Neither Obama nor his advisors have been implicated in Blagojevich's alleged scheme, but the scandal has been a political distraction.

The reason for the timing of Richardson's withdrawal was unclear. A transition official who declined to be identified said Richardson informed Obama on Friday that he wished to withdraw after the governor concluded that the investigation would last at least another six to eight weeks.

Each of the last three presidents has withdrawn at least one Cabinet nominee amid controversy.

George H.W. Bush's nomination of John Tower as Defense secretary in 1989 ran into trouble amid accusations of Tower's excessive drinking and womanizing. Bill Clinton's nomination of Zoe Baird as attorney general in 1993 was derailed by revelations that she had hired illegal immigrants for household help, as was George W. Bush's nomination of Linda Chavez as Labor secretary.

Contentious hearings on the Tower nomination marred the early days of the elder Bush's presidency, and controversy over Baird was a distraction during Clinton's inauguration. But Chavez withdrew 11 days before the younger Bush took office, and he suffered little political damage.

Pfiffner said Richardson's decision to withdraw well before inauguration would likely limit the political impact. "It's much less damaging to have this happen now than after Jan. 20," he said.

Times staff writer Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

mdorning@tribune.com

Richardson Won’t Pursue Cabinet Post

2009-01-05T19:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/us/politics/05richardson.html
WASHINGTON — Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for commerce secretary, withdrew from consideration for that job on Sunday, saying a pending investigation into whether his administration gave lucrative contracts to a political donor would have “forced an untenable delay” in his confirmation.

The president-elect and the governor, close friends as well as political allies, announced the withdrawal in joint statements. Mr. Richardson, one of the nation’s best-known Latino politicians, promised to stay on as governor and said his administration had “acted properly in all matters.” But he said he had concluded that the inquiry could last weeks or even months, drawing out his confirmation hearings and distracting the new administration as it grappled with the economic crisis.

Mr. Obama said he accepted “with deep regret” Mr. Richardson’s decision to bow out. People familiar with discussions between the two men said that while the president-elect did not press Mr. Richardson to step aside, neither did Mr. Obama try to talk him out of it.

The announcement, just days before the Senate is to begin confirmation hearings for some of Mr. Obama’s cabinet selections, was a setback for the president-elect, who has assembled his cabinet in near-record time. It raises questions about the thoroughness of Mr. Richardson’s vetting, deprives the Obama administration of a prominent Hispanic — Mr. Obama has, however, named two other Latinos, Representative Hilda L. Solis of California and Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, to cabinet posts — and leaves a hole in the new White House economics team at a critical juncture.

Obama officials could not say on Sunday how quickly the president-elect would move to fill the job, or who may be on his short list. Mr. Obama is hoping to persuade Congress to pass an ambitious economic stimulus plan that he can sign quickly after taking office, and he is set to meet with his economic advisers on Monday. The commerce secretary would play an integral role in that process, as Mr. Richardson himself noted on Sunday.

“Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing,” the governor said, “I could not in good conscience ask the president-elect to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done.”

The investigation concerns CDR Financial Products Inc., a Beverly Hills, Calif., company that in 2004 was awarded two consulting contracts worth about $1.4 million to advise the State of New Mexico on a large bond issue for building infrastructure, one of Mr. Richardson’s initiatives. The company’s president, David Rubin, a major Democratic contributor, gave about $100,000 to two political action committees controlled by Mr. Richardson, as well as $10,000 to his re-election campaign in 2005, according to published reports.

The F.B.I. began examining the contracts last year; in August, the inquiry was reported in the New Mexico news media. But an Obama transition official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president-elect’s team, while aware that one of Mr. Richardson’s donors was being investigated, did not know that the inquiry extended to Mr. Richardson until after Mr. Obama announced the New Mexico governor as his commerce secretary choice in early December.

About two weeks after the announcement, newspapers reported that a federal grand jury was examining accusations that the Richardson administration had awarded the contracts because of the political contributions. Whether the Obama team learned of the grand jury inquiry through news reports, or perhaps from Mr. Richardson himself, was unclear on Sunday. Obama officials would not say.

But Robert Gibbs, the incoming White House press secretary, defended the vetting process. “The totality of our cabinet picks, it’s impressive and I think our vetters have done a good job,” he said.

Sunday’s announcement comes as Mr. Obama was still dealing with the uproar over another inquiry, this one into whether Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois had tried to sell Mr. Obama’s Senate seat. But while the president-elect has distanced himself from the Illinois governor, he praised Mr. Richardson on Sunday as “an outstanding public servant” who would have brought “great insights accumulated through an extraordinary career” to the Obama administration.

“It is a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he has removed himself as a candidate for the cabinet in order to avoid any delay in filling this important economic post at this critical time,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Richardson and Mr. Obama spoke Friday, officials familiar with the conversation said, and Mr. Richardson informed the president-elect that he intended to withdraw his name from consideration. The Obama transition team had grown concerned that Mr. Richardson’s confirmation could be delayed because of the federal investigation, which would have kept Mr. Obama’s full economic team from being in place as the new president tried to jump start the economy.

Associates of Mr. Richardson said the governor was convinced that the investigation would clear him, and that ultimately he would be confirmed. But they said the inquiry was taking longer than he thought, and that he decided to drop out on his own.

Mr. Obama did not ask Mr. Richardson to step aside, associates close to both men said. But when Mr. Richardson offered to withdraw, the officials said, Mr. Obama simply accepted, without trying to persuade Mr. Richardson otherwise.

Mr. Richardson, whose mother is Mexican, has long been a fixture of Democratic politics and has deep experience in public life. He is known for his easy sense of humor — during the 2004 Democratic convention, he distributed jars of salsa with his picture on them — and remains popular in his home state. Prior to becoming governor, he served in Congress and in the Clinton administration as energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations. But after his own bid for the Democratic nomination for president failed last year, he made a public — and by his own account, painful — break with the Clintons to endorse Mr. Obama; in return, some speculated he might be selected for a top-tier cabinet position, like secretary of state.

Instead, Mr. Obama rewarded him with the commerce secretary’s job; at the press conference announcing the appointment, the president-elect dismissed the notion that the post was a “consolation prize,” adding, “I think the notion that somehow commerce secretary is not going to be central to everything we do is fundamentally mistaken.”

Jeff Zeleny and Adam Nagourney contributed reporting.

Richardson's public life imperfect but resilient

2009-01-05T08:56:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090105/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/richardson_profile_5
By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – Mon Jan 5, 5:09 am ET

WASHINGTON – When he ran for president, Bill Richardson touted more than an adventurous style and impressive resume. He was the guy who embraced flaws as a strength, the one who said the American people "don't want blow-dried candidates with perfection."

A federal grand jury investigation into what could be a serious flaw, however, has led New Mexico's governor to a tough decision to leave the national political stage--at least for now.

Richardson on Sunday scrapped his nomination to be Barack Obama's commerce secretary. A federal grand jury is looking into how a California firm that contributed to Richardson's political activities won a lucrative state government contract.

The former U.S. diplomat sounded diplomatic in announcing his decision. He said he has done nothing wrong, but figured a dragged-out confirmation could slow down Obama's work. And so Richardson withdrew, spoke with pride about sticking with his job as governor, and told Obama he's still eager to serve down the line.

"The governor is confident that he will be cleared," said Richardson's spokesman, Gilbert Gallegos.

At 61, Richardson has been described as a blend of East Coast establishment and Western individualism with a dash of Third World acumen. He combines a competitiveness and political savvy with a down-to-earth style that often disarms adversaries, associates say. They are traits that have served him well as a congressman, U.N. ambassador, energy secretary and governor.

"His personality gets him in the door," David Goldwyn, an associate of Richardson's at the United Nations, once said. "From there he's got to deliver the message, he's got to be persuasive, and he's got to secure the objective. That's where the other part of his personality comes in — his relentlessness."

As a seven-term congressman, Richardson showed a knack for freelance diplomacy, rushing off to such places as North Korea, Sudan, Cuba and Iraq on unofficial diplomatic missions. In 1995, he persuaded Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to release two American aerospace workers who had wandered into Iraq from Kuwait. He helped free three Red Cross workers in Sudan and mediated with North Korea over the downing of two U.S. Army helicopter pilots.

Richardson was disappointed when President Bill Clinton passed him over for secretary of state. But in 1996, Clinton named him U.N. ambassador, and two years later, energy secretary. Almost immediately after going to the Energy Department, Richardson was confronted with an uproar over allegations of Chinese spying — later found to be untrue — and of a rash of security lapses at one of the government's premier nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Members of Congress criticized his handling of the matter, though many of the problems predated his arrival at the department.

In 2002, Richardson easily won election as governor of New Mexico, then re-election in 2006.

He continued to maintain a high national profile as chairman of the Democratic National Governors Association and by raising money for congressional candidates in the 2006 elections.

An early contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Richardson ended his long-shot bid a year ago after finishing poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire.

His endorsement of Obama stunned Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. His bilingual, bicultural Hispanic background enabled him to campaign successfully for Obama among fellow Hispanics. But he also lamented during his own presidential bid, however, that because of his surname, many people didn't think he was Hispanic.

When Obama won, Richardson's name was in the hopper as a possible vice president, then as secretary of state. Neither happened.

But eventually Obama picked him for the commerce job, which includes selling America to the international business community.

It was all cheery that day, just over a month ago, when Obama announced Richardson's nomination at a news conference. When a reporter asked the clean-shaven Richardson what had become of his beard, Obama insisted on answering.

"I thought that whole western rugged look was really working for him. ... We're deeply disappointed with the loss of the beard," Obama joked.

By Sunday, the tone had changed markedly. This time, Obama expressed deep regret, and it was real. Richardson had stepped aside.

Putting aside the setback, Obama said: "It is a measure of his willingness to put the nation first."

___

Associated Press writers Deborah Baker, H. Josef Hebert, Nedra Pickler and Pauline Arrillaga contributed to this story.

Richardson's Lies Have Finally Caught Up to Him

2009-01-04T22:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-dunn/richardsons-lies-have-fin_b_155150.html
Posted January 4, 2009 | 09:05 PM (EST)

Bill Richardson and Barack Obama have always seemed a bit like an odd couple.

When the New Mexico governor stabbed his former patrons Bill and Hillary Clinton in their backs last March by endorsing Obama over Hillary, everyone knew that Richardson was simply making a calculated political wager by throwing his support Obama's way. After serving in the 1990s as both Bill Clinton's Ambassador to the United Nations and later Secretary of Energy, Richardson desperately wanted to be back in the big show.

For his act of betrayal, the "Ragin' Cajun" James Carville dubbed him "Judas Iscariot." Carville has never backed down from the charge.

Today, Richardson's penchant for lying and unsavory associations has finally caught up to him. His withdrawal as Obama's nominee to serve as Commerce Secretary because of an ongoing grand jury investigation into whether he traded New Mexico government contracts for campaign contributions should come as no surprise. Richardson has always been only a step or two ahead of trouble. And there are reports coming out that he wasn't entirely candid with Obama's transition team about the nature of the investigation.

Richardson made national headlines a few years ago when he claimed he had been drafted during his youth by baseball's Kansas City Athletics. He knew better, and Richardson--a mediocre small-college pitcher--finally had to admit he concocted the story. The lie had nothing to do with politics, but it shed a great deal of light on his character.

A more troubling tale took place on the campaign trail last year when Richardson embellished a story about a young American soldier from New Mexico, Lance Cpl. Aaron Austin, who had been killed in Iraq. During his campaign, Richardson often claimed that he had an emotional conversation with Austin's mother, saying she thanked him for the federal death benefits she had received and even showed him the government check.

Only one problem. Mrs. Austin said she never had the conversation with Richardson. It was yet another of his self-serving embellishments.

Richardson has also been caught fudging facts about illegal immigration. He lied about opposing Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. He's been caught distorting facts about health insurance. Moreover, as Secretary of Energy, he was chastised by members of both parties for the role he played in falsely charging Wen Ho Lee in the nuclear espionage scandal at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Chinese American activists in California had previously organized against his nomination.

Richardson also played a central role in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, during which time he offered Lewinsky a job at the U.N. in order to get her out of the White House. Evidence suggests that he knew far more about her relationship with Clinton than he let on at the time.

Just this past year, Mother Jones reported on Richardson's unsavory ties to big oil and his peripheral participation in the Peregrine Systems scandal, in which the San Diego company, on whose outside board Richardson served (his wife was also the sister in-law of Pergegrine's CEO), was "engaged in various acts of financial impropriety, including masking the severity of Peregrine's losses with phony accounting."

And he also worked as a lobbyist for Henry Kissinger's DC-based lobbying firm, Kissinger McLarty Associates.

Back in New Mexico, Richardson maintained a close relationship with well-known painter R.C. Gorman, who was suspected of being a pedophile for more than 40 years. An FBI report released after Gorman's death indicated that the agency had uncovered "credible evidence that Gorman participated in child sexual abuse," though the only provable cases had occurred many years prior to the five-year statute of limitations. Richardson, who was aware of the charges, used Gorman's art work "Mystic Mesa" as recently 2002 in his campaign poster. Richardson's own "inappropriate" behavior around women also dogged him on the campaign trail.

In his current imbroglio, Richardson, who says he did nothing "improper," is being investigated in a pay-to-play scheme involving a Beverly Hills firm, CDR Financial Products Inc., which won two consulting contracts in 2004 worth about $1.4 million to advise New Mexico on a large bond issue.

CDR Financial Products has been investigated twice in recent years by federal agents regarding irregularities in the municipal bonds marketing industry--in which government officials have supposedly received under-the-table payments from companies selling municipal bonds.

Richardson to withdraw as Commerce secretary

2009-01-04T11:07:00.000-08:00

According to this article in CNN:

Two Democratic strategists outside Obama's transition team told CNN that Obama aides pushed the withdrawal because they did not want an ethical distraction in the wake of controversy surrounding embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors allege that Blagojevich, a Democrat, had hoped to barter Obama's Senate seat for either money or influence.

One of the Democratic strategists described Richardson as "stunned." But Democrats who talked with CNN noted the withdrawal is in keeping with the Obama philosophy of resolving issues quickly.

Also see http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/04/richardson.withdrawal/index.html and http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0901/04/cnr.01.html

...remember, Richardson's endorsement of Obama. It was a very big deal for the then junior senator from Illinois. Richardson had of course served in the administration of Bill Clinton as ambassador to the U.N., and both Hillary Clinton and Obama lobbied for his endorsement.

It was a bit of a surprise, considering his ties to the Clintons, that he didn't throw his weight behind her and instead threw it behind the now president-elect.

...And one of these democrats told CNN that Richardson was stunned by this sudden turn of events

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28493919/
New Mexico governor cites pending investigation of business dealings
BREAKING NEWS
NBC News
updated 1 minute ago

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, tapped in December by President-elect Barack Obama to serve as secretary of Commerce, has withdrawn his name for the position, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state.

"Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact," he said Sunday in a report by NBC News' Andrea Mitchell. "But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process."

A federal grand jury is investigating how a California company that contributed to Richardson's political activities won a lucrative New Mexico state contract.

A person familiar with the proceedings has told The Associated Press that the grand jury is looking into possible "pay-to-play" dealings between CDR Financial Products and someone in a position to push the contract through with the state of New Mexico.

Richardson said he plans to continue in his role as governor. "I appreciate the confidence President-elect Obama has shown in me, and value our friendship and working partnership. I told him that I am eager to serve in the future in any way he deems useful. And like all Americans, I pray for his success and the success of our beloved country."

Obama said Sunday he accepted Richardson's decision to withdraw with 'deep regret.'

"Governor Richardson is an outstanding public servant and would have brought to the job of Commerce Secretary and our economic team great insights accumulated through an extraordinary career in federal and state office," Obama said.

Richardson, 61, was United Nations ambassador and energy secretary during the Clinton administration, and he is in his second term as New Mexico's governor. He also served seven terms in the House of Representatives.

If he had been confirmed by the Senate as secretary of Commerce, he would have taken over a sprawling department that oversees the National Weather Service, the Census Bureau, economic development programs and more.

One of the nation's most prominent Hispanic politicians, Richardson had pledged at the time of his nomination — in English and Spanish — to work to renew the economy.

Obama on Sunday gave no indication whom he might name to replace Richardson as the nominee but said "we must move quickly to fill the void left by Governor Richardson's decision."

More articles from
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No Redemption for Bill Richardson

2009-01-01T23:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.asianweek.com/2009/01/01/no-redemption-for-bill-richardson/
Don’t forget him: Wen Ho Lee is 2008’s person of the year

I know, Lee made news back in 1999. But people forget, and they need to remember. That’s especially true now that Lee’s main tormentor, Bill Richardson — the former energy secretary under Clinton and now governor of New Mexico — has been named President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for secretary of commerce.

Richardson is relevant again. And so is Lee. Yet to my surprise, nearly ten years after Lee’s sordid treatment at the hands of Richardson, the media and the U.S. government, Lee’s name barely seems to register with anyone. Not with mainstream society or media. Not with Barack Obama. Not even with the Asian American community as a whole.

For Asian Americans (the majority of whom backed Obama), the Richardson nomination can be seen as the most serious transgression against Asian Americans in some time.

Richardson may be considered in political circles as the “Latinos’ Latino,” but to Asian Americans he remains the perpetrator of one of the worst racial profiling cases in America before 9-11.

Some of you recognize that. A few have gone to wenholee.org to sign an online petition against Richardson’s nomination. But it seems more people are sympathetic to the indignity suffered by American Idol’s William Hung rather than the injustice endured by Wen Ho Lee.

Who He Lee?
Just repeating the facts makes one cringe. Lee was the naturalized citizen from Taiwan who became a prominent American nuclear scientist. He was falsely suspected by the United States of being a spy for China, then subjected to nine months in solitary confinement.

If the consequences were only limited to Lee, I wouldn’t be surprised at how quickly it’s been forgotten. But as Lee’s fate worsened, so did Asian Americans’. In the pre-Sept. 11 world, nothing was considered more dangerous to the American way of life than an Asian American student/professor/high-tech worker with ties to China. The suspicion was entirely based on race, and it was official. It was a de facto APA witch-hunt set off by Richardson’s green light: the xenophobic targeting of Lee as a spy.

To be responsible for all that is no small deed. As the 20th Century came to a close with America becoming more and more diverse, Richardson found a way to use fear of Asians to whip up hysteria against Asian Americans not seen since World War II. For his role, Richardson deserves at least a yellow, if not scarlet, letter.

Instead, Richardson has neither been shunned nor dishonored. After a brief stint as chief executive of New Mexico, he is poised to become a major player in the “cabinet of change.”

Where is Richardson’s accountability? Where is his place in America’s racial hall of shame? It is the same place where you’ll find the respect for Asian Americans by the American political class. Nowhere.

Don’t misunderstand Lee’s silence
While Richardson maintains his prominence, Lee’s fall was hard and permanent. His scientific career lost, Lee now lives in quiet obscurity in Northern California. His daughter Alberta communicated that the family prefers to stay “above the fray.”

But don’t take that as your cue to be silent. It may be your sign to continue a broader fight for justice for Lee and the entire Asian American community.

Consider that in 2000, after all he went through, Lee was released without ever being charged with espionage. His lone crime? A lowly charge of mishandling computer files. For all he went through, Lee got an apology from the presiding federal judge, and even from Bill Clinton. But nothing came from Richardson.

Prior to his release, Lee filed a lawsuit in 1999 alleging that Clinton officials disclosed to the media that he was under investigation. Lee’s claim was neither about race nor discrimination, but simply about privacy. It would have crystallized Richardson’s culpability.

But in 2006, the government and five media organizations paid for Lee’s silence. Lee got an unprecedented $1.6 million settlement from the United States, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, ABC News and the Associated Press. The government gave Lee $895,000 of your tax dollars to drop the suit on the condition that the money would cover legal fees and not personal damages.

The media organizations came up with $750,000, the only money he gained personally. That’s chump change for what Lee went through. But the media willingly paid it to protect its leakers. Hmm, could that have been Richardson?

Chu’s no salve
Obama knew he would catch some heat from Asian Americans on Richardson. So to balance Richardson, there’s Shinseki to Veterans’ Affairs and Steve Chu to Richardson’s old post at the Department of Energy.

Both are qualified non-affirmative action appointees. The choice of Nobel laureate Chu may also be a sign to all APAs in the scientific community that these are different times from when Richardson ran the department. Unfortunately, the appointments do nothing to hold Richardson accountable for his past.

If Richardson’s appointment flies through the Senate unchallenged, it will be a big blow to all justice-loving Americans. But for Asian Americans in particular, it will be the stripping of any moral authority we might have gained from Lee’s martyrdom.

There’s still time to let the president-elect know that this case still matters, and that we haven’t forgotten the time when APAs were singled out and looked upon with suspicion. If Richardson isn’t held accountable and soon, here is my New Year’s prediction for the future: There will be another Wen Ho Lee.

For your New Year greeting and other thoughts, see the blog at amok.asianweek.com. E-mail: emil@amok.com

Petition Against Bill Richardson

2008-12-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

Please sign this petition against President-elect Obama's nomination of Gov. Bill Richardson to be his Secretary of Commerce. Even though the nomination is now official, we want to continue to collect signatures showing our opposition. Thank you.

http://www.petitiononline.com/GovBillR/petition.html

Bill Richardson summarily fired WHL without due process, ruining Lee's career and reputation and is widely believed to be responsible for leaking WHL's name to the press. Congressional Records state that his Energy Department requested solitary confinement and shackling of WHL, something Amnesty International called "unnecessarily punitive and contravene international human rights standards". Judge Parker specifically named the Department of Energy for misleading him in his open court apology to Wen Ho Lee. These three articles clearly show Dr. Lee was innocent and that he was singled out because of his Chinese ethnicity:

▸ Jude Wanniski memo to Bob Novak, Aug 9, 1999, Recapping the China Spy Story
▸ Bob Drogin, Sep 13, 2000, How FBI's Flawed Case Against Lee Unraveled
▸ Robert Scheer, Oct 23, 2000, How the NY Times convicted WHL

Here are more reasons why Gov. Richardson should not be confirmed by the Senate, besides his bungling of the Wen Ho Lee case.

▸ Pay for play investigation (Pay for play)
▸ Sexually harassed his Lt. Gov. (sexual harassment)
▸ Disloyal (Judas, quid pro quo)
▸ Lied to Congress and lied on his resume (lies)
▸ Will never be confirmed by the Senate (Sen. Byrd, confirmation chance)
▸ No ethics (situation ethics, self-promotional hack)
▸ Poor judgment (poor judgment)
▸ Give illegal immigrants amnesty and driver's licenses (immigration)

Mallard Fillmore/Bruce Tinsley

2008-12-23T14:54:00.001-08:00

Cartoon from December 23, 2008. Does Mr. Tinsley think Gov. Richardson traded a promised appointment with then Sen. Obama for his support over Sen. Clinton during the primary? After all, President Clinton appointed Bill Richardson UN ambassador to the United Nation followed by Secretary of Energy.

WHL and Chancellor Tien

2008-12-19T23:11:00.000-08:00

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/28/letters-to-the-editor-wen-ho-lee-and-chancellor-tien-healing-victims-of-trauma/
The Wen Ho Lee case, taking place between 1999 and 2000, did not affect Chancellor Tien’s chance of being appointed secretary of energy by Clinton (“A Nobel Laureate in the White House,” Dec. 19). Instead, it was John Huang and the 1996 campaign finance scandal that torpedoed Tien’s chance. Bill Richardson was appointed secretary of energy in 1998 and he, among other officials, was the one responsible for the prosecution and persecution of Dr. Wen Ho Lee.

L. Ling-Chi Wang
Professor Emeritus, Asian American Studies,
UC Berkeley
San Francisco, Calif.,
Dec. 19

Petition Is Not Racial

2008-12-17T18:10:00.000-08:00

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=b41d133bd12d7bf17afb688747904dda&from=rss
New America Media, News Analysis, Jun Wang, Posted: Dec 17, 2008

Editor’s Note: President-elect Barack Obama’s nomination of Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce sparked a wave of protest in the Chinese American community, because of Richardson’s connection with the Wen Ho Lee case – but Chinese American media denies that their cause has anything to do with anti-Latino sentiment. Jun Wang is an editor with New America Media.

This Monday, President-elect Barack Obama officially nominated Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu to be U.S. Energy Secretary. Chinese American media reports that, to some extent, this nomination makes up for the Wen Ho Lee debacle, when Chinese American scientist Lee was wrongly accused of espionage and imprisoned for nine months.

But Chinese Americans continue to circulate a petition – initiated by Chinese scholars and human rights activists – against the appointment of Bill Richardson as Secretary of Commerce because he was involved in Lee’s persecution, and are outraged over what they call “misleading, racial” coverage by mainstream media about this issue.

On December 2nd, the San Jose Mercury News published a story with the headline "Chinese American Activists Oppose Any Bill Richardson Cabinet Nomination," reporting that the petition is "bound to create political tension between Latinos and Asian Americans."

The article also states: "Chinese Americans say they realize that challenging the nomination of Richardson, 61, the nation's most high-profile Hispanic politician will ruffle the Latino community, many of whose leaders felt he should have been named secretary of state instead of Sen. Hillary Clinton."

The Sing Tao Daily, one of the leading Chinese-language newspapers in the United States, published an editorial on Dec. 3rd calling the San Jose Mercury News' reporting on the petition biased.

For Chinese Americans, the rift created by Lee’s case is still not completely healed, especially when it comes to Richardson. Former President Bill Clinton, Judge James Parker and mainstream newspapers – including the New York Times – have apologized to Lee since the incident. Yet Richardson – the U.S. Secretary of Energy during the Clinton Administration, and seen as responsible for the witch hunt that brought Lee down, has refused to apologize or voice his regrets.

The Sing Tao editorial argues that coverage of Chinese American protests has falsely portrayed this as a racial issue. "The Mercury News called the protests a ‘potential racial conflict,’ which is not only misleading, but also provokes racial conflict itself." 

The San Jose Mercury News did not respond to requests for comment.

Yu-ru Chen, editor-in-chief of the World Journal, another prominent U.S. Chinese-language newspaper, agrees that the petition is a human rights issue, and does not pose a threat to relations between ethnic communities. Chen said to cover the issue from a potential racial conflict angle reveals "hidden motives" aimed at undermining the union among ethnic communities.

The World Journal was the first newspaper to support the petition challenging Richardson's nomination, according to Chen.

The Chinese community acknowledges Richardson's service and contribution to the country, Chen says. However, Chen says, Richardson's response to the Lee case has been inappropriate and unjust.   

"The petition has only been signed by Chinese Americans so far, but what if people in China join?" he asks. "Won't it be an embarrassment to the United States, which has long been a human rights leader in the world?"

Chinese media based in California expect senators to question the nomination based on human rights considerations. As Commerce Secretary, especially in the current global economic crisis, Richardson will have to deal with China, one of the United States' most important partners. With the Chinese community around the world calling on Richardson to apologize for his role in the Lee case, Chen believes that Richardson will have no choice but to address the issue.

In Chinese philosophy, crisis and opportunity are two sides of the same coin. "If [Richardson] positively responds to the Wen Ho Lee case, the current crisis could turn into an opportunity for him," Chen says. “However, if Richardson doesn't handle the issue well, more tough issues will be waiting for him when he takes his position as Commerce Secretary.”

"It's true that Richardson is of Latino descent and those who are protesting (his appointment) are Chinese. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's a racial conflict," Sing Tao Daily editors write in the editorial. "Can't the Chinese community voice their opinion about a national issue other than for racial reasons? Is it necessary to see everything (related to the Chinese community) through a racial lens?"

"Actually Chinese and Latinos have the same standing point," Chen says. "We're all struggling to be treated equally by mainstream society. If the human rights of someone from the Latino community gets violated, we (Chinese) will stand up for him or her."

Covering the petition from a racial conflict perspective is equivalent to breaking apart a united country, Chen says. "How they deal with the petition based on the Wen Ho Lee issue is not only a test of Bill Richardson, but also a test of our character as U.S. citizens."

Related Articles:

Steven Chu—Smart Policy, Not Politics

Push for Diversity in an Obama Administration

China Spies And The Wen Ho Lee Hangover

What We Have (Not) Learned from Wen Ho Lee

The Price of Wen Ho Lee

2008-12-17T01:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/17/the-price-for-wen-ho-lee/
President-elect Obama has designated two APA cabinet members: retired Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs and Cal’s Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu for Energy, which is a makeup for President Clinton getting cold feet over U.C. Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien after the “Chinagate” witch hunt. But Obama’s selection of Bill Richardson for Commerce raises hackles over the New Mexico governor’s unrepentant role in the espionage prosecution of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, who won a $1.6 million civil settlement from the feds and five major national media outlets in 2006. The Richardson selection is symptomatic of the Obama transition team’s vetting process. While sensitive to Latino political influence (note the expected pick of Colorado Senator Ken Salazar for Interior), the team is downplaying APA anger over Richardson’s handling of the Lee case. Petitions are nearing 10,000 in opposition to his appointment at wenholee.org. However, Obama is already committed to Richardson and is unlikely to risk embarrassment by pulling his name or having Congress reject the nomination. Richardson could defuse the issue at his Senate confirmation hearing by publicly apologizing and pledging to elevate APAs into major management positions to avert future Wen Ho Lees…

Grand Jury Investigates Contributions to Richardson

2008-12-16T09:03:00.000-08:00

The FBI has been investigating Gov. Richardson since August, see additional links at
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-richardson17-2008dec17,0,4246219.story
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/us/politics/19richardson.html

Asked whether the probe focused only on CDR's actions in securing or executing the contract, the person with knowledge of the investigation said, "It is more than that."

Also read the comments at http://www.topix.net/forum/source/krqe/TN9DGK1CH1O359SAR and http://www.topix.net/forum/source/santa-fe-new-mexican/T1MEBC8F557QJ9NR4. One of them wrote, "Trust me, as I have some information on this. It was not a No Bid Contract. They issued an RFP for the work. The company wasn't going to be the top pick for the RFP. Then they made a donation to the Gov. 4 days later, they had the contract."

Gov. Richardson ducked a reporter's question from KRQE TV and when the station reported that, the Governor's deputy chief of staff, Gilbert Gallegos, had the nerve to send an email accusing the reporter of misconduct. You can watch the news clip and read the email exchange between Gallegos and the TV station at http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/politics/politics_krqe_santa_fe_gallegos_complaint_200812171333. Michael Herzenberg from KRQE also reported that "One contribution reportedly was made just after CDR got the first deal. The other donation was made four days before it got the second job."

In a KOAT TV article, http://www.koat.com/news/18313553/detail.html, titled, "Donor Probe Could Impact Richardson's Confirmation Process", it says, "Calls to the Obama transition team for a comment on the grand jury probe were not returned."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/15/AR2008121502940.html
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 16, 2008; Page A04

A federal grand jury is investigating whether a financial firm improperly won more than $1.4 million in work for the state of New Mexico shortly after making contributions to political action committees of Gov. Bill Richardson (D).

The probe focuses on whether the governor's office urged a state agency to hire CDR Financial Products. The probe is in a highly active stage at a time when President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Richardson as his nominee for secretary of commerce, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

The grand jury in Albuquerque is expected to hear testimony today from several key witnesses, including officials at Richard's political action committees and bankers at J.P. Morgan who worked with CDR on the state's investments.

The inquiry is part of a long-running nationwide investigation into "pay-to-play" practices in local government bond markets. In other cities, federal investigators are questioning whether financial firms have lavished politicians with money and gifts in exchange for fee-paying work advising municipal and local governments on investments. Authorities indicted the mayor of Birmingham, Ala., this month on charges of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts and loans from a firm that led the city into toxic investments and massive bankruptcy.

In the New Mexico case, the FBI and federal prosecutors are investigating how CDR, based in Beverly Hills, Calif., won lucrative fees from the New Mexico Finance Authority in 2004 soon after donating $100,000 to two Richardson organizations.

From 2003 to 2004, CDR Financial gave $75,000 to Sí Se Puede, which paid for expenses at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. CDR's president and founder, David Rubin, also gave $25,000 to Moving America Forward, which funded Richardson's efforts to register Hispanic and American Indian voters.

Rubin was generous to Obama's campaign as well, giving $29,000 to help elect the senator to the White House. Yesterday, the Obama transition office declined to comment on the development.

Gilbert Gallegos, a spokesman for Richardson, said the governor was "aware of questions surrounding some financial transactions at the New Mexico Finance Authority" and expected state officials to cooperate fully. Gallegos declined further comment.

The U.S. attorney's office in New Mexico also declined to comment on the investigation, which began in the summer. Several Finance Authority board members have publicly confirmed being interviewed by the FBI. Paul Kennedy, an attorney for Richardson's former chief of staff, David Harris, confirmed that his client had been interviewed by the FBI in the summer but declined to comment further.

CDR's attorney, Richard Beckler, declined to answer questions about the probe's focus.

"CDR has always tried to abide by these byzantine campaign finance regulations and is cooperating fully with this investigation," Beckler said in a telephone interview yesterday.

CDR made $1.48 million advising the authority on interest-rate swaps and refinancing of funds related to $1.6 billion in transportation bonds issued by the agency, state officials confirmed. Interest-rate swaps are financial contracts based on the value of commodities, loans or other assets, and debtors sometimes use them to lower borrowing costs. But many swaps have recently proven unwise as the assets upon which they were based plummeted in value.

The state hired CDR after requesting proposals for a bond adviser on Dec. 30, 2003. Sources familiar with the investigation said CDR initially did not make the list of the top three bidders. But the authority committee considering the bids redid the selection process and split some work, eventually hiring CDR for a part.

Committee Chairman Rick Homans was Richardson's economic development secretary at the time. He is now Richardson's taxation and revenue secretary and has declined to comment.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

WHL case will forever haunt Richardson

2008-12-14T22:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/14/letters-to-the-editor-richardson-and-wen-ho-lee-michael-wong-responds-oppression-nothing-new/#more-9972
Richardson and Wen Ho Lee
The Wen Ho Lee case will forever haunt Richardson (Emil Amok, Dec. 5).

China is one of America’s biggest trading partners and creditors. Richardson, if confirmed, would have a very difficult time dealing with the Chinese, as they all remember the inhumane, cruel and unusual treatment Dr. Lee received while incarcerated. The Obama administration needs to reassess this nomination.

Guy M. Wong
Sacramento, Calif., Dec. 6

To me the whole issue is not about race but about the person who did not have courage to apologize for his mistake (“Commerce Secretary Appointment Draws Ire From Asian Americans,” Nov. 28). What happened to Dr. Lee has also happened to people of other races: whites, Hispanics, blacks. My concern about Richardson is that he misses very important traits of a leader. Have courage to apologize when you made a mistake.

Anand Shaw
Sunnyvale, Calif., Dec. 9]

Robert Vrooman's Statement

2008-12-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

Governor Bill Richardson is a poor choice for Secretary of Commerce or, for that matter, any position in the Obama Administration. President-elect Obama has stated many times that he wants people in his administration who are willing to tell him things that he does not want to hear. This is not the way Governor Richardson operates. I have personal experience with Bill Richardson when he was Secretary of Energy. I opposed his decision to railroad Dr. Wen Ho Lee on bogus espionage charges. Secretary Richardson was not willing to listen to minority opinions on Dr. Lee, and he punished me and others who defended Dr. Lee. We were proven correct when the government settled with Lee for $1.6 million.

The Chinese-American community has correctly claimed that Dr. Lee was identified as an espionage suspect because of his race. I know more about this subject than any other person in the US and agree with this assessment. This is not, however, Bill Richardson’s real problem. Secretary Richardson made three mistakes that raise serious questions about his judgment and character. First, because of political pressure, he refused to listen to minority opinions on Lee. Secondly, even after it was abundantly clear that Lee was not guilty, Secretary Richardson supported pursuing the prosecution. Finally, Secretary Richardson has never apologized to the people that he punished for “not aggressively pursuing Wen Ho Lee.”

Selecting Governor Richardson to serve in the Obama Administration is not “change we can believe in.”
______
Dr. Robert Vrooman was the counterintelligence director at Los Alamos National Laboratory who fiercely objected WHL's arrest. Vrooman himself was reprimanded by Bill Richardson for continuing to oppose the charges and actions against WHL. He supported the campaign to free WHL through many speeches and the media.

See Vrooman's declaration at http://nobillrichardson.blogspot.com/2008/12/investigation-and-treatment-of-whl.html. His declaration stated he believes "the failure to look at the rest of the population is because Lee is ethnic Chinese."

Poll on Richardson

2008-12-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

Please click on the link below and vote on this Richardson poll
http://news.aol.com/main/obama-presidency/article/richardson-to-be-commerce-secretary/257746

Remember Richardson's sorry role in Wen Ho Lee case

2008-12-08T11:41:00.000-08:00

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.

Richardson's 2nd Least Likely to be Confirmed

2008-12-05T16:51:00.000-08:00

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/12/the_friday_line_ranking_the_ca.html
The Friday Line: Ranking the Cabinet Confirmation Prospects

With President-elect Barack Obama having filled roughly half of his 15 Cabinet appointments by the end of this week, we thought now would be a good time to take a closer look at the confirmation prospects for each of the seven Cabinet members already chosen.

In truth, most of the soon-to-be president's picks are likely to be approved by the Senate barring some sort of glaring problem (see Baird, Zoe) with their backgrounds. Historically the pattern has been that the Senate generally defers to the president on his picks for the Cabinet but, according to the Post's indispensable Al Kamen, there always seems to be one person -- Linda Chavez, Baird, John Tower -- who doesn't make it through the confirmation process.

Who is this Administration's Tower/Baird/Chavez? We won't hazard a guess and, remember, that with eight Cabinet officials still not named, the nominee most likely to go down in flames may not even be known yet.

Below you'll find our rankings of the squirm factor for the seven men and women Obama has selected to fill Cabinet jobs in his Administration. The number one ranked person is the one likely to squirm the most under questioning from the Senate. To be clear, all seven of these people seem likely to be confirmed today but some of them will cruise to confirmation while others will stumble to it.

As always, the Line is meant to spark conversation so use the comments section to agree or disagree with our picks or rankings.

7. Robert Gates (Defense): Gates is already the Secretary of Defense. So, he doesn't need to be confirmed by the Senate. Done and done.

6. Tim Geithner (Treasury): Geithner's credentials as head of the New York Fed are impeccable, and, given the current economic strife gripping the country, it's hard to imagine any senator risking his or her political life by delaying this confirmation in any way, shape or form.

5. Janet Napolitano (Homeland Security): The strong support of Sen. John McCain for his home state governor's nomination to the post would seem to clear the decks for Napolitano. Party operatives who know her also speak highly of her political acumen and smarts so don't expect any flubs here. (Napolitano would almost assuredly welcome a lower profile given the hubbub over comments made about her this week by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell.)

4 (tie). Tom Daschle (Health and Human Services)/Hillary Rodham Clinton (State): Both Daschle and Clinton have their enemies in the Senate but the world's greatest deliberative body generally protects its own -- Tower being a high-profile exception -- and it's hard to imagine either nominee getting too bad a grilling from their colleagues.

2. Bill Richardson (Commerce): Working in the New Mexico governor's favor is that he spent nearly two decades in Congress -- building relationships that should help him during confirmation. Richardson's role in the Wen Ho Lee case during his tenure as Energy Secretary in the Clinton Administration is already being mentioned as an issue and almost assuredly will come up during confirmation hearings.

1. Eric Holder (Justice): Holder, who led Obama's vice presidential search earlier this year, seems to be the one nominee thus far about whom Republicans are publicly raising questions. The central issue for Holder is the pardon by President Bill Clinton of financier Marc Rich whose ex-wife was a major donor to the Clintons and the Democratic Party. During the Rich pardon, Holder was serving as deputy attorney general and played enough of a role for the Post's own Richard Cohen to insist in a recent column that Holder should be disqualified for the AG post.

By Chris Cillizza | December 5, 2008; 5:45 AM ET

Best of China Blog

2008-12-04T18:03:00.000-08:00

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/12/03/best-of-the-china-blogs-december-4/

–Chinese-American activists are gearing up to protest Obama’s nomination of Bill Richardson for commerce secretary, calling into question his role in the handling of the Wen Ho Lee case. In 1999, Lee was wrongly accused of spying for China during Richardson’s tenure as energy secretary. [Huffington Post]

Sen Byrd on Richardson

2008-12-04T16:58:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/us/politics/04richardson.html
His tenure at the Energy Department was marred by reports of nuclear security lapses at Los Alamos National Laboratory. At one contentious hearing, Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, told him that he would never again “receive the support of the Senate of the United States for any office to which you might be appointed.”

Lest We Forget

2008-12-04T14:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/04/a-slap-in-our-face-we-can%E2%80%99t-forget-what-richardson-did-to-wen-ho-lee/

A Slap in Our Face: We can’t forget what Richardson did to Wen Ho Lee

December 4, 2008

Wen Ho Lee is as close as it gets in contemporary Asian Pacific American history to a mythic victim of racism in our nation.

Unlike a symbol of injustice like a Rosa Parks, Lee was no activist and did not seek to challenge society. He was merely an ordinary Asian American scientist doing his life’s work. And solely because of his race was he wrongly suspected of being the most heinous kind of criminal to democracy — a spy.

For his ordeal, Lee rarely receives the respect he deserves and now lives in quiet obscurity after being stripped of his livelihood as a nuclear scientist. To add insult to injury, some still don’t think Lee is innocent.

Meanwhile, Bill Richardson, secretary of energy in the late 1990s and the man who fingered Lee and presided over his public flogging, remains in the limelight and is now being honored as President-elect Obama’s new secretary of commerce.

That may be the ultimate injustice to Wen Ho Lee.

Simply for his lead role in the Lee case, Richardson should have a karma deficit so huge that he should be happy to remain ensconced as the popular governor of New Mexico, far from the national stage.

But politics and ambition being what they are, Richardson has apparently rehabilitated himself to glory in the last eight years. His recent unsuccessful run for president seemed to be waged on the basis that someone who was Latino had to do it. Yet it’s likely he never saw himself with a real shot to win, and instead used the campaign to position himself to fail upwards.

Sure enough, at this year’s Democratic National Convention, the also-ran spoke on that last memorable night at Invesco Field and achieved what his failed presidential run could not — a real shot at national prominence and a place in Obama’s inner circle. I mean, there’s got to be a Latino in there somewhere, right?

Too bad it’s someone responsible for what is arguably the most prominent case of racism and xenophobia against Asian Americans since the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Richardson, the charming politician, would love for us all to forget Wen Ho Lee. But we must insist that APAs and all Americans go back to the memory vault and re-experience the pain of that episode, which caused a ripple effect from the white towers of academia to the dim sum houses of Chinatown and everywhere in between where Asian Americans were.

For a time in our country, every Chinese American was seen as a suspect. Whether student or professor, Asian or Asian American, just enough doubt was cast to impact all working relationships.

Wen Ho Lee’s pain suddenly became all our pain. We were all suspects. Before Sept.11 and the terrorist fear, the profiling standard was not a man with a turban, but a brainy Chinese or Asian American scientist or student with access to some form of technology, top secret or not. It really didn’t matter. All that mattered was your Asian heritage.

Richardson’s disgusting role
These days, the modern memory vault seems to be YouTube (check out this short recap of the Lee saga at: tiny.cc/BGHDZ). It’s a painful reminder of Richardson’s adamant defense of his role in the Lee case. The clip includes Richardson being grilled on 60 Minutes, as well as Lee being interviewed on NBC. There’s a shot of the cell where Lee spent nine months in solitary confinement, waiting for the trial that would exonerate him from espionage charges.

The broadcast clips unfortunately do not represent the overall media coverage, which was as close as it gets to a modern “yellow journalism.” The media and the government were in lockstep, feeding on each other. There were so many leaks to the media from federal sources that it could not have been done without some orchestration from the top of the Department of Energy. The New York Times was so gung-ho about being leaked upon, it lost its sense of ethics.

But even The Times was able to see its error. It ran a massive apology to Lee for its failure to present a fair human portrait of Lee and admitted to an over reliance on a few government sources.

The Times had no choice but to apologize. Even Judge James Parker, the presiding judge in the Lee case, issued an apology to Lee upon his release for how badly government prosecutors had bungled the case.
One man should have had the moral courage to change all of that history: Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. But he didn’t.

Now he hopes we’ve forgotten all about it. It would be quite the norm to forget what happens to Asian Americans; we have constantly been ignored, overlooked. How many Asian Americans do you see mentioned in the Obama transition? So why should we expect anything different now? Because America cannot afford to forget what happened to Lee.

President-elect Obama should not give in to Richardson’s charm or to the large Latino vote he claims. Latino activists have propped Richardson up as the “Latino guy.” But how many people outside a small circle even know Richardson is Latino? Besides, his race is irrelevant; ours isn’t.

A Richardson selection is purely a matter of ambition and political payback, not the public good. Surely there is someone better for the commerce job who doesn’t have a history of trading in xenophobia?

President-elect Obama shouldn’t dismiss concerns of Asian Americans who overwhelming supported his campaign. The choice sends a negative message to APAs everywhere. Richardson represents a regression. He is simply unfit to be part of any “cabinet of change.”

On-line petitions are being circulated at http://www.wenholee.org/ and petitiononline.com/GovBillR/petition.html. For updates and other musings on the Obama transition, David Chiu and more, check out amok.asianweek.com.

A modern-day Simon Cameron

2008-12-04T10:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/12/022228.php

Bill Richardson, president-elect Obama's choice for Secretary of Commerce, has dismissed the idea that the Obama cabinet is a "team of rivals." Richardson is correct to this extent -- he does not rival Obama and never has. "Team of self-promoting hacks" would better fit Richardson's case, but it's not very catchy. If this really is, somehow, Lincoln's Cabinet redeux, then perhaps we can cast Richardson as Simon Cameron. This relatively undistingushed (to my knowledge) Pennsylvania Senator ran for president in 1860, threw his support to Lincoln at the convention, and was rewarded with the job of Secretary of War. He lasted a year.

If my assessment of Richardson seems harsh, consider that, despite being the nation's leading Hispanic politician, Obama had nothing better to offer him than Secetary of Commerce. You can also consult my past posts about Richardson.

The Washington Post notes that Richardson' selection "breaks with tradition" by "putting a longtime public servant in a position that has recently been held by private-sector executives." Stated differently, Obama has put the Commerce Department in the hands of someone who, as far as appears, knows little if anything about business. Richardson entered the political world straight out of college, becoming a staffer for a Massachusetts Congressman. He has never really looked back at the real world.

The Post notes that Richardson has considerable diplomatic experience, which includes face-to-face meetings with Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, and "a host of North Korean officials." What these meetings accomplished is unclear. How they translate into a qualification for Secretary of Commerce is equally unclear, but also largely irrelevant. What matters is that Obama has found a place to park the modern-day Simon Cameron.

Betrayal

2008-12-03T18:34:00.000-08:00

I couldn't say it better. Below is a comment posted by Barbara on a Los Angeles Times blog when Richardson was officially nominated:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/12/03/obama-nominates-richardson-for-cabinet/
December 3rd, 2008 5:16 pm ET

The appointment of Richardson to the Cabinet is absolutely mind-boggling. Richardson has already shown himself to be disloyal as per his deflection from the Clinton camp when something better came along. Bill Clinton made this made and he repaid him with his betrayal. Does Obama think he has the magic lantern? Richardson will betray him just as easily! And to make matters worse, Richardson used his position as former Energy Secretary to further feather his nest by working for the oil companies after leaving the White House. What a dirt bag! Judas.

Bill Clinton says Richardson told the Clintons 5 times that he would not endorse Obama and ABC's Mark Halperin reported that Richardson said Obama could not beat McCain. Yet, when it looked like Obama would beat Hillary, he endorsed Obama.

James Carville, described Richardson as a "Judas" who was cashing in "30 coins of silver" to win favor with Obama. And in a March 25, 2008 NY Times article by Patrick Healy, Carville said "he stood by his comment on Good Friday in which he compared Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico to Judas for his endorsement of Senator Barack Obama." Carville declared, "I was quoted accurately and in context, and I was glad to give the quote, and I was glad I gave it. I'm not apologizing, I'm not resigning, I'm not doing anything."

BBC on Bill Richardson

2008-12-03T13:31:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7763366.stm
James Carville, a close aide and friend to the Clintons, compared Mr Richardson to Judas Iscariot.

At the time, some commentators accused Mr Richardson of making his endorsement in the hope of landing a senior position in any future Obama administration - possibly even the role of Secretary of State, a role that Mrs Clinton is set to occupy.

Richardson's stand on immigration

2008-11-30T13:41:00.000-08:00

http://www.ontheissues.org/Cabinet/Bill_Richardson_Immigration.htm
Allowed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants
Q: In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, do you support driver's licenses for illegal immigrants?

A: My answer is yes, and I did it. Because the Congress and Bush failed miserably to pass comprehensive immigration. My legislature sent me a bill. I signed it. My enforcement people said it's a matter of public safety. What we need is public safety, a reduction in traffic fatalities. When we started with this program, 33% of all New Mexicans were uninsured. Today, it's 11%.
Source: 2007 Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Nevada Nov 15, 2007

Driver's license for illegals helps public safety
Q: As governor, you signed a law making New Mexico one of only eight states in the country that allows illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.

A: Four years ago, the legislature sent a bill to me and, at the request of my law enforcement leaders, I signed it, which allows licenses for undocumented workers. The reason I did this is because there's a failure of an immigration law in the Congress and the president. It's a matter for us in New Mexico of public safety on the roads. At the time that I signed the bill, 33% of drivers were uninsured. Today it's 11% uninsured. This law has helped.

Q: Is there any security provision in the law, anything, that prevents illegals from using these driver's licenses that you give them to get on airplanes, like many of the 9/11 terrorists did?

A: There are valid certificates of identification that they have to provide to the motor vehicles department of New Mexico. I believe it's the right decision for my people. What we need is comprehensive immigration
Source: Fox News Sunday: 2007 "Choosing the President" interviews Nov 11, 2007

Declared state of emergency in NM's four border counties
Because of his Mexican roots and his governorship of a border state, Richardson is in a position to play a particularly important role in the politics of immigration.

In 2007, he first supported Bush's compromise plan, which calls for a fence on the Mexican border & a controversial guest worker program, plus a plan that allows illegal immigrants living here to buy their way to citizenship. Then he reversed himself and took a stand against the fence.

In general, he argued that whatever happens on the border should be aimed at keeping families together and not breaking them apart. But he also seeks to show that he is tough on illegal immigration, highlighting "securing the border" as the first point in his immigration plan and pushing for increase enforcement on the Mexican as well as the US side. In 2005, Richardson declared a state of emergency in New Mexico's four border counties, which released $1.75 million in state funds for overtime pay to local forces to fight illegal immigration.
Source: The Contenders, by Laura Flanders, p.186-187 Nov 11, 2007

We pay for immigrant healthcare; have them pay into system
Q: Will your health-care plan cover illegal aliens?

A: Well, today, we're already paying for undocumented workers when they go into emergency rooms. It's the law. Under my plan, what you would do is everybody that pays into the system would be covered. Now, what we need is comprehensive immigration reform, which the Congress and the president refuse to do, which would set the appropriate standards for health care. On immigration, what we need to do is secure the border, & secondly, those that knowingly hire illegal workers should be punished. Third, there has got to be a stronger relationship with Mexico so that they don't send their poor to our country. And lastly, an earned legalization process where you establish those standards. Like, you don't give them amnesty, you don't give them automatic citizenship, but if they learn English, if they pay back taxes, embrace American values, pass a background check, they can stay and eventually apply for citizenship.
Source: Huffington Post Mash-Up: 2007 Democratic on-line debate Sep 13, 2007

Increase H-1B visas to permit more skilled workers
Q: Would you change visa policy with respect to people who come here to study and might be willing to stay if they had their visas?

A: Yes. That means H-1B visas, that means looking for workers in this country that we need in certain sectors. This mean focusing not just on illegal immigration, but legal immigration. There's a huge backlog of enormously talented people and workers that, because of red tape and bureaucracy, can't get in, especially in the computer sector, especially in health-care areas. Yes, I would. Those H-1B visas, I believe, need to be increased to permit more skilled workers to come into our work force. This enhances our competitiveness.

Q: What have you learned about education as governor?

A: What I've learned is that I am hands-on. I have hands-on experiences that a lot of these other candidates don't. They all have their 10-point plans. I've actually done a lot of good things in education that involves helping a child and making us more competitive.
Source: Huffington Post Mash-Up: 2007 Democratic on-line debate Sep 13, 2007

Border wall is horrendous example of misguided policy
Q: Would you commit to immigration reform during your first year of the presidency?

A: Yes, I would do it my first year. I want everybody to look at the Statue of Liberty. This symbolizes freedom, diversity, and that we're a nation of immigrants. This is what we need to do in immigration my first year.

1. Yes, more border security, technology at the border.
2. A stronger relationship with Mexico and Central America, to create jobs so that flow doesn't come here.
3. Enforce the law. Those that knowingly hire illegal workers should be punished.
4. But what is fundamental is a path to legalization, a path to citizenship for the 12 million that are in this country that just want to make life better for the families.
5. This wall is a horrendous example of Washington misguided policy. Congress only funded half of the wall. And in addition that, if you're going to build a 12-foot wall, you know what's going to happen? A lot of 13-foot ladders. This is a terrible symbol of America.

Source: 2007 Democratic primary debate on Univision in Spanish Sep 9, 2007

Federal raids are ineffective; we dehumanize immigrants
Q: Some 60,000 families have been separated in federal raids. Would you be willing to suspend the raids?

A: Yes, I would, because it shows that a dysfunctional relationship between the Congress and the president caused the breakdown of a potential compromise. Now we have to wait till 2008 and 2009, and these raids are ineffective, they're a symbol of what's wrong with a broken immigration policy. I also object to the fact of dehumanizing immigrants. You know, when the media pictures them crossing the border, swimming across a river, doing something like jumping a fence--why don't they depict the Latinos that today are fighting for America in Iraq and are dying for this country, or the Congressional Medal of Honor winners? And I object to the dehumanizing of people that are part and that want to be part of an American dream.
Source: 2007 Democratic primary debate on Univision in Spanish Sep 9, 2007

Sanctuary cities ok until we have comprehensive policy
Q: Would you allow " sanctuary cities" to ignore the federal law and provide sanctuary to these immigrants?

A: The answer is yes. The problem we have is the lack of a comprehensive immigration policy. This is a federal responsibility. We need to fix the immigration system that is broken. We need to first find ways to increase security at the border with more detection equipment, more border patrol, not this silly wall.
Source: 2007 Democratic primary debate at Dartmouth College Sep 6, 2007

Include same-sex couples in binational marriage sponsorship
Q: Under our current immigration laws, one spouse can sponsor another to become a US resident. Same-sex couples are not covered by this law. What would you do to help binational gay couples torn apart by the current immigration system?

A: I believe that when you have expansion of domestic partnership, of civil unions, it should be to all people, regardless of where you are -- overseas, underseas, anywhere. There's a bill [proposing this] in Congress, which I have already said I would support.
Source: 2007 HRC/LOGO debate on gay issues Aug 9, 2007

Comprehensive reform needed; but McCain-Kennedy bill flawed
Q: Are you happy that the compromise, bipartisan legislation, which Pres. Bush, Sen. Kennedy & Sen. McCain all endorsed, has effectively collapsed?

A: No, I'm not happy, because I wanted them to push comprehensive legislation and fix the main problems. And the main problems were a fence between Mexico and the US, which I think is not sustainable. Secondly, they had an amendment that broke up families; third, a lack of labor protections when it came to the guest worker program. It makes sense to have comprehensive legislation, but they have to fix that main provision, the flaw in the bill that breaks up families. That's not been the standards in our immigration laws in the past.

Q: And if they revise that, would you support this compromise?

A: Yes, I would. If they take care of the not dividing up families, if they get rid of some of those provisions relating to the wall, look at this wall, dividing two countries up.
Source: CNN Late Edition: 2007 presidential series with Wolf Blitzer Jun 10, 2007

McCain-Kennedy bill is not amnesty; it has strong standards
The Republicans have been promoting this policy of fear, that the McCain-Kennedy bill is an amnesty bill. This is not an amnesty bill. In fact, in the provisions in the legislation, what you see is, it's going to take almost 12 years for citizenship, nine years for a green card, almost $9,000 in fines, no criminal record. They've got to learn English. There's some strong standards there.
Source: CNN Late Edition: 2007 presidential series with Wolf Blitzer Jun 10, 2007

A wall on Mexican border is not America
Look at this wall [on the Mexican border], dividing two countries up. Like Ronald Reagan said when he went to Berlin, he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall." That's not America. Let's have more Border Patrol. Let's double the number of Border Patrol, more technology.

But right now, this is one of the most pressing domestic issues because it divides this country. It has 12 million people living under the shadows.
Source: CNN Late Edition: 2007 presidential series with Wolf Blitzer Jun 10, 2007

A wall divides families and doesn't solve the problem
I'm a border governor. Two years ago, I declared a border emergency because of the tremendous flow of drugs and illegal workers coming into my state. I deal with this issue every day. Here's my position: I would not support legislation that divided families. I would not support legislation that builds a wall, a Berlin-type wall between two countries, the way the bill in the Congress exists today. Now, what are the essential components of any good, sensible immigration bill? One, increased border patrols--double the size of border patrols and technology. That makes sense. Don't reduce the National Guard that's there. Secondly, an earned legalization program. Yes, I support that, one that is based on learning English, paying back taxes, passing a background check, getting behind those that are trying to get here legally, obeying laws and bracing American values. And then lastly, finding ways that we penalize employers that knowingly hire illegal workers. That is essential in an immigration bill.
Source: 2007 Dem. debate at Saint Anselm College Jun 3, 2007

The 2007 immigration bill is not an amnesty bill
The 2007 immigration bill is not an amnesty bill because it sets standards that I mentioned--learning English, passing background checks. There's a touchback provision--the head of household has to go back and then apply. I believe that is unworkable. It divides up families. But you don't immediately get an amnesty, you don't immediately get citizenship; it's a process that takes about 13 years. They should have labor protections. We don't want to create a permanent underclass in those workers.
Source: 2007 Dem. debate at Saint Anselm College Jun 3, 2007

Opposes compromise immigration bill: it tears apart families
Q: The newspapers reported last week about the compromise immigration bill that "Richardson praised the bill, [saying] 'This legislation makes a good start towards re-securing our Southern border.'" A few days later we heard, "Richardson said that after reading the immigration bill in detail, he decided to oppose it, saying the measure placed too great a burden on immigrants, tearing apart families that wanted to settle in the US, creating a permanent tier of second-class immigrant workers and financing a border fence. 'This is fundamentally flawed in its current form and I would oppose it.'" How can you be for it and 72 hours later against it?

A: I saw a summary that contained essential elements: 1) Tougher border security. That's good. 2) A legalization program for the 12 million that are here. 3) It also contained penalties for employers that knowingly hired illegal workers. I thought that was all good. The bill is then presented & I read it the next day, and it contained those problems.
Source: Meet the Press: 2007 "Meet the Candidates" series May 27, 2007

Border fence hasn't worked; border patrols & tech have
Q: Has the border wall worked?

A: No, it hasn't worked. This wall is a terrible symbol between two countries that are friends. If we have a 10-foot wall, there'll be 11-foot ladders going over that wall.

Q: Anywhere along the border, the fence hasn't worked?

A: It hasn't worked. What has worked is more border patrols. What has worked is some National Guardsmen. What has worked is some technology. It's made the program better. But we've got to talk to Mexico, our friend, get them to do more. In fact, get them to stop giving maps to illegal workers on the most porous areas. And we also need to raise the legal immigration limits, the backlogs of workers that we need--H1B visas for job competitiveness skills.

Q: In New Mexico, you declared a border emergency, and yet you're against the fence. It seems as if you're on both sides of the issue.

A: I'm a governor. I have to deal with this issue every day.
Source: Meet the Press: 2007 "Meet the Candidates" series May 27, 2007

Driver's licenses & scholarships for illegals; not amnesty
Q: You were for illegal immigrants obtaining driver's licenses, and you were for illegal immigrants' children getting college scholarships.

A: A driver's license helps with traffic safety; they all get insured; they don't leave the scene. On education: yes, if they fulfill the same academic requirements, to be eligible for a scholarship. I believe we have to bring the 12 million undocumented workers out of the shadows, set up a standard where they speak English, if they pass background checks, pay back taxes, obey the laws, embrace American values, give them a chance, a path to citizenship, not amnesty.

Q: That is amnesty.

A: No, it isn't amnesty.

Q: Would you send them back?

A: They have to go back, under the law, to reapply.

Q: But you would want people who came here illegally to be able to stay here with their legally-born children?

A: Yes, over a 12-year period.

Q: Is that rewarding breaking the law?

A: They have to pay a fine for breaking the law.
Source: Meet the Press: 2007 "Meet the Candidates" series May 27, 2007

Legalization plan, not this stupid wall being proposed
Q: One of the most controversial aspects of the plan that Gov. Schwarzenegger just recently unveiled in California is his proposal that illegal immigrants be covered under his plan.

A: We should cover children, as long as [their parents] pay their fair share with everybody else. An essential component of my plan is that we all pay: Employers, employees, the government. But we help each other pay the fair share. The way you deal with immigration, one, yes we have to secure our borders, no question about it. Not with this stupid wall that is being proposed. But you also set up a legalization plan for the 12 million undocumented workers that are in this country. Maybe it's not very popular, but it makes sense based on setting a path to legalization that involves dealing with issues like health care that involves if they learn English, if they pay back taxes, if they pass a background check. They don't get ahead of the line of those that are trying to get here legally.
Source: SEIU Democratic Health Care Forum in Las Vegas Mar 24, 2007

Declared state of emergency on Mexican border
In Aug. 2005, Gov. Richardson declared a state of emergency on the New Mexico-Mexico border to ensure that law enforcement officers received the resources they need. He made $1.75 million in state funds immediately available to assist efforts in policing the border. New Mexico then agreed to allow the National Guard to deploy to the border. New Mexico is still waiting on the Federal government to fulfill their commitment to send 265 Border Patrol agents to the New Mexico-Mexico border.
Source: Campaign website, billrichardson2006.com, "Issues" Nov 7, 2006

Path to legalization if illegals pay taxes & learn English
Gov. Richardson believes we can strengthen our borders and still deal fairly with those who want nothing but the American dream. The only realistic solution is to create a path to legalization for immigrants who are paying taxes, learning English, and contributing to our society. He also believes that the US must engage Mexico and build up its border economy to make a better life possible for Mexicans in Mexico. Also, a plan to crack down on employers who knowingly violate the law is imperative.
Source: Campaign website, billrichardson2006.com, "Issues" Nov 7, 2006

Reduce immigration; no automatic citizenship for kids

* Indicate which principles you support regarding issues relating to immigration. Further limit the number of immigrants allowed into the country.
* Children of illegal immigrants, born in the United States, should not automatically receive US citizenship.

Source: 1996 Congressional National Political Awareness Test Nov 1, 1996

Guarantee human services to illegal immigrants

* Indicate which principles you support regarding issues relating to immigration. Prohibit states from passing laws that deny human services (medical care, education) to illegal immigrants or their children.
* Ease citizenship requirements in order to make it easier for immigrants to become United States citizens.
* Provide extra federal aid to states with higher numbers of immigrants for necessary medical and social services.

Source: 1996 Congressional National Political Awareness Test Nov 1, 1996

Richardson Draws Ire

2008-11-28T17:47:00.000-08:00

http://www.asianweek.com/2008/11/28/commerce-secretary-appointment-draws-ire-from-asian-americans/

Commerce Secretary Appointment Draws Ire From Asian Americans

November 28, 2008

Community looks back at Richardson’s role in Wen Ho Lee Case

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s appointment this week as President-elect Barack Obama’s commerce secretary is being greeted with anger and disappointment by some who remember the former energy secretary’s role in the botched investigation and prosecution of scientist Dr. Wen Ho Lee.

In 1999, Richardson and several other Department of Energy officials publicly accused the Taiwanese-born Lee of stealing classified nuclear-related documents from the Los Alamos Laboratories.

Lee, who had been employed at Los Alamos for 21 years, was indicted and spent 278 days in solitary confinement. Meanwhile, the case became a national story as suspicions formed that Lee was performing espionage for the Chinese government.

In the face of insufficient evidence, Lee pled guilty to a substantially reduced charge and received a public apology from President Bill Clinton for his mistreatment at the hands of the federal government.

The future New Mexico governor came under fire for his role in the case, as allegations surfaced that it was Richardson who leaked damaging classified personal information about Lee in an apparent attempt to smear the 69-year-old doctor in the press. Lee eventually received a multimillion-dollar settlement from the federal government and several media outlets in 2006.

Richardson’s new appointment has drawn fierce criticism from members of the Asian American community, many of whom still blame the New Mexico governor for perpetuating a harmful image of Chinese Americans.

“Richardson inflamed the stereotype that Americans of Chinese descent are easily disloyal citizens of our country,” said Henry Der who was Executive Director of Chinese for Affirmative Action in the 1990s. Der called upon members of the Senate Commerce Committee to investigate Richardson’s conduct as secretary of energy during Richardson’s confirmation hearings.

For critics like Der, Richardson’s refusal to acknowledge his own misconduct during the scandal remains a bitter sticking point.

“[He] needs to… apologize for the grave, calculated mistakes and harm he perpetrated against Lee and our nation’s sense of justice,” Der said.

Guy Wong, a member of a group of Chinese Americans who supported Wen Ho Lee during his imprisonment, went further in his criticism of the former energy secretary.

“Bill Richardson is simply a ruthless opportunist,” said Wong, who circulated a petition urging President-elect Obama to deny Richardson any cabinet position prior to Tuesday’s announcement. Wong criticized Richardson and other government officials for being “willing to lie, not just to Dr. Lee, but also in open court, in order to gain advantage over an innocent and powerless man.”

That Richardson’s appointment comes at a time of unprecedented economic turmoil concerns Asian American business leaders like John Jin Lee, chairman of the Asian Business League of San Francisco.
“Mr. Richardson’s association with the well-documented mishandling of the Wen Ho Lee case at the very least raises the question as to his qualifications,” said Lee.

Shien Biau “S.B.” Woo, former lieutenant governor of Delaware and co-founder of the prominent 80-20 Initiative, an Asian American political organization, had a different view.

“I doubt if we want to burn our political capital opposing the appointment of Richardson,” Woo said, questioning the notion that the Wen Ho Lee case was an important issue to Asian Americans.

In lieu of opposing the appointment and risk angering the Hispanic community, Woo proffered that the Asian American community should work to increase its influence instead of focusing on negatives.

“The politic way of doing things has always been not to be concerned with what others are getting,” said Woo. “We have to be politically astute. Otherwise we’ll never succeed in enlarging our political clout.”

Also Read: A Slap in Our Face: We can’t forget what Richardson did to Wen Ho Lee

His Baggages

2008-11-18T13:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/us/politics/18webrichardson.html

New York Times, 11/18/2008

He has no landmark achievement as a diplomat and has said, in hindsight, that he was wrong on several important issues: the first invasion of Iraq (which he opposed), the second (which he supported), and the North American Free Trade Agreement (which he helped pass). In the late 1990s, he also was secretary of the Department of Energy during the disastrous security breeches at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the widely criticized prosecution of scientist Wen Ho Lee.

Drogin, Vroomer and Clark interview

2008-09-13T13:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/july-dec00/wenholee_9-13.html
A few excerpts below:
BOB DROGIN: Gwen, this has been the incredible shrinking prosecution from the start. As you said, he was originally cited, although never charged as a spy, he was branded the spy of the century. By the time they finally got an indictment nine months later, they had something very different. They accused him of downloading, copying a great deal of classified information. It turned out very soon after that that information was classified at the time, or even now is classified at such a level that it essentially could be sent through the US mails. So that was a big problem. Secondly, of course, the defense was able to find a number of experts who were able to challenge and in some cases ridicule the government claims that this data was as crucial and indeed the crown jewels. And then the government had a tremendous problem when their chief witness, the chief FBI investigator in this case, recanted crucial testimony. So they had a tremendous credibility problem with the witness. And then you had a judge who was openly skeptical of government claims. There were a couple of other issues, but essentially the case began crumbling all around them.

BOB DROGIN: It was stunning. It was a very emotional kind of hearing. And afterwards, it was marked by a great deal of laughter and tears. It was quite a statement that he made. It went on for about 30 minutes and he just repeatedly apologized to Dr. Lee. He repeatedly said how sorry he was that he had been put in jail under what he called demeaning and inhumane conditions. He said he had been misled by the government. He said he had been led astray by the government, and particularly singled out what he called the top leadership at the Justice Department, Attorney General Reno and the Energy Department. And then he also singled out a former U.S. Attorney here who brought the original prosecution. So it was a very powerful denunciation of government prosecutorial tactics.

BOB DROGIN: The only thing we do know is that Wen Ho Lee wasn't the source of that.

ROBERT VROOMAN, Former Chief, Counterintelligence, Los Alamos Laboratory: Well, the original case against Dr. Lee was flawed from the beginning. And yet there was an insistence that the case should be pushed forward even though every FBI agent that I worked with said it was flawed, including Mr. Messemer, who used the term to me that it was intellectually flawed.

GWEN IFILL: And I'm curious if you have a sense about what he did, how damaging is the information that he actually downloaded and copied on to unclassified computers?

ROBERT CLARK: Well, although I don't know the exact details of every file that he put on those tapes, in general, the computer codes that we're talking about, although they are used for simulating nuclear weapons, what happens to a nuclear weapon when you ignite it, the stuff that's in the codes is used for thousands of other things, and the methods that are in there are readily available in open literature, and worked on by people at universities and everywhere. The only thing that's really classified about Robert Clarkthem is that when you compile them into a single code and you tell a foreign power that this is the way we do it, they would be interested in knowing that's the way you do it and then they'd look at it and study it. But they certainly -- I certainly do not believe, let's call a spade a spade, we're talking about China, I certainly do not believe the Chinese would ever take these codes and try to design a weapon with these codes. So, I think, I heard the testimony both ways and I believe it was exaggerated both ways. The codes are useful and valuable, but the fact is the vast majority of this stuff is unclassified by vast, almost all, but several lines.

ROBERT VROOMAN: That's a nice choice that you give me. If I have to take one of the two, I would say that he's a naive bungler. He's not a spy. I have maintained that for many years. And I'm very comfortable with that and today I feel vindicated about that.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Clark, you worked with Mr. Lee in the Los Alamos laboratories. Do you have any sense that the man you worked with, in the laboratory you worked in, would have made him a target because of his ethnic heritage?

ROBERT CLARK: I... I hate to say he was made a target, but clearly, as soon as they found a Chinese-American that had done basically exactly the same things that I had done, I went to China with Wen Ho Lee on one of those trips. I worked on the same codes that Wen Ho Lee worked on. We were good friends. I had access to everything that Wen Ho Lee had access to. But someone obviously felt that he was more likely to be a spy than I was.

ROBERT CLARK: I have to, I have to say that in the real world, justice in the sense of he admitted to a crime, and has been punished, may be true, but the actual crime to which he admitted, I do not believe, is that rare that it deserves a felony on one's record. And if everybody in the country that had ever done something like that had a felony conviction, I would be surprised if anybody in the country who has done something similar to that has a felony conviction for it. So I'm not so sure that this was really justice.

quid pro quo

2008-04-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that Gov. Richardson wants to become Secretary of State. This GQ Magazine interview shows the reason why Gov. Richardson came out to support then Senator Obama for his presidential run, even though it was President Clinton who appointed him to the UN and then the Energy Department:

http://men.style.com/gq/blogs/gqeditors/2008/04/title.html
So if Barack Obama were to win the nomination and he offered you the vice presidency…
What would I do? Well, I wouldn't preclude anything. [laughs] You know, I love my job.
Okay, but—
Well, you can't, you know, you can't, uh, turn your back on something like that. But I didn't endorse him because of that.
Or secretary of state.
You can't turn your back on something like that.

I wish I had been stronger

2007-12-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

Below is a partial transcript from a Democratic presidential debate on December 14, 2007:
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/14/i_wish_id_been_stronger_richardson
CAROLYN WASHBURN: Governor Richardson, you promote your experience as Energy Secretary among your credentials. During that time, though, there were serious questions about lax security at the country’s national labs, allegations that scientist Wen Ho Lee breached security at Los Alamos. You told Tim Russert in May, “We had some issues with the nuclear secrets issue and Wen Ho Lee, but I think, on the whole, I was a good Energy Secretary.” In this era when Americans are fearful about our national security, talk about that part of your resume.

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON: Well, and I will add that in twenty-five years in public service, there are probably many more other mistakes that I’ve made, but I want to say to you that when it was with Wen Ho Lee, this was the issue of protecting our nuclear secrets. And he did plead guilty. I do feel that he was incarcerated in solitary confinement—this was wrong. I tried to change it, but I didn’t work hard enough. The point is that we do have in all of our lives—as a congressman, as a UN ambassador, as a candidate, I’ve made a lot of gaps, and I’m glad you didn’t raise them. But, you know, I’ll stand behind my record as Energy Secretary. I brought compensation to workers that had beryllium and other contamination. I brought forth a renewable portfolio standard, the first one that says electricity has to be renewable in this country. We made air-conditioning 30% more energy-efficient. And there are some cases in the Wen Ho Lee, where I wish I had been stronger, but I don’t apologize for trying to protect our nuclear secrets, and we should have done a lot more.

--------------------
AMY GOODMAN: Some of Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate. That clip ended with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson admitting he made some mistakes in the handling of the case of Wen Ho Lee, who was the nuclear scientist at Los Alamos of Chinese descent, falsely accused by the Clinton administration of spying for the Chinese government. As President Clinton’s Energy Secretary, Bill Richardson fired Wen Ho Lee, who was then arrested, indicted on fifty-nine counts, threatened with execution. He was held for 278 days in solitary confinement. Within a year, the government dropped fifty-eight of the fifty-nine charges. And a federal judge then ordered Wen Ho Lee’s release. In an unusual statement from the bench, he rebuked the government, apologized to Wen Ho Lee. Last year, the government agreed to pay him nearly $900,000 for violating his right to privacy by leaking information to the press.

When we interviewed Governor Richardson in September 2005 in Santa Fe, he was far less conciliatory about his handling of Wen Ho Lee’s case. I spoke with Governor Richardson at a studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At that time, he said, quote, he stands by everything he said and did in the case.

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON: This was a man that was convicted on several counts of tampering with classified information, so—

AMY GOODMAN: But the minorest of counts. I mean, what he was originally––

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON: Well, no, it was not minor. This is where you’re wrong. It was not minor. There were very sensitive nuclear secrets that possibly were compromised and were improperly taken from his computer. Now, the judgment of the judge, I believe, is speculative. But I stand behind the very strong actions that I took to protect our nuclear secrets.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you say the federal judge is wrong in saying that you are the probable source of the leaks?

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON: Absolutely. He’s totally wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, in the case of Wen Ho Lee, though, originally they said he could be a reason for the possible—well, like President Bush used in the argument for the Iraq war, he could be the source of a nuclear explosion, a bombing of the United States. And ultimately, when the judge freed Wen Ho Lee, he said he had been egregiously misled by government officials about what Wen Ho Lee was responsible for. And he was irate. He was enraged, the judge, I mean.

GOV. BILL RICHARDSON: Well, that’s his opinion. I believe that we acted properly in safeguarding our nuclear secrets. He was convicted on several counts. There were some mistakes in that case. It involved the entire federal government, and I stand behind everything that I did.

AMY GOODMAN: Gov. Bill Richardson. That was September 2005.

Albuquerque Tribune Interview

2007-02-06T21:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/feb/06/bill-richardson-tribune-interview/
Tribune: Some legislators have criticized you for raising money during a session, citing a state law that bars it. Federal law obviously trumps that. But some are saying that ethics should trump legalities in this, and that the moral thing for you to do is not accept money. How do you respond to them?

Richardson: Well, that's a partisan comment. That's unilateral disarmament. I've got to start raising money.

It's very clear that the law says that if I'm the governor of New Mexico, I don't raise state funds. I've always abided by that, but this is a federal race. This is a race that is national. This involves mainly traveling around the country and raising money - although I am raising money in New Mexico.

Tribune: One of the weaknesses out there that might dog you in a national campaign is the Wen Ho Lee case and the speculation that you were the source of the leak in the case. Are you concerned about that at all?

Richardson: Well, it's not a plus, obviously. But I believe I acted appropriately with Wen Ho Lee.

There were security problems at Los Alamos that still continue. But I believe there was - he did plead guilty to unauthorized use of classified materials. Perhaps the Justice Department and his incarceration may have been a little harsh.

Tribune: Were you the source of the leak?

Richardson: No, I wasn't the source of the leak. The media has many sources, and I've said I wasn't the source of the leak. You know, there were reports in the Asian press way before anyone ever talked to anyone at the Department of Energy. No, I wasn't the source of the leak. That's over with.

Hopefully, voters will see I was trying to protect our national secrets. I was the secretary of energy. You know, we've got these hugely important nuclear secrets that we've got to protect. There was continuous problems at Los Alamos. I tried to get them fixed. We made a little bit of progress, but obviously, there's still problems.

NY Times 02/03/2007

2007-02-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/us/politics/23richardson.html?pagewanted=2

Sexual Harassment

In late 2005, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish told The Albuquerque Journal that Mr. Richardson
“pokes me” when they sit together, calling that more annoying and likely to be misconstrued than improper.

“He pinches my neck,” Ms. Denish said. “He touches my hip, my thigh, sort of the side of my leg.”

The governor waved that off, telling The Journal: “I tease Diane. I touch guys. It’s my way of lessening tension.”

Poor Judgment and Bad Management

Although not laid at Mr. Richardson’s door, corruption scandals have also tarnished the state —
“pay to play,” in the words of critics. Some of Mr. Richardson’s embarrassing appointees stepped down, including a former state police officer named to a magistrate judgeship who resigned after being caught ordering the release of a friend jailed on a drunken-driving charge.

“One bad judge out of 56,” Mr. Richardson said, acknowledging “our vetting procedures are not the most extensive.”
____________________

Richardson opposed the 1st Gulf War but endorsed W's invasion of Iraq, "I think there is such intensive pressure on both sides that only one more deadline, only one more chance for Saddam Hussein is going to be allowable. So I think the administration is wise in pursuing this course that says OK, total disarmament in two weeks and that's it."
He told a gay-rights forum, Logo, that homosexuality is a choice.
He said Justice Bryon White who voted against Roe v Wade was his model Supreme Court justice. It appears that Justice White voted against Miranda rights and wrote the majority opinion on Bowers v Hardwick, banning homosexual sodomy, see comments section at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/27/113257/730
He was reluctant to fire Alberto Gonzales because he is a fellow Hispanic.
His stance on illegal immigration is troublesome to many--he doesn't want to build a wall on the Mexican border, he wants to legalized all illegal immigrants in this country. In http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/us/politics/24richardson.html,
Richardson initially said he would support the immigration compromise announced earlier this week. But later on, he said that after reading it in detail, he had decided to oppose it, saying the measure placed too great a burden on immigrants — tearing apart families that wanted to settle in the United States, creating a permanent tier of second-class immigrant workers and financing a border fence that Mr. Richardson had long opposed.
He said during the campaign, "Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord, should be the first caucus and primary."

Bill Richardson -- friend of Bill

2007-01-30T11:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2007/01/016368.php

There were two factions in the Clinton administration: the opportunists (the Bill wing) that didn't care much about the merits of policy outcomes, and the true-believers (the Hillary wing) that cared passionately about increasing our government's power over the life its citizens and about decreasing its power in the world.

Bill Richardson, who is running for president, was a member of the Clinton administration. The good news is that he was not a member of the Hillary wing; the bad news is that this makes him a member of the Bill wing.

When he was in Congress, Richardson had been a strong environmentalist. As Clinton's Secretary of Energy, he skillfully used that reputation as a shield when he crossed the environmentalists. Someone who worked with Richardson at the Energy department describes him as a truly committed believer in situational ethics. In other words, a true Bill Clintonian

Richardson's accomplishments at Energy were so limited that he once said his proudest one was building a new gym for Department employees. His one truly important accomplishment was the opening of a repository for transuranic waste (plutonium based, as opposed to high level waste) whose radioactivity is more immediately toxic and derives from fission products. This project is far less important than Yucca Mountain, which is intended to deal with high level waste and spent fuel, but is significant nonetheless. Interestingly, Richardson opened the repository in Carslbad, New Mexico, which wanted it. I'm told that, as governor of New Mexico, he used his knowledge of the Energy Department to create crises with respect to its big assets there (Los Alamos and the new transuranic repository) and then solve them.

That's not the sort of problem-solver this country needs in the White House.

UPDATE: Over at the Forum WGPu writes:

For several years in the early '90s, I worked as an engineer at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP; the facility for deep geological disposal of transuranic watse near Carlsbad). At that time Bill Richardson was a U.S. Representative whose district was northern NM (Ab'q, Santa Fe). Though the WIPP was not in his district, he worked overtime to oppose opening the facility though it was fully constructed and represented a solution to a problem in his own district (TRU waste stored above ground at Los Alamos). This opposition suited his "enlightened" environmentalist constituency in Santa Fe, and helped his regular re-election.
Later on in the '90s, after he became Bill Clinton's Secretary of Energy and, in order to achieve some success in that role, Richardson changed sides, and supported WIPP receiving its first shipment of plutonium-contaminated waste; which it did in March of '99.

Interestingly, in recent years, as governor of New Mexico, Richardson has supported expanding the WIPP facility's mission, along with siting other nuclear businesses in SE NM (e.g. uranium enrichment) since it economically benefits his now full-state, constituency. Bill Richardson is purely a political opportunist clearly in the Bill Clinton camp.

Lying on his Resume

2005-11-24T17:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.abqjournal.com/news/special/410505sports11-24-05.htm
Thursday, November 24, 2005
One-Time Prospect Acknowledges Draft Info Wrong

Journal Staff Writer
As a young man, Gov. Bill Richardson was an accomplished baseball pitcher. You can look it up.
What you won't find in the record books is a baseball distinction that's been attached to Richardson's name for almost 40 years: that he was drafted to play pro baseball by the Kansas City Athletics.
Publications ranging from The New York Times to the New Republic to the Albuquerque Journal have reported that as fact. So have USA Today, Time magazine and National Review.
In the just-published "2006 Almanac of American Politics," these words appear in a history of Richardson's career: " ... in 1967 was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics."
In preparing a story earlier this year on Richardson's baseball past, the Journal was unable to confirm in any authoritative record that he had been drafted.
Richardson said he believed that he had been, based on conversations with scouts and other sources, and asked for additional time to find proof.
But in a written statement provided to the Journal last week, he said, "After being notified of the situation (by Toby Smith) and after researching the matter ... I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A's."
"However, as the Journal's reporting should reflect, I was actively scouted by several Major League teams ... "
While at odds with years of published reports, that statement is consistent with Richardson's new autobiography, "Between Worlds: The Making of an American Life."
He does not say in the book that he was drafted. In the book, which hit stores earlier this month, Richardson says he was a hot prospect who passed up a shot at the big leagues because his father wanted him to attend college.
He later developed arm trouble, removing any possibility of a baseball career.
Richardson was an outstanding prep pitcher. He also played in the amateur Cape Cod summer league and at Tufts University.
"During my time at Tufts, I was approached by scouts who offered to draft me, under the condition that I agree ahead of time to sign a contract, if drafted," Richardson said in his statement to the Journal.
"I could not agree to sign a contract, and therefore was not drafted by any of those interested teams."
Richardson said in an interview that scouts told him he "would or could" be drafted.
"In my mind," he said, "that meant I had been drafted."
Paul Reichler, now a Washington, D.C., attorney, in the 1960s was sports editor for the Tufts Weekly, the student newspaper. Reichler remains a Richardson friend.
"It wouldn't surprise me that Bill remembers being drafted," said Reichler, "because there was so much interest in him. But maybe his desire to be drafted was so strong that he convinced himself that it actually happened."

On the record
Major League Baseball's draft began in 1965. Over time, draft status became part of Richardson's political persona.
His official campaign biography in 1982, when he first ran for Congress in New Mexico's 3rd District, concludes: "In 1966, he was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics ... "
When Richardson was about to be appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in 1997, the Clinton White House issued a news release that mentioned he had been drafted— along with his Nobel Peace Prize nominations.
A year later, when Richardson was named Secretary of Energy, CNN reported he had been drafted.
"Pitching Around Fidel," a 2002 book by Sports Illustrated senior writer S.L. Price, reconstructs a 1996 evening at a Havana ballpark where Fidel Castro chatted with Richardson, "once drafted by the Kansas City Athletics."
When asked where he had obtained that description of Richardson's past, Price said, "Richardson told me."
In early 1999, nearly 2,000 convention guests in San Antonio watched Richardson accept the highest individual honor the National Collegiate Athletic Association bestows.
The Theodore Roosevelt Award goes to a former college athlete who has distinguished himself in public service. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first winner of the "Teddy," as it's called, in 1967. Gerald Ford won it in 1975, George H.W. Bush in 1986 and Ronald Reagan in 1990.
Rocco J. Carzo, then Tufts director of athletics, nominated Richardson.
In his nomination letter, Carzo wrote this of Richardson's baseball prowess: "A right-hander, he was drafted by the Kansas City A's in 1966 before attending Tufts, but passed on turning pro. He was drafted again by Los Angeles in 1968, but knew his arm wouldn't hold up as a professional.'"
Carzo, now the Tufts Athletic Director Emeritus, said the information "might have come from him (Richardson)."

The lists
The Athletics, now the Oakland Athletics, is the team most often mentioned as having drafted Richardson.
But published Richardson "draft" references also mention the Pittsburgh Pirates, Los Angeles Dodgers and Baltimore Orioles.
The Journal could find no record that any team drafted Richardson.
Major League Baseball's main office in New York City did a year-by-year draft search for Richardson and could find no listing for him.
"The Baseball Draft: The First 25 Years," Baseball America magazine's reference work, has no mention of Richardson being drafted.
Administrators of leading Web sites for the pro baseball draft— thebaseballcube.com and baseball-reference.com— said Richardson's name does not appear on any of their draft documents.
Although Richardson said he was wrong about being drafted by Kansas City, he described the draft process of the 1960s as "rudimentary" and said he believed names could have been omitted.
Last week, he insisted his name had appeared on "a draft list of some kind" created by both the Pirates and the Dodgers.
According to the governor, Dick Hanlon, a Dodgers' scout and George Owen a scout for the Pirates, both told him he would be placed on a list making him eligible for the draft. Hanlon and Owen are deceased.
Richardson said he has been unable to find those lists.

No embellishment
In his book, Richardson writes, "In my mind, I committed to a future playing ball. I was ready to sign on the dotted line right after graduation (from prep school)."
His father, he writes, was a demanding figure who insisted he should go to college.
Major League Baseball scouts say that if a prospect is unlikely to sign a contract, a team will not draft him.
Earlier this year, Richardson said he always assumed the A's had drafted him when he saw the information in a Cape Cod summer league baseball program.
Steve Vaughn, a teammate who was drafted, said he thought Richardson "clearly was a prospect" and "remembered hearing" his teammate had been offered a contract by Kansas City.
That was 38 summers ago, and Richardson was playing for the Cotuit (Mass.) Kettleers, a team comprised of standout college players.
The Kettleers published a 25-cent handout they issued to fans.
Next to Richardson's name on the faded program are four brief lines, and the words "Drafted by K.C."
"When I saw that program in 1967," Richardson said, "I was convinced I was drafted. And it stayed with me all these years."
At Richardson's urging, the Journal talked to Arnold Mycock, who was the general manager of Richardson's Cape Cod League team in 1967.
Mycock, 82, and living in Cotuit, Mass., has a copy of that 1967 program. He said information on the bios came from the players or their college coaches.
Nick Furlong, a pitcher for the Kettleers in 1967, later drafted by three major league teams, said he filled in his Cotuit bio sheet himself and sent it to the club.
College athletes typically fill out a biographical form to help a school's athletic department disseminate information to a student's hometown media.
On the bio sheet Richardson completed for Tufts in his junior year, he penciled words "Drafted by Kansas City (1966), LA (1968)."
Richardson said he wrote those words because he believed them to be true.
"I never tried to embellish this," he said. "I never tried to mask it."

Richardson stands by everything he said and did

2005-09-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a transcript from an interview on Democracy Now on September 5, 2005.
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/9/22/governor_richardson_says_he_stands_by
JUAN GONZALEZ: Governor Richardson, you were energy secretary during the period of the controversy over the Los Alamos scientist, Wen Ho Lee. As you know, he is now pursuing a lawsuit against the government, and is claiming that officials of the government leaked damaging information on him to several reporters. This is threatening to become another case of oppressed freedom, as the reporters have been ordered to reveal their sources by the courts, and—and your name has been linked at times, although you have said in sworn testimony, that you were not a source of the leak. I’d like to ask you what your sense of—if you can talk about the case at all, and also what your sense is of what’s happening to reporters in terms of the courts ordering them to reveal sources?

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, on that, Juan, because of the pending litigation, there’s hardly anything I can say. I would tell you if I did. But I stand behind everything that I said, and I did before in that case. But I strongly believe that reporters have the right TO have sources, and protect them. I believe what’s happened to Judy Miller of The Times and many other journalists have been jailed I believe is going to threaten not just first amendment issues, but the ability of the public to get information from the press on government officials.

So, I strongly believe that it’s important that we have protections for the press, protections of confidential sources. I suspect this is going to go all the way to the Supreme Court and my hope is that the Supreme Court continues to protect these first amendment freedoms.

AMY GOODMAN: But Governor Richardson, this is not only a case of freedom of the press and journalists protecting their sources, it is also a case of the destruction of the reputation of a man, Wen Ho Lee, who served almost a year in prison. Who, a federal judge has said you last month were the probable source of the leaks. What do you say to the federal judge. You say you stand behind everything that you did in this case. What do you stand by?

BILL RICHARDSON: I stand by that I wasn’t. Secondly, this was a man that was convicted on several counts of tampering with classified information, so—

AMY GOODMAN: But the minorest of counts. It was originally-–

BILL RICHARDSON: It was not minor. This is where you are wrong. It is not minor. There were very sensitive nuclear secrets that possibly were compromised, and were improperly taken from his computer. Now, the judgment of the judge, I believe, is speculative. But I stand behind the very strong actions that I took to protect our nuclear secrets.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you say that the federal judge is wrong in saying that you are the probable source of the leaks?

BILL RICHARDSON: Absolutely. He is totally wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: In the case of Wen Ho Lee, though, originally, they said he could be, a reason for the possible—well, like president Bush used in the argument for the Iraq war, he could be the source of a nuclear explosion, a bombing of the United States. And ultimately, when the judge freed Wen Ho Lee, he said he had been egregiously misled by government officials about what Wen Ho Lee was responsible for. He was irate. He was enraged, the judge, I mean.

BILL RICHARDSON: Well, that’s his opinion. I believe that we acted properly in safeguarding our nuclear secrets. He was convicted on several counts. There were some mistakes in that case. It involved the entire federal government, and I stand behind everything that I did.

How the 'New York Times' Convicted Wen Ho Lee

2000-10-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20001023/scheer/print
By Robert Scheer

For me the most persuasive evidence that Wen Ho Lee was innocent of the wild spying charges lodged against him came hours after his release from jail, when he returned to his standard-issue tract house in the White Rock suburb of Los Alamos, New Mexico: It was the sight of all those neighbors and co-workers from the lab bringing over plates of potato salad and cold cuts to celebrate his freedom. These were the people who knew Lee and the inner workings of the weapons lab, and they had been there to support him throughout his ordeal, even when established human rights and civil libertarian groups had remained silent. His next-door neighbors, the Marshalls, both hold the highest security ratings; they had offered to pledge their house as bail.

Lee was a product of the lab's culture, and whatever his motive in downloading certain files, his co-workers knew that no one had ever been criminally prosecuted for such an act. It was not all that unusual for intellectually distracted scientists like Lee, who managed to begin writing a mathematics book while in solitary confinement, to be careless with the data that formed the clay they played with daily. Above all, they knew in their bones that Wen Ho Lee, their neighbor, was no spy.

Still, I was apprehensive at being introduced to Lee that evening. For one thing, there is always trepidation at finally meeting a person about whom one has written so much. In Lee's case, I'd done more than a dozen Op-Ed columns for the Los Angeles Times, being the first to challenge a spy story driven by the New York Times. Also, Lee had been through a prison nightmare, and I expected to find a broken man. Instead, I found a person still in shock but grateful, with a smile that suggested he was very much at peace with himself.

Yet Lee's ordeal had been real, and while that evening was not the time for him to go into it, he made it clear that it had been a harrowing experience. Imagine a man who has never been in trouble with the law suddenly detained in a tiny cell without a window or even bars to look through. "There was a peephole in the door, and there was someone who sat outside, and who was watching him and taking notes," recalls his Albuquerque attorney, Nancy Hollander, who visited him often in jail. "And you have to understand: Not only are they watching him eat and sleep, they're watching him use the toilet." His cell would change, but never the twenty-four-hour-a-day light or the shackles--hands and feet linked to a chain around his waist--that he wore during his one hour of permitted exercise, on the occasions he got to talk with his lawyers and during brief visits with his wife.

Hollander has spent decades representing the most hardened of criminals, but still, she says, she was shocked: "I've had murder clients, drug clients, clients accused of taking millions of dollars from the federal government, you name it, but I've never had a client treated like Wen Ho Lee."

A recent Washington Post article quotes one government insider as expressing the opinion that the decision to hold Lee under these circumstances was an attempt to break him. They weren't able to, and instead, it was the FBI and the US Attorney General who had to back down because, as the Post reported, they were convinced that the admitted deceptions in the case, including those used to make the case against bail, had turned Judge James Parker against them. Parker had gone along with the prosecutors for nine months, but eventually he was revolted by these deceptions. He saved the day, first by ordering that the government turn over evidence of racial profiling in targeting Lee, as well as potentially incriminating documents regarding the FBI's behavior; and second, by ordering Lee released on bail. In the end, Judge Parker made a broken judicial system work and sternly condemned those who had done it so much damage.

I: Here Comes the Judge

What a moment it was to sit in the Federal District Court in Albuquerque on September 13 and hear Judge Parker, a conservative Reagan appointee, say: "I sincerely apologize to you, Dr. Lee, for the unfair manner [in which] you were held in custody by the executive branch." Parker described Lee's imprisonment to a hushed courtroom as having been under "demeaning, unnecessarily punitive conditions," and he said that he was "sad and troubled because I do not know the real reasons why the executive branch has done all of this."

What is known is that the government's case against Lee crumbled, with the government agreeing to dismiss fifty-eight of fifty-nine counts that had been lodged against Lee, who faced life imprisonment for intending to betray the national security of the United States. Suddenly the government, which only a week before had said Lee's release could risk "hundreds of millions of lives," was willing to let him go for time served. As for Lee, the nine months of harsh imprisonment had taken their toll, and he was willing to plead guilty to a single felony count of mishandling classified data--a charge that defense lawyers might have been willing to settle on even before there was an indictment.

Parker went on to tongue-lash "the top decision makers in the executive branch," who, he said, "have embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it."

I filed out of the courtroom with my media colleagues, who spoke of their eyes having welled up with tears at the judge's remarks but of feeling proud that the system had worked once again. As the judge had said, "The executive branch has enormous power, the abuse of which can be devastating to our citizens," and in this case it had been checked. That's how the story got reported.

But once I was outside in the bright heat of an early desert afternoon, it seemed outrageous that yet again the media were leaving out their own responsibility in the creation of this wicked tale. The torment of Wen Ho Lee did not begin in December of 1999, with his indictment and arrest, but rather the previous March, when the New York Times, the most respected media outlet in the country, laid out a tale of atomic spying that has been proved wrong on virtually every count, but that launched a witch hunt ending in Lee's incarceration [see Bill Mesler, "The Spy Who Wasn't," August 9/16, 1999].

There are too many low points in the history of this nation's journalism to permit one easily to employ superlatives about the Times's startling transgression. I don't know if it makes the all-time Top Ten list, but the trial and conviction of Lee in the pages of the Times--both in its news columns and on its editorial page--is certainly right up there. A leak from a Congressional committee chaired by California Republican Christopher Cox regarding the alleged theft of secrets about the W-88 nuclear warhead (a sophisticated, miniaturized bomb that fits on a MIRVed launcher) by Chinese spies--a nonevent that was never substantiated and was scoffed at by most experts--along with the contentions of a controversial and much-disputed source, was used by the newspaper to smear a Taiwan-born US citizen singled out for vilification simply because of his ethnic background.

Of course, the Times couldn't have done it alone. But what makes this primarily a media story is that without the backing of the Times, whose stories set the tone for TV journalism, not much of anything would have happened. If properly vetted through the normal channels, the case, based largely on the zealous pursuit of Lee by one disgruntled former government security sleuth and amplified by the ambitions of a right-wing Congressman, would have come to naught. Instead, the Clinton Administration, recovering from impeachment and mired in a campaign finance scandal linked to Asian funds--including the charge that Beijing had secretly funneled money to the Democrats--panicked. Cowed by its fear that the China issue could be used effectively against Gore in the election, the Administration was willing to play along, and it did so through its Energy and Justice departments.

Lee sat in jail for one reason and one reason only: The Administration wanted to prove to its critics that it was tough on Chinese spying, whether or not that spying existed and whether or not it had anything to do with Wen Ho Lee. In the end, the spy hysteria whipped up by the Cox committee and the Times has taken a terrible toll on the life of one scientist and has cast suspicion over the entire community of Asian-American scientists, many of whom are now boycotting employment in the nuclear weapons labs.

The assumption that Lee, whose roots are in Taiwan and who has no relatives on the mainland, would be the prime target of an investigation simply because of his skin color and ethnic identity has sent shock waves through the Asian-American community. The leading support for Lee has come from the Committee of 100, made up of highly influential Chinese-Americans alarmed that their entire community has been scapegoated as disloyal.

All the more bizarre, this resurfacing of cold war imagery occurred at a time when China was moving as fast as a nation possibly can down what Mao Zedong would have condemned as the capitalist road. The same week Wen Ho Lee was released, Congress approved permanent normal trade relations with China with overwhelming bipartisan support. Yet there were Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh still claiming that Lee was a great risk to the nation.

While Reno and Freeh defended their handling of the case before Congress, the New York Times, in one of the most contorted editors' notes in that paper's history, and on its editorial page two days later, defended its journalism in the Lee case while offering up some faint notes of apology. But like the ravings of an addict promising to abstain, the Times again committed egregious distortions in the very editors' note intended to set the record straight. For one thing, the September 26 note implied that Lee might have had something to do with espionage and also with the theft of information critical to building the W-88 warhead, even though he was never charged with either offense.

Most unbelievable was one sentence that was so ingenuously dishonest as to be worthy of the most effective editorialist for Pravda in the bad old days. The Times editors wrote that at the time of the newspaper's first story, "Dr. Lee had already taken a lie detector test; FBI investigators believed that it showed deception when he was asked whether he had leaked secrets." The fact is that in December of 1998, three months before the Times's first story ran, Lee had passed an Energy Department lie-detector test with flying colors. What the note would seem to indicate is that the Times still could not acknowledge a single piece of evidence pointing to Lee's innocence.

In its very long editorial admitting to some errors, most important is the admission that "we find that we too quickly accepted the government's theory that espionage was the main reason for Chinese nuclear advances and its view that Dr. Lee had been properly singled out as the prime suspect." But then the editorial quickly segues into a non-sequitur argument about the need for increased security at the weapons labs. Sure, and it could probably save on its electricity bill with more prudent management as well. What the Times editorial never explains is why the paper uncritically accepted the leaks from the Cox committee as truth. Why did the newspaper ignore the massive amount of evidence in the scientific and intelligence commu- nity suggesting that Chinese nuclear weapons gains were very slight and could easily have been the product of the country's own internal research, and that in any case, China is a full four decades behind the United States and no threat in any way as a nuclear power? To this day the Times editorial page will not concede that the big scare of a growing Chinese nuclear power, which fueled the hunt for a spy, is bogus.

II: The Times Gets Its Man

The media nightmare for Lee began with a 4,000-word front-page Times story on March 6, 1999, under the shocking headline: "Breach at Los Alamos: A special report; China Stole Nuclear Secrets for Bombs, US Aides Say." It was written by two of the newspaper's more aggressive investigative reporters: Jeff Gerth, who won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting the alleged transfer of satellite technology to China (a controversial report that triggered the Cox investigation), and James Risen. The opening paragraph--never mind that it was false--stated, "Working with nuclear secrets stolen from an American Government laboratory, China has made a leap in the development of nuclear weapons: the miniaturization of its bombs, according to Administration officials." This "breakthrough," the story claimed--also incorrectly--"was accelerated by the theft of American nuclear secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico." The story noted dramatically, "At the dawn of the atomic age, a Soviet spy ring that included Julius Rosenberg had stolen the first nuclear secrets out of Los Alamos. Now, at the end of the cold war, the Chinese seemed to have succeeded in penetrating the same weapons lab."

The reporters relied heavily on unnamed sources and one named source, Notra Trulock, the former Energy Department Director of Intelligence, who had been involved in the Wen Ho Lee investigation. They credited Trulock with being the "star witness" at the Cox Congressional hearings. The Times described him as a "whistleblower" ignored by a Clinton Administration devoted to maintaining good ties with Beijing at any cost. Trulock's secret testimony, leaked to the Times reporters, was taken as unquestioned gospel and formed the basis of the newspaper's claim that China had stolen the secrets for the advanced W-88 warhead, an incident that the Times charged had led to what "senior intelligence officials regarded...as one of the most damaging spy cases in recent history." A simple background check on Trulock might have raised red flags about his motives in the case and his credibility as a source, but that would be revealed only later, by other reporters.

Gerth and Risen went on to chastise the Administration for not properly addressing what they alleged was a most egregious security leak: "A reconstruction by The New York Times reveals that throughout the Government, the response to the nuclear theft was plagued by delays, inaction and skepticism." The Times bemoaned the fact that after three years of investigation "no arrests have been made" and that the key suspect had been allowed to keep his high security clearance for more than a year after he'd been tagged a spy. They went on to identify the likely culprit, although withholding his name: "Only in the last several weeks, after prodding from Congress and the Secretary of Energy, have Government officials administered lie-detector tests to the main suspect, a Los Alamos computer scientist who is Chinese-American."

Two days later, that suspect was revealed to be Wen Ho Lee. Lee was abruptly fired from his job at Los Alamos after three days of grueling questioning.

Because several errors were so widely reported in the media and will haunt Lee even though the government's case crumbled, it is important to dissect each of them. To begin with, there is no conclusive evidence that China stole the secrets to the W-88 warhead, and the consensus of experts in the field is that spying, if it occurred, was not decisive to China's still minuscule and primitive nuclear program. That was the conclusion of a June 1999 report by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, headed by former Republican Senator Warren Rudman. The board report concluded: "This information had been widely available within the U.S. nuclear weapons community, including the weapons labs, other parts of D.O.E., the Department of Defense, and private contractors, for more than a decade. For example, key technical information concerning the W-88 warhead had been available to numerous U.S. government and military entities since at least 1983 and could well have come from many organizations other than the weapons labs."

This was also the consensus in another Times cover story, reported five months after the original Gerth/Risen article, by William Broad, the paper's leading expert on nuclear weapons, which shredded the assumptions of the earlier Gerth/Risen stories. Broad interviewed Robert Vrooman, who was head of counterintelligence at Los Alamos during the investigation of Lee, who said a description of the W-88 had been widely disseminated. "A rather detailed description of the W-88 had a distribution of 548 copies," he said, adding, "Please note that I am referring to 548 mailing addresses, not people."

Even the original Gerth/Risen report stated that the CIA did not accept Trulock's dire assessment: "Trulock's briefing was based on a worst-case scenario, which C.I.A. believes was not supported by available intelligence. C.I.A. thinks the Chinese have benefited from a variety of sources, including from the Russians and their own indigenous efforts." But that assessment was treated in the story as a minor caveat.

Trulock's sensational charges were based on what the Times story termed "an intelligence windfall from Beijing." In June of 1995, a Chinese official gave CIA analysts a document that, according to the Times, "specifically mentioned the W-88 and described some of the warhead's key design features. The Los Alamos laboratory, where the W-88 had been designed, quickly emerged as the most likely source of the leak." And, of course, that is where Lee worked.

What the Times reporters either did not know or care to mention was that the CIA had quickly concluded that the Chinese official was a double agent still working for Beijing, and that the document had been planted for some devious purpose such as to impress Taiwan that Beijing might modernize its nuclear force. It also turned out that while the document was an authentic duplication of some design calculations, it contained several signature errors that had been made in the weapons design process after the W-88 had left Los Alamos and was being worked on at Lockheed Martin and at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. Lee had no connection with that document, and as a result of that discovery and the fact that there was not a scintilla of any other evidence linking Lee with the theft of W-88 warhead secrets, at the time of his indictment in December of 1999 Lee was no longer a target of an investigation concerning the W-88. So much for the main evidence.

The rest of the Times's original indictment against Lee was at best circumstantial and again does not withstand serious scrutiny. First among those distortions was the suggestion that Lee had failed a lie-detector test. As the Times's original account put it, "Energy gave the suspect a polygraph, or lie-detector test, in December. Unsatisfied, the F.B.I. administered a second test in February, and officials said the subject was found to be deceptive."

As noted, Lee, willingly and without legal advice, took that polygraph--ordered by an Administration under pressure from the Cox committee to do something about alleged Chinese spying--on December 23, 1998. The test asked four basic questions: "Have you ever committed espionage against the United States? Have you ever provided any classified weapons data to any unauthorized person? Have you had any contact with anyone to commit espionage against the United States? Have you ever had personal contact with anyone you know who has committed espionage against the United States?"

Lee's answer to all four questions was a definitive "No," and the polygraph expert conducting the test concluded, "I am of the opinion [that] this person was not deceptive when answering the relevant questions pertaining to involvement in espionage, unauthorized disclosure of classified information and unauthorized foreign contacts." The manager of the polygraph test center, under contract to the Energy Department, also reviewed the result and stated that his judgments "concur with the Examiner that upon completion of testing the Examinee was not deceptive when answering the relevant questions."

According to CBS News, which later looked into the matter: "The polygraph results were so convincing and unequivocal, that sources say the deputy director of the Los Alamos lab issued an apology to Lee, and work began to get him reinstated in the X-division. Furthermore, sources confirm to CBS News that the local Albuquerque FBI office sent a memo to headquarters in Washington saying it appeared that Lee was not their spy."

Yet when the results of the polygraph test arrived in the FBI's Washington headquarters, those same results were reinterpreted to conclude that Lee had not passed. CBS raised the question of how the very same polygraph charts could be open to such contrary interpretation with Richard Keifer, chairman of the American Polygraph Association, who is a former FBI agent who ran the agency's polygraph program. According to CBS News: "We asked Keifer to look at Lee's polygraph scores. He said the scores are 'crystal clear.' In fact, Keifer says, in all his years as a polygrapher, he had never been able to score anyone so high on the non-deceptive scale. He was at a loss to find any explanation for how the FBI could deem the polygraph scores as 'failing.'"

A second test, in February of 1999, in which Lee later said he had been asked only one question, has never been made available to independent experts. According to the CBS report: "The FBI then did its own testing of Lee, and again claimed that he failed. Yet sources say the FBI didn't interrogate Lee at this time, or even tell him he had failed the polygraph--an odd deviation from procedure for agents who are taught to immediately question anyone who is deceptive in a polygraph."

What the CBS story suggested was that the FBI, under pressure from the Administration and/or Congress, was doing all it could to find someone to blame for some breach of security and that Wen Ho Lee, one of the many thousands with access to data concerning the W-88, was singled out as the target of opportunity.

The New York Times had originally planned to run its first story on March 5, but--the newspaper's executive editor, Joseph Lelyveld, later admitted to the Washington Post--at the request of the FBI, it held off publication for a day. The FBI took advantage of that delay to grill Lee yet again. After publication of the Times story, the FBI conducted another vicious, baiting interview of Lee, which stands as a classic of intimidation. During that interview, two FBI special agents--Carol Covert and John Hudenko--told Lee repeatedly that he had failed both the December polygraph and the February test.

Some excerpts from that session:

FBI: You're never going to pass a polygraph. And you're never going to have a clearance. And you're not going to have a job. And if you get arrested you're not going to have a retirement...if I don't have something that I can tell Washington as to why you're failing those polygraphs, I can't do a thing.
Lee: Well, I understand.
FBI: I can't get you your job. I can't do anything for you, Wen Ho. I can't stop the newspapers from knocking on your door. I can't stop the newspapers from calling your son. I can't stop the people from polygraphing your wife. I can't stop somebody from coming and knocking on your door and putting handcuffs on you....
Lee: ...I don't know how to handle this case. I'm an honest person and I'm telling you the truth and you don't believe it. I, that's it....
FBI: Do you want to go down in history? Whether you're professing your innocence like the Rosenbergs to the day that they take you to the electric chair?...
Lee: I believe [God] will make the final judgment for my case.

CBS carried that exchange, which is a part of the public record, while the New York Times, which did so much to raise the specter of espionage and first mentioned the Rosenberg precedent, ignored it. Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin later wrote that agent Covert, who had been asked to take a crash course in hostile interviews before meeting with Lee, "was so upset after conducting the interview that she took three months' sick leave and transferred out of the Santa Fe office."

The Times story contained other half-truths, omissions and falsehoods that helped construct a case against Lee. For example, it erroneously reported that "agents learned that the suspect had traveled to Hong Kong without reporting the trip as required. In Hong Kong, officials said, the bureau found records showing that the scientist had obtained $700 from the American Express office. Investigators suspect that he used it to buy an airline ticket to Shanghai." He didn't: The $700 withdrawal was used to permit his daughter, Alberta, to take a tourist trip to the nearby territories.

Some investigators. Lee's trips to China were made at the suggestion of his superiors at the Los Alamos laboratory, to whom he gave a full report upon his return.

Fortunately, somewhere between the Times attack on Lee and the government's move to indict him, Lee obtained highly competent legal counsel. Soon after the horrendous March 7 interview with the FBI, in which he was threatened with death in the electric chair, Alberta contacted a friend who had gone to Columbia Law School. As a result of that contact, Lee obtained the services of a brilliant former assistant US Attorney, 37-year-old Mark Holscher, who had become a partner in the old-line Los Angeles law firm of O'Melveny & Myers, which agreed to take the case on a pro bono basis with Holscher's bulldog-tough associate Richard Myers II. At the same time, Brian Sun, another former prosecutor with an equally impressive reputation, agreed to represent the family, also pro bono. Sun's contacts in the Asian-American community elicited most of the financial support that was to help Lee with the cost of investigators and other research. It also led to the hiring of an Albuquerque attorney, John Cline, who had extensive experience in national security cases, including a stint as Oliver North's attorney, and Cline's partner, Nancy Hollander, a highly regarded trial lawyer.

The defense team was able to explore the issue of racial profiling and unearthed evidence that it had dominated the hunt for Lee. Indeed, perhaps the most compelling reason for the plea bargain was that the judge approved a defense request by ordering the government to turn over thousands of pages of documents relating to that matter. The material was due to be handed over to the judge days after the plea bargain was accepted.

Gerth and Risen would have done well to investigate their "star witness," Trulock, the disenchanted Energy Department "whistleblower" who has tracked Lee for four years. The Times presented Trulock as a neutral observer, which was denied by other security experts, who claimed he had been building a case against Lee and was hostile to those who did not view the case his way.

Affidavits filed with the court at Lee's last bail hearing, just before the prosecution's sudden end, are devastating. Vrooman, the former head of counterintelligence at Los Alamos, declared under oath that "it is my opinion that the failure to look at the rest of the population [people with access to the same secret data as Lee] is because Lee is ethnic Chinese." Vrooman added that although there was a list of non-Chinese people with access, "Mr. Trulock made clear that Dr. Lee was his primary suspect." In a declaration dated June 22, 2000, Vrooman said, "The racial issue surfaced explicitly in comments made by Notra Trulock, the head of DOE's Office of Counterintelligence, who told me on November 20, 1996 that 'ethnic Chinese' should not be allowed to work on classified projects, including nuclear weapons."

Another devastating affidavit was filed under oath by Charles Washington, former acting director of counterintelligence at the Energy Department and currently a senior policy analyst at the DOE, who stated, "Based on my experience and my personal knowledge, I believe that Mr. Trulock improperly targeted Dr. Lee due to Dr. Lee's race and national origin." Washington, a decorated Vietnam veteran with extensive military intelligence experience, concludes:

Based upon my personal experience with Mr. Trulock, I strongly believe that he acts vindictively and opportunistically, that he improperly uses security issues to punish and discredit others, and that he has racist views towards minority groups. I am a black man of African-American origin, and I personally experienced his misconduct, and I know of other minorities who were victimized by Mr. Trulock. At one point I was forced to call outside police officers due to Mr. Trulock's abusive behavior, and I brought a lawsuit against the Department of Energy based on that incident, as well as other improper conduct by Mr. Trulock. That case was settled favorably to me by the Department of Energy this year with a pay raise, a cash award, restoration of leave, and other incentives.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Washington said Trulock "spat on me." Trulock is now under investigation by the FBI for allegedly mishandling classified material. Despite all the criticism of Trulock, the New York Times's Risen continued to write sympathetically about him and is still trusted by the paper to cover the Senate hearings on the Lee case objectively.

III: The Charges and What Followed

While it was a simple matter to fire Lee, it was altogether more difficult to charge him with espionage or any betrayal of US secrets, since there was absolutely no evidence. Lee had to be charged with something, but what? Once again, in an April 28, 1999, story, Gerth and Risen came through with the charge--again based on leaks from the ongoing investigation--that Lee had improperly downloaded computer files containing nuclear codes. This time their lead was even more frightening than the one in the first story: "A scientist suspected of spying for China improperly transferred huge amounts of secret data from a computer system at a government laboratory, compromising virtually every nuclear weapon in the United States arsenal, government and lab officials say."

In fact, the material that Gerth and Risen referred to as "secret data" was not classified as secret when Lee downloaded it; rather, it carried the low-level designation "protect as restricted data" (PARD), which meant it could be sent to colleagues through registered US mail. Some of the material was reclassified as "secret" after Lee's firing, but never as "top secret." As to "compromising virtually every nuclear weapon in the United States arsenal," that charge was dismissed as absurd by top weapons experts, who provided affidavits to Lee's defense attorneys. Former Los Alamos director Dr. Harold Agnew, a top adviser on nuclear weapons to five Presidents, testified that "if the People's Republic of China had already obtained these codes, or were to obtain these codes, it would have little or no effect whatsoever on today's nuclear balance."

When the government finally got around to arresting Lee, in December of 1999, it charged him only with the improper handling of files--and stretched to include the claim that the mishandling had been done "with the intent to injure the United States" and "secure an advantage to a foreign nation." But the indictment made no reference to the theft of the W-88 warhead data, which had led to his excoriation in the Times, and the prosecutors told the court they did not plan to make the case that Lee ever actually passed any secrets to a person or nation. (By contrast, former Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch, who downloaded some of the nation's top secrets to his home computer, has not yet been charged with any crime and remains a free man.)

For nine months after his arrest, Lee remained in prison without bail, while his attorneys mounted an aggressive effort to disprove the government's case against him. Finally, in August, after the lead FBI agent, Robert Messemer, admitted he'd misled the judge on several topics--including the claim that Lee had lied to a colleague to gain access to his computer--and witnesses came forward to say that much of the allegedly secret material was in the public domain, the judge agreed to bail for Lee.

IV: Conclusion

As the government's case came apart at the seams, more voices were raised in opposition, including The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Federation of American Scientists. Just before Lee's release, three of the nation's four scientific academies, endowed by Congress, demanded that Lee be given bail. That call even came to be echoed by the New York Times in a strong editorial, which noted that the judge had been lied to by the FBI on key aspects of the case in rendering his initial ruling denying Lee bail.

Judge Parker's decision to grant bail, which turned out to be moot because of the plea bargain in the case, was accompanied by a seventeen-page document that demolished key aspects of the government's case. As New York Times reporter James Sterngold summarized Parker's view: "The opinion is important in part because it casts deep doubts about many of the government's assertions about Dr. Lee's supposed deceptiveness and the value of the secrets he is accused of downloading, issues at the heart of the prosecution's case." And at the heart of the original New York Times reporting, one might add, not to take anything away from Sterngold's stellar reporting once he was assigned to the story.

Parker's words are worth quoting because they cut through all the hysteria about the losses to the US nuclear arsenal, which he himself had accepted in originally denying Lee's bail request. He cited, with apparent agreement, one top weapons expert who referred to the government's original claim that Lee had downloaded the "crown jewels" of America's nuclear program as "unbridled exaggeration."

On the matter of motive, the judge pointed out that the government had shifted its case from the claim that Lee was a potential, if not an actual, spy out to hurt the country's national security to the lame argument that he might have been attempting to burnish his credentials for future civilian employment in light of threatened massive layoffs at Los Alamos.

I have always believed this to be the most likely explanation for Lee's actions. During years of covering the labs for the Los Angeles Times, I frequently encountered complaints from scientists working there that they paid too heavy a professional price for not being able to share their work for public peer review, which is the basis of advancement in the academic world. The Los Alamos and Livermore labs are administered by the University of California, and most of the scientists are regarded as university faculty, but because of the secrecy requirements, they are forced to keep their best work hidden. Most of the time, that work is unnecessarily classified, and scientists must engage in heroic efforts to get it declassified for publication. Ironically, that is Trulock's problem right now, as he seeks to publish his own account of this escapade.

The government's case boiled down to nothing more than the possibility that Wen Ho Lee was attempting to gather evidence of his work in the hopes of securing employment at research institutes in non-Communist countries such as Germany and Switzerland. Even that claim proved to be false, however, when an FBI witness testified that there is no evidence that Lee mailed any such material or that any institute ever received it. Even if Lee had sought to use the data for that purpose, he might have intended to have it declassified first, before sending it out. But in any case, as Judge Parker stated, "enhancing one's résumé is less sinister than the treacherous motive the government, at least by implication, ascribed to Dr. Lee at the end of last year," when bail was denied.

From the crown jewels to an enhanced résumé. Quite a shift. None of this would have happened had the Times not been willing to broadcast leaks fed to its reporters by federal and Congressional investigators with a political agenda. Whether the goal was to nail Clinton on the campaign contributions issue or to revive the cold war with China, none of this had to do with the real concerns of national security.

Whatever Lee's transgressions, they do not involve issues of spying but only sloppiness in handling data. But to equate sloppiness with spying and to incarcerate a man for nine months under abysmal conditions in the hope that he will confess to something truly subversive is a clear violation of the standard of due process on which this country prides itself and which it seeks to export.

If this had happened in another country, there would have been a great outcry from human rights circles. But only late in the day did leading scientific organizations speak up, while human rights organizations failed to show they cared one whit about what has been a modern Dreyfus case. It is a sad confirmation of the hold of national security hysteria even now that so much dangerous mischief could have continued for so long, more or less unchallenged, by those who should know better.

As for Wen Ho Lee, the scientist came away thankful for a legal system in which the damage to him was limited by an ultimately courageous judge and a hopelessly bungled government case. But no one who cares about freedom of the individual in the face of abusive government power should ever forget how arrogant the FBI can be when backed by the shoddy reporting of this nation's premier newspaper. This was chillingly demonstrated on March 7, 1999, when Lee's FBI interrogators brandished the previous day's New York Times story as a weapon to threaten him:

FBI: Do you think that the press prints everything that's true? Do you think that everything in this article is true?
Lee: I don't think [so].
FBI: The press doesn't care.

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About Robert Scheer
Robert Scheer, a contributing editor to The Nation, is editor of Truthdig.com and author of The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America (Twelve) and Playing President (Akashic Books). He is author, with Christopher Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry, of The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq (Akashic Books and Seven Stories Press.) His weekly column, distributed by Creators Syndicate, appears in the San Francisco Chronicle. more...

Investigation and Treatment of WHL

2000-10-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

http://fas.org/sgp/congress/2000/h101200.html

This is a very long Congressional Record, only a few exhibits have been reproduced below, emphasis have been added.

 Declaration of Robert Vrooman
I, Robert Vrooman, do hereby declare and state:
1. I have reviewed the government's response to Wen Ho
Lee's Motion for Discovery of Materials Related to Selective
Prosecution, including the attached Declaration of Special
Agent Robert Messemer. As set out below, Agent Messsemer's
declaration contains numerous false statements. Based on my
experiences with Agent Messemer and the information I have
received from other FBI agents, I believe that the regularly
distorts information.
2. I did not tell Agent Messemer that Lee probably assisted
the Chinese by helping fix Chinese hydrocodes during his
travel in 1986 and 1988. His allegation that I did so is
false. Our April 28, 1999 meeting focused on [approx, one
line deleted] and Agent Messemer's theory that there was
something inappropriate going on [words deleted]. I attended
that interview solely as a favor to John Browne, the director
of Los Alamos National Laboratory. When it was over, I told
Browne that I considered the interview strange, because it
had nothing to do with the Lee case. I later learned from
officials at the CIA that Agent Messemer was falsely
informing CIA officials that I had been critical [word(s)
deleted]. At the time, Agent Messemer was attempting to shift
blame to the CIA for possible fallout [words deleted]. I
sought to obtain a copy of Agency Messemer's memoranda of my
interview and to have it corrected. See Attachment one. The
FBI refused to provide me a copy of this memorandum, which I
expect contains false information.
3. Agent Messemer's statement that the individuals selected
for investigation was chosen because they fit "matrix''
based on access to W-88 information and travel to the PRC is
false. Dozens of individuals who share those characteristics
were not chosen for investigation. As I explained in my prior
declaration, it is my firm belief that the actual reason Dr.
Lee was selected for investigation was because he made a call
to another person who was under investigation in spite of the
fact that he assisted the FBI in this case. It is my opinion
that the failure to look at the rest of the population is
because Lee is ethnic Chinese.
4. Mr. Moore's contention that the Chinese target
ethnically Chinese individuals to the exclusion of others,
therefore making it rational to focus investigations on such
individuals was not borne out by our experience at Los
Alamos, which was the critical context for this
investigation. It was our experience that Chinese
intelligence officials contacted everyone from the
laboratories with a nuclear weapons background who visited
China for information, regardless of their ethnicity. I am
unaware of any empirical data that would support any
inference that an American citizen born in Taiwan would be
more likely than any other American citizen [deletion].
5. Of the twelve people ultimately chosen for the short
list on which the investigation focused, some had no access
at all to W-88 information, and one did not have a security
clearance, but this individuals is ethnically Chinese. I do
not believe this was a coincidence. Further, this ethnically
Chinese individual did not fall within the "matrix'' which
Agent Messemer claims was used by the DOE and FBI. In
addition, although there were other names on the HI list, Mr.
Trulock made clear that Dr. Lee was his primary suspect.
6. Agent Messemer deliberately mischaracterizes the nature
of my comments to him regarding my concerns about Dr. Lee's
travel to the PRC. I did consider it unusual that Dr. Lee had
not reported any contact by Chinese agents when I debriefed
him following his return from the PRC. I did not believe then
and I do not believe now that Dr. Lee engaged in espionage,
and I made no such intimation to Agent Messemer. Dr. Lee and
his wife Sylvia were both cooperating with FBI
investigations, and I considered them loyal Americans.
Nonetheless, I considered Dr. Lee naive, and therefore a
potential security risk. It was to keep Dr. Lee out of harm's
way, not because I had any fear that he might knowingly
engage in improper conduct, that I recommended against
further unescorted trips out of the country for Dr. Lee.
7. My concerns about the real motivation behind the
investigation were exacerbated when I received a classified
intelligence briefing from Dr. Thomas Cook, an intelligence
analysis at LANL, in September 1999. This briefing put to
rest any concerns that I may have had that Dr. Lee helped the
Chinese in any substantial manner.
8. In my capacity as a counterintelligence investigator at
LANL, I was brief on the existence of an investigation code-
named "Buffalo Slaughter'' some time in the late 1980s
involving a non-Chinese individual working at DOE laboratory
who transferred classified information to a foreign country.
That individual was granted full immunity in return for
agreeing to a full debriefing on the information that he
passed. [Approx. six lines deleted].
9. The statements contained in my Declaration dated June
22, 2000 are true and correct and I so attest.
I declare under penalty of perjury of the laws of the
United States that the foregoing

[[Page H9891]]

is true and correct. Executed August 10, 2000, at Gallatin
Gateway, Montana.
[signed]
                                            Robert Vrooman.


Amnesty International Protests Solitary Confinement, Shackling of Dr. Wen Ho Lee
  Washington, DC, Aug. 16, 2000.--Amnesty International, the
world's largest human rights organization, has written to
Attorney General Janet Reno to protest the conditions under
which Dr. Wen Ho Lee has been held in pre-trial federal
detention since December 1999.
  In the Aug. 4 letter, released as Judge James A. Parker
hears a renewed application for Dr. Lee's release on bail,
Amnesty International expressed concern at reports that Dr.
Lee has been held in particularly harsh conditions of
solitary confinement, and has been confined to his cell for
23 hours each day. According to reports, Dr. Lee has also
been shackled at the wrists, waist, and ankles while taking
exercise once or twice a week in a federal enclosure. Amnesty
International is insisting that the use of shackles be
immediately discontinued.
  These conditions are unnecessarily punitive and contravene
  international human rights standards, said Curt Goering,
Senior Deputy Executive Director of Amnesty International
USA. The use of shackles is extremely disturbing and is
  grossly inappropriate in the circumstances.
  Rule 33 of the United Nations (UN) Standard Minimum Rules
for the Treatment of Prisoners provides that restraints
should be used only when strictly as a precaution against
escape during transfer, on medical grounds on the direction
of the medical officer or to prevent damage or injury. The
rules also state that restraints should never be applied as
punishment and that chains or irons shall not be used as
restraints. The rules also provide that every prisoner
(including pre-trial detainees) should have at least one hour
of suitable exercise in the open air daily.
  Amnesty International believes that the overall conditions
  under which Dr. Lee is detained contravene international
  standards, which require that all persons deprived of their
liberty be treated humanely and with respect for their
inherent dignity. Amnesty International is urging the Justice
Department to urgently review Dr. Lee's conditions of
confinement and ensure that he is being treated in accordance
with international standards. Such steps should include
provision for adequate exercise and out-of-cell time and
reasonable contact with the outside world.



American Bar Association, Washington, DC, August 18, 1999.
Hon. Janet Reno,
Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC.
 Dear Ms. Reno: We are writing to express our deep concern
about recent accounts that race may have played a significant
factor in pursuing the investigation of Dr. Wen Ho Lee for
alleged espionage. While we do not condone acts of espionage
or any other illegal activity by any individual, we ask that
you ensure that race is not now a factor as you make
decisions regarding this and other investigations and
prosecutions involving security violations at Los Alamos and
other national laboratories.
 According to Senators Fred Thompson and Joseph Lieberman in
a statement issued on August 5, 1999, the Department of
 Energy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had multiple
 suspects for leaks of nuclear warhead information and yet
 only two--Dr. Lee and his wife--were investigated. Because
the DOE and FBI investigators failed to look into the other
suspects "--that is, to assess whether these others were not
for some reason equally suspicious--meant that it was
impossible to be sure that the Lees really did stand out as
the prime suspects.'' (Thompson/Lieberman Report p. 18.) This
account is further buttressed by recent statements made by
Robert S. Vrooman, former chief of Counter-Intelligence at
the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Mr. Vrooman stated that
 Dr. Lee was targeted for investigation mainly because of his
 ethnicity, and that there is no evidence that Dr. Lee leaked
 secrets to China. Mr. Vrooman noted that at least 13
 Caucasian scientists from Los Alamos "who went to the same
 [physics] institute and visited the same people'' as Dr. Lee
 were left out of the investigation.

[[Page H9890]]

 Furthermore, both the Thompson/Lieberman Statement and Mr.
Vrooman noted that key technical information concerning
certain weapons, whose acquisition by the Chinese government
initiated the investigation of Mr. Lee, was available to
numerous government and military entities that could have
been the source of the leaked information.
 While we recognize that Mr. Vrooman's statements will be
subject to debate, we believe that it is important that you
verify that no "racial profiling'' occurred in this
investigation. Additionally, we would like to request a
meeting with you to discuss these issues. In the meantime, we
ask that as you continue your investigation of security leaks
at our national laboratories, you do so with a heightened
consideration for fairness.
     Sincerely,
Nancy Choy,
 Executive Director, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.
Daphne Kwok,
 Executive Director, Organization of Chinese Americans.
Jin Sook Lee,
 Executive Director, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO.
Jon Melegrito,
 Executive Director, National Federation of Filipino American Associations.
Debasish Mishra,
 Executive Director, India Abroad Center for Political Awareness.
Karen Narasaki,
 Executive Director, National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium.

Vrooman's Congressional Testimony

2000-10-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2000/vrooman.html

Statement of
Robert S. Vrooman
before the
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee
on Administrative Oversight and the Courts

"A Continuation of Oversight of the Wen Ho Lee Case"
October 3, 2000
Chairman Specter and members of the committee, I am honored to have the opportunity to testify before this committee about the investigation of Dr. Wen Ho Lee.

In this opening statement I will address three issues, ethnic profiling, FBI and Los Alamos cooperation during the Kindred Spirit investigation and the 1994 FBI investigation of Dr. Lee.

Many people have questioned why the investigators into the original allegations of Chinese nuclear espionage failed to look beyond Los Alamos National Laboratory and Dr. Lee. Those asking this question include such distinguished people as former Senator Rudman, Senators Thompson and Lieberman and recently FBI Director Louis J. Freeh. It is my opinion that the Kindred Spirit investigators had a subtle bias that the perpetrator had to be ethnic Chinese. I base my opinion on their comments and actions prior to and during the investigation.

These comments include noting something nefarious about the number of Chinese restaurants in Los Alamos, the number of Chinese postdoctoral employees and suggesting that DOE should not allow ethnic Chinese to work on classified programs. In April 2000, a Los Alamos scientist who worked on intelligence programs wrote a letter to the employee news bulletin. He said, "While I was assigned to NIS-9, I supported, on a part time basis, the counterintelligence investigation into the alleged Chinese espionage at Los Alamos. Based on my experience and observations, I concluded that racial profiling of Asian-Americans as a result of the investigation indeed took place, but principally at the Department of Energy. Further, DOE personnel directed some Los Alamos National Laboratory staff to undertake research that profiled Asians and Asian-Americans at the Laboratory. I do not believe any of us were happy with this. I feel insulted, personally and professionally, that the DOE is seeking to spread the tarnish that belongs on it, by having the Weapons Complex undergo the mandatory diversity stand down by May 5th."

The author of the above letter is referring to a request from DOE Headquarters to Los Alamos and Livermore for a list of Chinese-Americans and the programs that they were working on. Both labs refused to provide such a list because the request was clearly in violation of EO 12333.

Director Freeh recently testified to a joint hearing of the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees that the FBI opened a case on Lee based on the DOE Administrative Inquiry which stated that "Wen Ho Lee appears to have the opportunity, means and motivation" to compromise the W-88 information. Director Freeh is correct that the DOE inquiry stated this, but I would like to add that every time Lee's motive was discussed it came down to his ethnicity. There was no other motive ever suggested.

I would also like to note that the DOE inquiry was flawed because Lee did not have ready access to all of the W-88/Mark 5-reentry system or another US system that was similarly compromised. He would seem at best to be only one source of the complete leak. The FBI, of course, had no way of knowing this unless the DOE inquiry was a complete and rigorous investigation.

In spite of our reservations about the Kindred Spirit investigation, we cooperated fully with the FBI in all subsequent investigations involving Dr. Lee. From the day the FBI informed us that they intended to conduct an investigation into Dr. Lee, FBI representatives expressed similar reservations about the Kindred Spirit analysis. In my opinion, the FBI should not have accepted this case until certain issues were resolved. I am willing to elaborate on these issues in closed session if the committee desires.

As a result of serious questions about the DOE inquiry, the FBI did not assign an agent to this case on a full-time basis. It was added to one agent's already full caseload. The failure to aggressively resolve the allegations against Dr. Lee was a great source of frustration to Los Alamos Director Sig Hecker and me. On February 14, 1997 I had an acrimonious meeting with the FBI counterintelligence squad chief in Albuquerque, and he agreed to assign an agent to the investigation on a full-time basis. After this occurred we saw some progress on the case including a FISA request.

On October 15, 1997 that agent told me that he was going to work on the Peter H. Lee case and requested Los Alamos' assistance in the investigation. Once again, we had no agent assigned full time to the Wen Ho Lee case. That was the situation when I retired from Los Alamos on March 13, 1998.

On February 23, 1994, during an officially approved six-person Chinese delegation to Los Alamos, Dr. Lee met with a member of the delegation. This meeting occurred in the presence of all of the US and Chinese participants, however, and was reported in writing to the FBI by a US participant This document is classified but available to the committee from the author.

I was not aware that this meeting resulted in a FBI investigation until Director Freeh testified to that on September 26, 2000. For the record, let me state that this investigation occurred without any request for assistance from Los Alamos. We were not aware of any FBI interest in Dr. Lee until July 3, 1996.

We should not lionize Dr. Lee. He has much to answer for. On the other hand, he was not treated fairly. There are many examples, but I am most disturbed by the leaking of the investigation, along with his name, to the media. This single act destroyed the integrity of the investigation as well as adversely impacting Dr. Lee. As a result of this, I doubt if we will ever solve the mystery of how the Chinese obtained US nuclear weapons secrets.

Finally I am concerned about the collateral damage from the Lee case, particularly the adverse impact it has had on our nuclear weapons labs. Former Senator Howard Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton recently reported that the arbitrary security changes at the national labs has damaged morale, productivity and recruitment. In my opinion, this is all the more outrageous because the national labs have had and continue to have good security. If we look at what really counts, which are results not audits of paperwork and procedures, security at the labs has been better than all other government agencies. Results are reflected in the number of people in the last fifty years who were convicted, confessed to or fled the country to avoid prosecution for espionage. When we look at this by organization, the results reflect favorably on the DOE complex. We have two cases in the DOE and neither case involved the compromise of nuclear weapons information. During the same time period there were ten cases in the CIA, three in the FBI, seven in the NSA and over 80 in the DOD. When one considers that the DOE population is at least an order of magnitude larger than all but DOD, this record is impressive.

I believe that we must act quickly to repair the damage to our national labs so that the talent in the labs is available to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Capital Gang on Wen Ho Lee

2000-09-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

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.

Judge Scolds U.S. Over Case Tactics

2000-09-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

http://articles.latimes.com/2000/sep/14/news/mn-20908
By Bob Drogin
September 14, 2000 in print edition A-1

Wen Ho Lee walked out of court a free man Wednesday after a federal judge repeatedly apologized for incarcerating him for nine months without trial and angrily rebuked the Clinton administration for its handling of a case that “embarrassed this entire nation.”

In a morning marked by high drama, laughter and tears of joy, the former Los Alamos nuclear weapon scientist agreed in thickly accented English to a negotiated deal that brings an abrupt end to the highly controversial case.

Lee pleaded guilty to one felony charge of illegally retaining national defense information. He was sentenced to the 278 days he has served since his arrest. The government dismissed all 58 other counts, many of which carried life sentences.

“Next few days, I’m going fishing,” Lee declared with a broad grin on the mobbed courthouse steps after his release. His lawyer Mark Holscher called it “a sweet day indeed.”

In a sworn statement provided as part of the deal, Lee said for the first time that he did not intend to harm the United States when he downloaded classified nuclear weapon data onto an unsecured computer and portable tapes at Los Alamos and that he had not passed the tapes or their contents to anyone.

Lee, 60, also agreed to submit to intense debriefings by government investigators for 10 days over the next three weeks and further questioning if necessary over the next year to satisfy government concerns about why Lee created the tapes and what he did with them. Lee could face further prosecution if he fails to comply.

Norman Bay, U.S. attorney for New Mexico, called the resolution of the high-profile and highly controversial national security case “a favorable disposition for the government and a fair disposition for the defendant.”

But the court hearing was dominated by U.S. District Judge James A. Parker’s stunning summation, an emotion-charged monologue in which he repeatedly apologized to Lee and bitterly condemned government prosecutorial tactics.

Speaking in somber tones to a packed and hushed courtroom, Parker excoriated what he called the “top decision-makers in the executive branch.” He particularly criticized the White House, U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and the FBI for their roles in bringing the case.

“They have embarrassed this entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it,” Parker said.

The decision to prosecute Lee, he said, “was made at the highest levels of the executive branch in Washington, D.C.” He cited a meeting of senior Justice and Energy Department officials at the White House on Dec. 4, six days before Lee was indicted.

The executive branch, Parker warned, “has enormous power, the abuse of which can be devastating to our citizens.”

In contrast, Parker effusively praised Lee’s lawyers as “outstanding” and said that they would have provided a “formidable” defense had the case gone to trial.

“You turned a battleship in this case,” the judge told Lee’s lawyers from the bench.

Prosecutors sat stone-faced through much of Parker’s harsh scolding. The FBI’s chief investigator, Robert Messemer, whose recantation last month of his own testimony sharply undermined the prosecution’s case, scowled. Messemer, a beefy man with slicked-back hair, avoided reporters after the hearing.

An FBI source in Washington said that, while Messemer’s conduct in the case will be routinely reviewed, the agency seems to believe that his testimony “wasn’t that inaccurate” and it is doubtful he will be disciplined.

But Parker, who took over as chief federal judge in New Mexico this month, repeatedly said that the government “misled” him by exaggerating evidence against Lee in December when prosecutors insisted that the Taiwan-born scientist should be denied bail and held incommunicado in jail until his trial.

“Dr. Lee, I feel great sadness that I was led astray” during the December bail hearing, Parker said.

Parker, 63, also criticized John J. Kelly, the former U.S. attorney here, who quit in January to run for Congress. Before leaving, Kelly “personally argued vehemently against your release and persuaded me not to release you,” the judge told Lee.

“In hindsight, you should not have been held in custody,” he added.

Until recently, Lee spent his time in virtual solitary confinement in a Santa Fe jail. He was allowed to see his family one hour a week and to exercise alone one hour a day. He was shackled hand and foot even during those periods, however, as well as during his meetings with his lawyers.

Parker complained that the government moved much too slowly, despite his urgings, to ease the conditions of Lee’s confinement.

“Dr. Lee, you were terribly wronged by being held in pretrial custody in demeaning and unnecessarily punitive conditions,” Parker said. “I am truly sorry.”

Parker also questioned why the government ignored an offer by Lee’s lawyers, shortly before his indictment Dec. 10, for Lee to take a polygraph test at Los Alamos to answer questions about the tapes. Had they responded, the judge suggested, the last nine months might have been avoided.

“Nothing came of it, and I am saddened that nothing came of it,” Parker said.

But Parker called it “most perplexing” that the government, which repeatedly fought to keep Lee in jail, “should suddenly agree to release you” without any conditions. “This makes no sense to me.”

Lee’s family and supporters burst into loud applause when Parker dismissed the court–and closed the sensational case–shortly after 1 p.m. here. Many wept, hugged and cheered as they filed out into the blinding New Mexico sunshine.

The plea arrangement was hammered out last weekend after a series of secret sessions but nearly collapsed Monday shortly before the plea was to be filed and Lee was to go home.

In a case marked by agonizing cliffhangers, prosecutors insisted on additional concessions at the last minute, including a demand that Lee submit to government questions for more time than in the original proposed agreement.

The court-appointed mediator, U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edward Leavy, rushed to Albuquerque on Tuesday from his home in Portland, Ore., to negotiate a compromise. He met prosecutors and defense lawyers until nearly 3 a.m. Wednesday before the stalled deal was revived.

Lee will pay no fine or restitution under the agreement and is not subject to probation or supervision. He must get approval from the government if he wishes to travel abroad during the next year, but Leavy will mediate any disputes.

Lee arrived at his home in White Rock, a suburb of Los Alamos, at 5:30 p.m. local time to a tumultuous welcome from friends and supporters, as well as a crush of reporters and camera crews crowded around his simple wood-and-brick bungalow.

In a brief statement, Lee thanked his neighbors. “They made me very strong when I was in jail,” he said.

The first sign that Lee was going home came at 7:50 a.m., when defense attorney Holscher strode up the courthouse steps with a broad smile. “It’s a good morning, a very good morning,” he said.

But a 9 a.m. hearing was quickly postponed until 10, and that was pushed back another hour as lawyers drafted final wording of the deal. Lee, who wore a dark gray suit and a blue tie, appeared relaxed as he waved at friends and laughed with his lawyers. His wife, Sylvia, daughter, Alberta, and son, Chung, waited silently in the front row of the courtroom.

Finally, at 11:02, the silver-haired Parker entered the courtroom in his flowing black robes.

“I understand the parties have finally agreed,” he announced.

Lee raised his right hand, fingers splayed far apart, as he was sworn in beside his lawyers. For the next 90 minutes, the judge patiently explained the 10-page plea agreement, stopping every few minutes to ask Lee if he understood and agreed.

Although Lee has lived in the United States since the 1960s and is a naturalized U.S. citizen, he asked the judge to repeat himself several times or turned to his lawyers for a whispered explanation. “Now I understand, yes,” he then would answer.

As a convicted felon, Lee will lose the right to run for office, serve on a jury, possess a gun or vote.

“You’ll be giving up your right to cast a vote about what was done to you,” Parker told Lee. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Lee replied softly.

Finally, Lee read aloud his crime: “On a date certain in 1994, I used an unsecured computer in T-Division to download a document or writing relating to the national defense,” he began.

Lee said he knew at the time that possession of the tape outside the X-Division, the lab’s top-secret weapon design area, was unauthorized and violated lab directives. He said he kept the tape and never returned it to the lab.

“How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?” the judge finally asked at 11:58 a.m.

“Guilty,” Lee said firmly, leaning forward into the microphone. A tiny man, he stood a full head shorter than his attorneys and appeared an unlikely subject of such intense attention.

If convicted in court of the same crime, Lee could have been sentenced to 10 years in jail, a $250,000 fine and mandatory three years’ probation.

Except for an interview on CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes” in August 1999, Lee had not spoken publicly before. An anonymous scientist in the secret world of nuclear weapons, Lee exploded into the nation’s headlines in March 1999, when he was identified as the target of an FBI investigation into Chinese espionage. Photos of his arrest, when he was escorted away by burly FBI agents, were shown again and again.

The case created a political firestorm on Capitol Hill, where Republican critics accused the Clinton administration of ignoring nuclear theft to soothe relations with Beijing. In the end, the FBI admitted that it had no evidence that Lee was a spy and he was not charged with espionage.

But he was indicted Dec. 10 for allegedly downloading the files. From the start, the government said that it was most concerned about recovering seven tapes that Lee had created. Lee insisted that they were destroyed but offered no proof.

Under the agreement, Lee agreed to provide a “truthful written declaration, under penalty of perjury, stating the manner in which he disposed of the seven tapes.” The statement was turned over to the government, but was not released.

The chief prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Atty. George Stamboulidis, defended the agreement, since it prevents disclosure of national secrets in open court.

Even if Lee were convicted of all charges at trial, Stamboulidis added, he “might go to prison for a very long time, but we might never learn what happened to those tapes.”

When the judge asked why the government suddenly was willing to accept Lee’s word, after challenging his veracity for months, Stamboulidis replied that Lee would face “a whole world of horribles” through further prosecution if he failed to cooperate.

In Washington, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh defended the bureau’s actions in the Lee case and insisted that the most important result–protecting the nation’s secrets–has been realized.

In a statement, Freeh said that the plea agreement “provides the opportunity to determine what in fact happened to the nuclear design and source codes that Dr. Lee unlawfully and criminally downloaded, copied and removed from Los Alamos.”

Freeh said the data Lee took “represents the fruits of hundreds of billions of dollars of investment by the United States.”

Had they gone to trial, Freeh said, the government was prepared to prove that Lee sought to conceal what he had done, “and to destroy the electronic footprints left by the transfer and downloading process.”

He added: “The government was prepared to prove that, after the existence of the investigation became known, efforts were made by Dr. Lee to delete files that had been manipulated into unclassified systems” and “that there were many attempts–some in the middle of the night–to regain access to the classified systems even after access had been formally revoked by Los Alamos.”

“Determining what happened to the tapes has always been paramount to prosecution,” Freeh added. “The safety of the nation demands that we take this important step.”

Freeh did not mention Judge Parker’s scolding in his statement.

Reno said that she and Freeh “shoulder the awesome responsibility of protecting national security” and added that the terms of the plea will allow investigators to find out what happened to Lee’s tapes. “This is an agreement that is in the best interest of our national security in that it gives us our best chance to find out what happened to the tapes.”

Related Articles

* Clinton Criticizes Justice Dept. Over Wen Ho Lee Case Sep 15, 2000
* Lee’s Detention Ran Counter to U.S. Values, Clinton Says Sep 16, 2000
* Attorney in Los Alamos Case Quits Jan 04, 2000
* Scientist’s Attorneys Want Seized Evidence Suppressed Apr 18, 2000
* Prosecutors Fight Bid by Jailed Scientist May 25, 2000
* Reno, Freeh Insist Wen Ho Lee Posed ‘Great Risk’ to U.S. Sep 27, 2000

Clinton's Remarks

2000-09-14T07:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/whl_clinton.html
POTUS REMARKS UPON DEPARTURE ON PATIENTS BILL OF RIGHTS
September 14, 2000

[...]

Q Mr. President, could you take a question? I was wondering, Mr. President, if you share the embarrassment that was expressed yesterday by the federal judge in New Mexico about the treatment of Wen Ho Lee during his year of confinement under federal authorities?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I always had reservations about the claims that were being made denying him bail. And let me say -- I think I speak for everyone in the White House -- we took those claims on good faith by the people in the government that were making them, and a couple days after they made the claim that this man could not possibly be let out of jail on bail because he would be such a danger -- of flight, or such a danger to America's security -- all of a sudden they reach a plea agreement which will, if anything, make his alleged defense look modest compared to the claims that were made against him.

So the whole thing was quite troubling to me, and I think it's very difficult to reconcile the two positions, that one day he's a terrible risk to the national security, and the next day they're making a plea agreement for an offense far more modest than what had been alleged.

Now, I do hope that, as part of that plea agreement, he will help them to reconstitute the missing files, because that's what really important to our national security, and we will find out eventually what, if any, use was made of them by him or anybody else who got a hold of them.

But I think what should be disturbing to the American people -- we ought not to keep people in jail without bail, unless there's some real profound reason. And to keep someone in jail without bail, argue right up to the 11th hour that they're a terrible risk, and then turn around and make that sort of plea agreement -- it may be that the plea agreement is the right and just thing, and I have absolutely no doubt that the people who were investigating and pursuing this case believe they were doing the right thing for the nation's security -- but 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. It just can't be justified, and I don't believe it can be, and so I, too, am quite troubled by it.

Q -- clemency here? Are you thinking in terms of clemency for him, for Wen Ho Lee?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'd have to look at that. It depends on, if he's in fact -- he has said he's going to plead guilty to an offense which is not insubstantial, but it's certainly a bailable offense, and it means he spent a lot of time in prison that any ordinary American wouldn't have, and that bothers me.

[...]

Flawed Case against Dr. Lee

2000-09-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

http://articles.latimes.com/2000/sep/13/news/mn-20151
How FBI's Flawed Case Against Lee Unraveled
Investigators pursued questionable tactics in their zeal to prosecute a Los Alamos scientist as a spy. Careers are ruined, and still no one knows how China obtained nuclear secrets.
By BOB DROGIN, Times Staff Writer

Key Players in the Lee Case
Wen Ho Lee: Former computer scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, indicted for downloading vast library of data on U.S. nuclear weapon design.

Notra Trulock III: Former head of counterintelligence at Energy Department, one of first government officials to identify Lee as a suspect in espionage investigation.

Bill Richardson: U.S. Energy secretary, pushed for Lee's prosecu-tion based on limited evidence, came under criticism in Congress for security lapses at Los Alamos.

Other Players
James A. Parker: U.S. district judge in Albuquerque, called attention to weaknesses in government's case against Lee and reversed earlier decision to deny bail.

Robert Messemer: The FBI's chief investigator in the Lee case, publicly recanted earlier testimony in which he had accused Lee of acting in a deceptive manner.

Robert Vrooman: Former head of counterintelligence at Los Alamos, Energy Department whistle-blower who said Lee was targeted because of his ethnicity.

WASHINGTON--Early last year, Wen Ho Lee walked from his cluttered sixth-floor office at the Los Alamos National Laboratory down to a first-floor conference room. A fellow nuclear weapon scientist and two FBI agents then grilled him until nearly nightfall.

In halting English, the Taiwan-born Lee repeatedly denied--as he had in 19 previous sessions with the FBI--that he ever gave design secrets about America's most sophisticated nuclear warhead to China or anyone else.

"At the end, everyone was convinced he was not a spy," recalled Robert Vrooman, then head of counterintelligence at Los Alamos, who listened to the previously undisclosed meeting from another room. "We all concluded there was no evidence. We figured we'd put this puppy to bed."

But the next day, an FBI agent with the unlikely name of Carol Covert was called into the bureau's Santa Fe, N.M., office and ordered to take a special FBI crash course in "hostile interviews."

A day later, Covert and fellow FBI agent John Podenko sat across from Lee. They said--falsely--that Lee had failed a polygraph test. Then they angrily warned him that, unless he cooperated, he might never see his children again and could be "electrocuted."

Finally, the two agents pulled out a piece of paper and demanded that Lee sign a full confession of espionage--a crime that carries the death penalty--without a lawyer present. Lee had not even retained a lawyer at the time.

"Poor bastard, he didn't understand," said an official who has seen the FBI-drafted confession. "He kept crossing things out and trying to correct it. He was trying to help them. He still didn't get what was happening."

Lee learned soon enough. He was fired from Los Alamos the next day, March 8, 1999, and news accounts branded him the "spy of the century." The shy scientist, an expert in the arcane physics of fluid dynamics and the elegant art of Chinese cooking, soon became ensnared in a legal and political nightmare.

Lee, now 60, has spent the last 277 days in jail, under conditions usually reserved for convicted terrorists or spies. He hopes to go home today if his lawyers and federal prosecutors can agree during a scheduled court hearing in Albuquerque on a proposed plea arrangement. He would plead guilty to one felony charge under the deal, which would bring an embarrassing close to one of the most important national security cases since the Cold War.

Why did the government proceed with what now appears a seriously flawed prosecution? Not all the answers are known. But investigators' zeal to catch a spy, fueled by sensational press reports, near-hysteria by some members of Congress and a U.S. attorney in New Mexico who sought to secure an indictment before he retired to run for Congress created a structure that was shaky from the start--and that quickly began to crumble.

What is clear is that in the wake of the inquiry, morale at the lab is a shambles, careers and lives have been ruined and the government is no closer today than when it started in determining how China obtained secrets on U.S. nuclear weapons.

Case Stems From Warhead Inquiry
The case began in 1996 as "Kindred Spirit," a three-year FBI investigation into China's alleged theft of America's W-88 warhead secrets from Los Alamos. Last year, when no such evidence was found linking Lee or Los Alamos to Chinese espionage, a new inquiry--ironically code-named "Sea Change"--was launched.

The result: Lee was indicted on 59 charges and arrested last Dec. 10 for allegedly transferring top-secret nuclear weapon data to unsecured computers and portable tapes at Los Alamos. Thirty-nine of the charges, all carrying life sentences, alleged that Lee acted with intent to harm the United States and to aid a foreign power. Seven of the tapes could not be located, despite what the FBI said was one of the largest searches in its history. Lee's lawyers claimed that he destroyed the tapes but offered no proof.

Problems quickly arose in the FBI inquiry.

The weapon data were not formally classified when Lee copied them. Even now, the material is classified "secret restricted data," which means under Energy Department regulations that it may be mailed through the U.S. Postal Service. And many senior scientists openly dispute the government's contention that the missing data represent America's "crown jewels."

Nor was the FBI investigation as complete as claimed.

Agents repeatedly argued after Lee's arrest that he should be held incommunicado in jail. One agent ominously warned that Lee might pass a coded message, such as "the fish are biting" or "Uncle Wen says hello," that could endanger national security.

But the FBI's concern was new: It did not wiretap Lee's home telephones during the nine months between the discovery that the scientist had created the tapes and his arrest. Lee made hundreds of unmonitored calls.

FBI tactics also came into question. On Feb. 10, 1999, an FBI polygrapher repeatedly asked Lee about highly classified nuclear weapon designs--and required him to draw detailed diagrams--in an unsecured hotel room in Albuquerque. In theory, Lee broke the law by answering. His drawings are still classified.

Lawyers Describe Lee as Bumbling, Naive
On the other hand, Lee's actions remain a mystery. Why did he devote 40 hours to downloading the equivalent of 400,000 pages of nuclear data from the lab's classified computers? Why did he repeatedly try to enter a classified area after his security clearance was revoked--once at 3:30 a.m. on Christmas Eve?

Lee's lawyers depict him as bumbling and naive, a pack rat who lived in a rarefied world where complex nuclear equations lead to weapons of mass destruction. As for the plea, one lawyer said: "He doesn't know the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony."

If Lee had evil intent, his defenders ask, why did he leave the files in open view on the lab's unclassified system for six years? Why did he call the lab's computer help desk for aid in moving and later deleting the files?

"He's clueless," said Lee's 26-year-old daughter, Alberta. A longtime colleague said that Lee "is an absolute genius. Or a moron. Take your pick. He's a totally focused scientist."

For its part, the FBI said it is satisfied with the proposed plea agreement hammered out last weekend by defense and prosecution lawyers. Barring further delays, Lee is expected to plead guilty today to one charge of unlawful retention of national defense information, a felony. All 58 other charges will be dropped, and no fine, probation or other penalty will be imposed.

Lee, in turn, must agree to debrief the FBI over the next two weeks, take polygraph tests if necessary, and answer questions over the next six months, especially about why he made the tapes and what he did with them. It will be Lee's first meeting with the FBI since agents tried to persuade him to confess to a capital crime.

"It's breathtaking," said Steven Aftergood, a senior analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit group founded by veterans of the original Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. "It's a dramatic reversal. One feels relieved for Wen Ho Lee. But it's disgraceful that a man spent nine months in solitary confinement without being convicted of a crime."

In a statement issued Monday--before an unexplained snag delayed filing of the plea agreement--the FBI said that it had achieved its goal by "securing the full cooperation of Mr. Lee."

The FBI also said the indictment followed "repeated requests" for Lee to explain what he did with the tapes. "None was forthcoming. The indictment followed substantial evidence that the tapes were clandestinely made and removed from Los Alamos, but no evidence or assistance [exists] that resolved the missing tape dilemma."

Actually, Lee's lawyers sent letters to the Justice Department shortly before he was indicted, specifically offering to let him take a polygraph test to answer questions about the tapes. The offer was ignored.

So was Vrooman. In early 1999, he and several colleagues repeatedly testified in closed-door sessions before the House and Senate Intelligence committees and several investigative review boards. Their message: No espionage had occurred and Lee had been unfairly targeted because he is Chinese American.

"I was trying to do it within the system," Vrooman said.

Energy Department Issues Reprimands
But the Energy Department clamped down. On Aug. 12, 1999, after Vrooman had retired from Los Alamos, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson issued reprimands to Vrooman and two colleagues at the lab for allegedly failing to assist the FBI in its pursuit of Chinese espionage.

Vrooman was barred from being a consultant for the department for five years. Another counterintelligence official at the lab, who also was disciplined, quit.

Angry at what he viewed as a cover-up, Vrooman went public. His complaints about racial profiling and what he called a complete lack of evidence against Lee were the first indications that the case was seriously amiss.

But Notra Trulock III, then director of counterintelligence at the Energy Department, continued to insist that a Chinese spy had looted Los Alamos and that Lee was the only suspect. Trulock was a self-described "knuckle-dragger," a hard-charging ideologue with little patience for those who did not agree with him.

Trulock found powerful allies in Congress, where Republican leaders urged members to use the Lee case to excoriate the Clinton administration for lax security in the face of wholesale nuclear theft. Heated hearings and lurid reports dominated news reports for weeks.

But many colleagues who knew Trulock best had little respect for his views.

One of them, Charles E. Washington, who worked for Trulock as acting director of counterintelligence and is now a senior policy analyst at the Energy Department, said in a sworn affidavit filed on Lee's behalf that Trulock "acts vindictively and opportunistically, that he improperly uses security issues to punish and discredit others and that he has racist views toward minority groups."

In a telephone interview, Washington said that he once was forced to call outside police to the Energy Department headquarters "due to Mr. Trulock's abusive behavior" during an argument. "He spat on me," he said.

Washington, who is black, filed a federal discrimination lawsuit as a result. The Energy Department settled the case last year, giving Washington a pay raise, a cash award, restoration of leave and other incentives.

Trulock could not be reached for comment. He quit the Energy Department last year after complaining that the Clinton administration was trying to whitewash Chinese espionage. Ironically, the FBI is now investigating Trulock for attempting to sell an article on the Lee case that allegedly contained classified information.

Key Witness Turns Into Weakest Link
Other careers also have been severely tarnished.

Notable among them: Robert Messemer, the FBI's chief investigator in the Lee case and a specialist in Chinese counterintelligence. Known to colleagues as "Stealth" for his crafty ways, Messemer was intended to be the key government witness against Lee.

Instead, he became the prosecution's weakest link.

During a mid-August bail hearing for Lee, Messemer admitted from the stand that his previous testimony was wrong when he said repeatedly that Lee had lied and sought to hide his actions when he copied the weapon files and created the tapes.

One of Lee's colleagues had told the FBI that Lee had asked for password access to his computer to download some files or data. Messemer interviewed the scientist, Kuok-Mee Ling, at least six times and reviewed transcripts of his other statements. Messemer nonetheless had testified falsely to two judges on three occasions that Lee had lied to Ling by saying that he wanted to download a "resume."

Messemer also acknowledged that, despite his testimony last December and despite a prosecution document filed with the court in June, the FBI had no evidence to show that Lee had applied for jobs at six academic or nuclear institutes overseas. Prosecutors had argued that Lee might have created the tapes to enhance his job prospects.

U.S. District Judge James A. Parker cited Messemer's claims when he denied Lee bail in December.

Messemer's public humiliation was a bombshell. It not only left the government with no hard evidence of a motive for Lee's action, it now had a crucial witness with a severe credibility problem--and a federal judge openly skeptical of prosecution claims.

"You should not have 'oops' in your vocabulary if you're a government witness in an important case or a brain surgeon," said John L. Martin, who prosecuted and won every government espionage case for 26 years until he retired from the Justice Department in 1997.

"One of the biggest problems I had was keeping the shenanigans and skulduggery that go on in investigations from reaching the courtroom," Martin added. "That's the problem here. And the case suffered as a result."

Case Is Called a 'Great Civics Lesson'
Martin called the Lee case a "great civics lesson," especially for the FBI and the Energy Department. With reports of ineptitude and over-reaching, both were badly scarred in the push for prosecution.

"Now they realize that, in order to take one of these cases, they've got to back up in court what they say publicly," Martin said. "They painted this as a devastating case. They alleged terrible things before they indicted him. Then they couldn't back up those sensational allegations."

Among those who had pushed hardest behind the scenes for prosecution of Lee was John J. Kelly, then U.S. attorney in New Mexico, and his Democratic mentor, Energy Secretary Richardson, a former member of Congress from New Mexico. Kelly quit his post to run for Congress three weeks after Lee was indicted.

Kelly defended his actions this week from the courthouse steps in Albuquerque. "I thought it was a good indictment then, and I think events have shown that Dr. Lee has taken material that he should not have," he told reporters. "The government is going to learn in the next week or so where the tapes are. I think that's good."

Richardson had a cautious response. "The issue here is, are we getting the tapes back," he said Monday at a news conference at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. "I think that is the key. The plea bargain enables us to get that information."

Lee's lawyer Mark Holscher and the chief prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Atty. George Stamboulidis, met to discuss a settlement on Aug. 25, a day after Judge Parker had agreed to let Lee go home on $1-million bond. After hearing Messemer admit inaccurate testimony and defense experts challenge the significance of the missing tapes, Parker ruled that the evidence against Lee no longer had the "requisite clarity" to justify continued incarceration.

Government Gets Hit Again and Again
"What the government described in December 1999 as the 'crown jewels' of the United States nuclear weapons program no longer is so clearly deserving of that label," the judge added. It was a stunning blow to the prosecution.

Parker then walloped the government again.

He unexpectedly ordered federal prosecutors to give him thousands of pages of internal documents from the FBI, CIA, Energy Department, Justice Department and other government agencies by this Friday. Defense lawyers had argued that the documents would show Lee was unfairly targeted for prosecution because he is ethnic Chinese.

"I think they didn't want that scrutiny," one of Lee's lawyers said. The proposed plea arrangement specifically ends that demand for documents.

Some Feared Secrets Would Air in Court
Senior Energy Department officials had another worry: that Parker would order the government to let Lee's lawyers reveal nuclear secrets and other classified information in court as they defended their client.

Other than the FBI statement, few government officials were willing to be quoted amid the debris of the Lee case this week.

An Energy Department spokesman insisted that no one, including himself, was allowed to speak on the record or even to be identified as working for the department. A Justice Department spokesman insisted on similar restrictions.

At Los Alamos, the nation's premier nuclear weapon facility, the news that Lee might go home was greeted with relief by what one official called the "nuclear priesthood."

Collateral damage from the Lee case, after more than a year of public criticism, has devastated the lab: Morale and production have plummeted, recruitment has dropped and attrition of senior scientists and engineers has surged.

Relations with the FBI, which must work with the lab to investigate espionage and nuclear terrorism, have almost ground to a halt.

"I hope that resolving this will allow better public recognition of the major contributions the laboratory makes to scientific progress and national security, instead of continued focus on the misdeeds of a single ex-employee," said John C. Brown, the lab director. He called the last 18 months "probably . . . the most difficult period in Los Alamos history."

There is a final casualty in the Lee case: Carol Covert, the FBI agent who gave Lee the "hostile interview" and demanded that he confess to spying.

The FBI this week refused to let a reporter talk to Covert, but Vrooman, a close friend, said she was so upset after conducting the interview that she took three months' sick leave and transferred out of the Santa Fe office.

"She was distraught," Vrooman said. "She didn't believe Lee was guilty."

Judge Parker's Apology

2000-09-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

Full Text of Remarks of Judge James A. Parker, U.S. District Court, New Mexico at Wen Ho Lee's plea hearing.

Dr. Lee, you have pled guilty to a serious crime. It's a felony offense. For that, you deserved to be punished. In my opinion, you have been punished harshly, both by the severe conditions of pretrial confinement and by the fact that you have lost valuable rights as a citizen.

Under the laws of our country, a person charged in federal court with commission of a crime normally is entitled to be released from jail until that person is tried and convicted. Congress expressed in the Bail Reform Act its distinct preference for pretrial release from jail and prescribed that release on conditions be denied to a person charged with a crime only in exceptional circumstances.

The Executive Branch of the United States Government has until today actually, or just recently, vigorously opposed your release from jail, even under what I had previously described as Draconian conditions of release. During December 1999, the then-United States Attorney, who has since resigned, and his Assistants presented me, during the three-day hearing between Christmas and New Year's Day, with information that was so extreme it convinced me that releasing you, even under the most stringent of conditions, would be a danger to the safety of this nation.

The then-United States Attorney personally argued vehemently against your release and ultimately persuaded me not to release you. In my opinion and order that was entered Dec. 30, 1999, I stated the following: "With a great deal of concern about the conditions under which Dr. Lee is presently being held in custody, which is in solitary confinement all but one hour of the week, when he is permitted to visited his family, the Court finds, based on the record before it, that the government has shown by clear and convincing evidence that there is no combination of conditions of release that would reasonably assure the safety of any other person and the community or the nation."

After stating that in the opinion, I made this request in the opinion right at the end: "Although the Court concludes that Dr. Lee must remain in custody, the Court urges the government attorneys to explore ways to lessen the severe restrictions currently imposed upon Dr. Lee while preserving the security of sensitive information."

I was very disappointed that my request was not promptly heeded by the government attorneys.

After December, your lawyers developed information that was not available to you or them during December. And I ordered the Executive Branch of the government to provide additional information that I reviewed, a lot of which you and your attorneys have not seen.

With more complete, balanced information before me, I felt the picture had changed significantly from that painted by the government during the December hearing. Hence, after the August hearing, I ordered your release despite the continued argument by the Executive Branch, through its government attorneys, that your release still presented an unacceptable extreme danger.

I find it most perplexing, although appropriate, that the Executive Branch today has suddenly agreed to your release without any significant conditions or restrictions whatsoever on your activities. I note that this has occurred shortly before the Executive Branch was to have produced, for my review in camera, a large volume of information that I previously ordered it to produce.

From the beginning, the focus of this case was on your motive or intent in taking the information from the secure computers and eventually downloading it on to tapes. There was never really any dispute about your having done that, only about why you did it.

What I believe remains unanswered is the question: What was the government's motive in insisting on your being jailed pretrial under extraordinarily onerous conditions of confinement until today, when the Executive Branch agrees that you may be set free essentially unrestricted? This makes no sense to me.

A corollary question I guess is: Why were you charged with the many Atomic Energy Act counts for which the penalty is life imprisonment, all of which the Executive Branch has now moved to dismiss and which I just dismissed?

During the proceedings in this case, I was told two things: first, the decision to prosecute you was made at the highest levels of the Executive Branch of the United States government in Washington, D.C.

With respect to that, I quote from a transcript of the August 15, 2000, hearing, where I asked this question. This was asked of Dr. Lee's lawyers. "Who do you contend made the decision to prosecute?" Mr. (Mark) Holscher responded, "We know that the decision was made at the highest levels in Washington. We know that there was a meeting at the White House the Saturday before the indictment, which was attended by the heads of a number of agencies. I believe the number two and number three persons in the Department of Justice were present. I don't know if the Attorney General herself was present. "It was actually held at the White House rather than the Department of Justice, which is, in our view, unusual circumstances for a meeting." That statement by Mr. Holscher was not challenged.

The second thing that I was told was that the decision to prosecute you on the 39 Atomic Energy Act, each of which had life imprisonment as a penalty, was made personally by the President's Attorney General. In that respect, I will quote one of the Assistant U.S. Attorneys, a very fine attorney in this case -- this was also at the August 15 hearing. This is talking about materials that I ordered to be produced in connection with Dr. Lee's motion relating to selective prosecution.

The first category of materials involved the January 2000 report by the Department of Energy Task Force on racial profiling. "How would that in any way disclose prosecutorial strategy?" Miss (Laura) Fashing responded, "That I think falls more into the category of being burdensome on the government. I mean if the government -- if we step back for just a second -- I mean the prosecution decision and the investigation in this case, the investigation was conducted by the FBI, referred to the United States Attorney's Office, and then the United States Attorney's Office, in conjunction with -- well, actually the Attorney General, Janet Reno, made the ultimate decision on the Atomic Energy Act counts."

Dr. Lee, you're a citizen of the United States and so am I, but there is a difference between us. You had to study the Constitution of the United States to become a citizen. Most of us are citizens by reason of the simple serendipitous fact of our birth here. So what I am now about to explain to you, you probably already know from having studied it, but I will explain it anyway.

Under the Constitution of the United States, there are three branches of government. There is the Executive Branch, of which the President of the United States is the head. Next to him is the Vice-president of the United States. The President operates the Executive Branch with his cabinet, which is composed of secretaries or heads of the different departments of the Executive Branch. The Vice-president participates in cabinet meetings.

In this prosecution, the more important members of the President's cabinet were the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Department of Energy, both of whom were appointed to their positions by the President. The Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice, which despite its title, is a part of the Executive Branch, not a part of the Judicial Branch of our government. The United States Marshal Service, which was charged with overseeing your pretrial detention, also is a part of the Executive Branch, not the Judicial Branch. The Executive Branch has enormous power, the abuse of which can be devastating to our citizens.

The second branch of our national government is the Legislative Branch, our Congress. Congress promulgated the laws under which you were prosecuted, the criminal statutes. And it also promulgated the Bail Reform Act, under which in hindsight you should not have been held in custody.

The Judicial Branch of government, of which I am a member, is called the Third Branch of government because it's described in Article III of our Constitution. Judges must interpret the laws and must preside over criminal prosecutions brought by the Executive Branch.

Since I am not a member of the Executive Branch, I cannot speak on behalf of the President of the United States, the Vice-president of the United States, their Attorney General, their Secretary of the Department of Energy or their former United States Attorney in this District, who vigorously insisted that you had to be kept in jail under extreme restrictions because your release pretrial would pose a grave threat to our nation's security.

I want everyone to know that I agree, based on the information that so far has been made available to me, that you, Dr. Lee, faced some risk of conviction by a jury if you were to have proceeded to trial. Because of that, I decided to accept the agreement you made with the United States Executive Branch under Rule 11(e) (1) (C) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Further, I feel that the 278 days of confinement for your offense is not unjust; however, I believe you were terribly wronged by being held in custody pretrial in the Santa Fe County Detention Center under demeaning, unnecessarily punitive conditions.

I am truly sorry that I was led by our Executive Branch of government to order your detention last December. Dr. Lee, I tell you with great sadness that I feel I was led astray last December by the Executive Branch of our government through its Department of Justice, by its Federal Bureau of Investigation and by its United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, who held the office at that time.

I am sad for you and your family because of the way in which you were kept in custody while you were presumed under the law to be innocent of the charges the Executive Branch brought against you.

I am sad that I was induced in December to order your detention, since by the terms of the plea agreement that frees you today without conditions, it becomes clear that the Executive Branch now concedes, or should concede, that it was not necessary to confine you last December or at any time before your trial.

I am sad because the resolution of this case drug on unnecessarily long. Before the Executive Branch obtained your indictment on the 59 charges last December, your attorney, Mr. Holscher, made a written offer to the Office of the United States Attorney to have you explain the missing tapes under polygraph examination.

I'll read from that letter of December 10, 1999. I quote from that letter: "Dear United States Attorney Kelly and First Assistant Gorence, "I write to accept Mr. Kelly's request that we provide them with additional credible and verifiable information which will prove that Dr. Lee is innocent.

"On the afternoon of Wednesday, December 8th, Mr. Kelly informed me that it was very likely that Dr. Lee will be indicted within the next three to four business days. In our phone conversation, Mr. Kelly told me that the only way that we could prevent this indictment would be to provide a credible and verifiable explanation of what he described as missing tapes.

"We will immediately provide this credible and verifiable explanation. Specifically we are prepared to make Dr. Lee immediately available to a mutually agreeable polygraph examiner to verify our repeated written representations that at no time did he mishandle those tapes in question and to confirm that he did not provide the tapes to any third party.

"As a sign of our good faith, we will agree to submit Dr. Lee to the type of polygraph examination procedure that has recently been instituted at the Los Alamos Laboratory to question scientists. It is our understanding that the government has reaffirmed that this new polygraph procedure is the best and most accurate way to verify that scientists are properly handling classified information."

At the inception of the December hearing, I asked the parties to pursue that offer made by Mr. Holscher on behalf of Dr. Lee, but that was to no avail.

MR. (George) STAMBOULIDIS, (assistant U.S. attorney): Your Honor, most respectfully I take issue with that. There has been a full record of letters that were sent back and forth to you, and Mr. Holscher withdrew that offer.

THE COURT: Nothing came of it, and I was saddened by the fact that nothing came of it. I did read the letters that were sent and exchanged. I think I commented one time that I think both sides prepared their letters primarily for use by the media and not by me. Notwithstanding that, I thought my request was not taken seriously into consideration.

Let me turn for the moment to something else. Although I have indicated that I am sorry that I was led by the Executive Branch to order your detention last December, I want to make a clarification here.

In fairness, I must note that virtually all of the lawyers who work for the Department of Justice are honest, honorable, dedicated people, who exemplify the best of those who represent our federal government.

Your attorney, Mr. Holscher, formerly was an Assistant United States Attorney. The new United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico, Mr. Norman Bay, and the many Assistant United States Attorneys here in New Mexico -- and I include in this Mr. Stamboulidis and Mr. Liebman, who are present here today -- have toiled long hours on this case in opposition to you. They are all outstanding members of the Bar, and I have the highest regard for all of them.

It is only the top decision makers in the Executive Branch, especially the Department of Justice and the Department of Energy and locally, during December, who have caused embarrassment by the way this case began and was handled. They did not embarrass me alone. They have embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it.

I might say that I am also sad and troubled because I do not know the real reasons why the Executive Branch has done all of this. We will not learn why because the plea agreement shields the Executive Branch from disclosing a lot of information that it was under order to produce that might have supplied the answer.

Although, as I indicated, I have no authority to speak on behalf of the Executive Branch, the President, the Vice-president, the Attorney General, or the Secretary of the Department of Energy, as a member of the Third Branch of the United States Government, the Judiciary, the United States Courts, I sincerely apologize to you, Dr. Lee, for the unfair manner you were held in custody by the Executive Branch.

Court will be in recess.

Science Academies Decry Lee’s Treatment

2000-09-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

http://articles.latimes.com/2000/sep/01/news/mn-13821
By Bob Drogin
September 01, 2000 in print edition A-1

In an apparently unprecedented move, the nation’s three most prestigious scientific academies Thursday publicly protested the government’s incarceration of Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, complaining that Lee “appears to be a victim of unjust treatment” and that his case “reflects poorly on the U.S. justice system.”

The criticism was aired in an open letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and was signed by the presidents of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine.

The complaint marks the first known case in which the three congressionally chartered academies have intervened on behalf of an American scientist, officials said. Over the last 25 years, the three institutions have written hundreds of letters and appeals to the former Soviet Union, China, Iran and other authoritarian governments to protest mistreatment of scientists who were unjustly detained or imprisoned.

In Lee’s case, the presidents of the academies wrote, their concerns and questions “are identical to those that our Committee on Human Rights regularly poses to foreign governments.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, Asian American groups and other scientific organizations have voiced similar complaints since Lee was jailed under unusually harsh conditions in December for allegedly copying a vast trove of nuclear weapon secrets from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

But the prominence and credibility of the national academies raise the criticism to a new level. The 4,800 members of the three institutions are elected by their peers and are mandated by Congress to provide independent advice to the federal government on issues of science and technology.

In their letter, the presidents of the academies do not claim that Lee is innocent. But they argue “inaccurate and detrimental testimony by government officials resulted in Dr. Lee needlessly spending eight months in prison under harsh and questionable conditions of confinement.”

“We also urge that those responsible for any injustice that he has suffered be held accountable,” they added. “Even more importantly, perhaps, we urge that safeguards be put in place to ensure that, in future, others do not suffer the same plight.”

The two-page letter was signed by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, William Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering, and Kenneth I. Shine, president of the Institute of Medicine.

‘An Outrageous Situation’

“I wouldn’t want our letter in any way to diminish the seriousness of what Dr. Lee apparently did,” Wulf said in a telephone interview from Washington. “But that doesn’t justify treating him the way they’ve treated him … this is a small step to rectify what we consider an outrageous situation.”

Carole Florman, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department in Washington, said the letter had just been received and she would not comment on it.

Lee, 60, may be released on $1-million property bond under a strict form of house arrest as early as today. More than a dozen FBI agents searched Lee’s family home and cars Thursday in White Rock, a Los Alamos suburb, starting at 9 a.m. and lasting throughout the day, in anticipation of his release. Police blocked the street to keep reporters away.

Lee’s lawyers separately removed a fax machine, wireless phones and other communication equipment, as required by the judge. Once released, Lee will be banned from leaving his house and backyard garden, and from speaking to anyone except his lawyers, his wife and two grown children, and two neighbors who will act as court-appointed custodians. Lee also will wear an electronic bracelet to monitor his movements.

But John Cline, one of Lee’s lawyers, said he expects federal prosecutors to seek a delay today to give the government time to appeal Lee’s release to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. The U.S. attorney’s office in Albuquerque did not return repeated calls for comment.

U.S. District Judge James A. Parker ruled Aug. 24 that he would grant bail to Lee. At a hearing Tuesday, Parker said he gave the government until noon today to appeal. But Parker only released his order in classified form late Thursday, meaning it can’t be made public until the government declassifies it. That raised doubts that Lee would go home today as expected.

“We need time to look at the judge’s order to seek a stay, if we decide that’s the appropriate thing to do,” said Florman, the Justice Department spokeswoman.

The latest development comes amid growing indications that the government case against Lee is unraveling.

On Tuesday, Parker ordered prosecutors to produce thousands of pages of internal government documents to help him determine if Lee was improperly singled out for prosecution because he was born in Taiwan. Lee became a U.S. citizen before he joined the nuclear weapon design division at Los Alamos 20 years ago.

Parker will examine the documents, due Sept. 15, before deciding whether to give them to Lee’s lawyers. But the ruling was the first indication that Parker has found grounds to consider defense claims that Lee was unfairly targeted for prosecution due to his ethnicity and not on the evidence then available.

Some of the current government evidence is also now in question. During a hearing in mid-August, the FBI lead investigator, Robert Messemer, recanted several crucial parts of his earlier testimony against Lee. Parker had cited Messemer’s claims when he initially denied bail to Lee in December.

Lee was fired from Los Alamos for security violations in March 1999 after he was publicly identified as the sole target of a three-year investigation into alleged Chinese espionage. The FBI has since said it has no evidence that Lee was a spy.

But Lee was indicted and arrested in December on 59 felony counts after the FBI alleged that he had copied decades’ worth of nuclear weapon design data onto an unsecured computer network at Los Alamos and onto portable computer tapes in 1993, 1994 and 1997.

Despite a worldwide search, the FBI has not located seven of those tapes. Lee’s lawyers insist he destroyed them but have not said when or how. The significance of the seven tapes is now a matter of sharp dispute.

Government witnesses have warned that the tapes contain nuclear secrets so sensitive that they could change the global strategic balance. But in the mid-August hearing, weapon experts called by the defense ridiculed that claim and insisted that 99% of the data already is public.

Although Lee was not charged with espionage, he was jailed under conditions usually reserved for convicted spies and terrorists. Until recently, he was kept in his cell 23 hours a day, and his hands and feet were shackled even during exercise periods. FBI agents monitored Lee’s once-a-week visits from his wife and children.

Newly released unclassified transcripts of closed-door hearings before Judge Parker during Lee’s bail hearing in December show that Messemer, the FBI agent, warned that if Lee still had the 6-year-old tapes, he might give them to a foreign agent “to take revenge against the United States for removing his liberty.”

‘The Fish Are Not Biting Today’

Messemer also warned that if Lee were released, he might be “snatched and taken out of the country” by a foreign intelligence service. He said Lee might say something seemingly innocuous that actually could be a sinister coded message. “For example, what if he were to say to someone, his brother in California, the fish are not biting today?” Messemer said.

In the letter issued Thursday, the presidents of the three academies said they wrote to Reno privately three times earlier this year to question Lee’s treatment. But they complained they were only sent a single “form letter” in reply, signed by the acting chief of internal security, that did not provide a “satisfactory response.”

Florman, however, said that Reno “gets thousands of pieces of mail a week, and she cannot respond to all of them. We try to be very responsive.”

Charged with being ethnic Chinese

2000-08-08T13:59:00.000-07:00

Here is an ad by Chinese for Affirmative Action in San Francisco:

http://www.caasf.org/PDFs/adforweb2.pdf
WEN HO LEE & THE NUCLEAR WITCHHUNT
Why is American scientist Dr. Wen Ho Lee still languishing in prison?

He is not charged with espionage. Early news leaks to the contrary, the FBI cleared Dr. Lee of sharing warhead information with any foreign government. Today, the sole allegation is that Dr. Lee downloaded data onto computer disks at Los Alamos. The data was unclassified when he downloaded it. The government classified it as “secret” only after his dismissal.

Ex-CIA director John Deutch allegedly downloaded classified information into his home computers. Other Los Alamos staffers apparently misplaced hard drives with classified information. None has been criminally indicted or is in custody. Dr. Lee alone faces criminal charges.

The 60-year-old Taiwan-born American scientist, employed at Los Alamos for two decades, has been held in solitary confinement in a federal prison, without bail, for eight months. Contact with his family is restricted and monitored. He is shackled hand and foot on the rare occasions he is taken from his cell. Why?

The chief of Los Alamos counterintelligence says that Dr. Lee was singled out for investigation because of his “ethnicity.”

The search warrant for his home was obtained on the U.S. Attorney’s affidavit that Dr. Lee is “overseas ethnic Chinese.”

Charged with being ethnic Chinese, how can he prove his innocence? And why, of all Americans, should he be forced to?

Caught up in a classic witch hunt built on racist stereotypes and racial profiling, Dr. Lee faces life in prison because of domestic politics, not international intrigue. The 1950’s-style nuclear security hysteria whipped up in Congress last year made Dr. Lee the scapegoat because he is ethnic Chinese, and for that reason alone.

It should chill us all that our government is still persecuting Dr. Lee and bankrupting his family long after any basis for prosecution has evaporated.

As Americans — we demand justice. Drop all charges. Free Dr. Wen Ho Lee now.

Chinese for Affirmative Action, 17 Walter U. Lum Place, San Francisco, California 94108
To learn more, please visit www.caasf.org.

White House meeting before indictment

1999-12-08T22:43:00.000-08:00

Decision Nears on the Fate Of Ex-Los Alamos Scientist
By JAMES RISEN AND DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: December 8, 1999

The Federal authorities have intensified their deliberations about whether to prosecute a nuclear weapons scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on charges of mishandling highly classified atomic data, government officials said today.

A decision on whether to charge the scientist, Wen Ho Lee, is expected within days, the officials said, after a crucial meeting held on Saturday at the White House and attended by the administration's top security, law enforcement and energy officials.

The participants concluded after a lengthy intelligence review that should Attorney General Janet Reno decide to prosecute, the secrets that would probably be divulged at a criminal trial would not irreparably damage national security.

Among those present in addition to Ms. Reno were Samuel R. Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser; Energy Secretary Bill Richardson; Louis J. Freeh, the director of the F.B.I.; George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and John Kelly, the top federal prosecutor in Albuquerque, who has jurisdiction in the case.

Law-enforcement officials and Mr. Kelly have recommended going ahead with a case against Mr. Lee, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mr. Richardson, who supports bringing a prosecution, indicated that he was prepared to exercise his statutory authority to declassify atomic secrets likely to be needed as evidence in the trial, the officials said. But they added that it was Ms. Reno who must decide whether to seek an indictment and that she had not given prosecutors final approval.

Mr. Lee, his lawyers and his supporters have repeatedly said that he has done nothing wrong and that no one has ever been criminally charged for similar conduct, for example, transferring classified information into a nonclassified computer. Mark Holscher, Mr. Lee's lawyer in Los Angeles, did not return telephone calls today.

In the past, Mr. Holscher and Mr. Lee's other supporters have said that Mr. Lee is a loyal American who has been unfairly singled out for investigation because of his Chinese ancestry. They say Mr. Lee is being made a scapegoat by law-enforcement and energy officials who have been under fire by Republicans in Congress for security lapses at the country's weapons laboratories. In a television interview in August, Mr. Lee also said he was innocent.

The highly unusual White House meeting reflects the acute political sensitivities and high stakes involved in a case that has become a battleground for the administration and Republican critics who have said that Chinese intelligence had used scientists to steal information from the weapons laboratories that was used to vastly speed the pace of Beijing's nuclear weapons program.

As expected, if he is charged, Mr. Lee will not be accused of espionage, the officials said, which would require prosecutors to show that information was not only stolen but passed to a foreign power. Prosecutors are now weighing whether to charge Mr. Lee with a lesser crime of mishandling and failing to adequately safeguard classified information.

The recent surge of activity in the case comes just before the expiration of the term of a federal grand jury in Albuquerque that has been hearing evidence. The grand jurors were to be dismissed this month, but their terms have been extended until early January.

Mr. Lee, who worked in the nuclear weapons design area of Los Alamos, was fired in March for security violations. By that time, he had been under investigation for nearly three years in connection with the government's inquiry into the suspected theft of United States nuclear secrets by China. United States investigators believe that design information related to the most advanced nuclear warhead in the nation's arsenal, the W-88, was obtained by China, in part through espionage. The W-88 warhead was designed at Los Alamos.

After Mr. Lee was fired, investigators found evidence that he had transferred vast amounts of secret nuclear data from the classified system at Los Alamos into an unclassified system. In a televised interview, Mr. Lee acknowledged that he transferred the data, but said he did so to protect the material from being lost in computer crashes.

Since the investigation into Mr. Lee became public, a furious debate has erupted over whether the inquiry was properly handled by the Energy Department and the F.B.I. Subsequently, F.B.I. officials said that the initial inquiry into the evidence of Chinese atomic espionage was flawed, and other current and former government officials argued that investigators had focused prematurely on Mr. Lee without first determining how widely accessible the information on the W-88 warhead had been at the time officials concluded the Chinese obtained it. Asian-American groups rallied to Mr. Lee's cause, saying he was the victim of racial stereotyping.

In September, Ms. Reno and Mr. Freeh ordered federal agents to go back to square one and broaden their investigation into the evidence of China's theft of W-88 secrets, moving beyond Los Alamos to look at other labs and defense contractors that may have had access to the data.

But even as that broader inquiry into evidence of Chinese espionage is continuing, the government has been moving forward in its investigation of Mr. Lee over accusations of unauthorized computer transfers of nuclear secrets.

In addition to the unauthorized transfers of nuclear data into an unclassified computer system at Los Alamos, government investigators now believe that Mr. Lee also copied the nuclear secrets onto computer tapes and took those tapes out of the lab, officials said. The F.B.I. cannot account for those missing computer tapes, officials said. Officials have no evidence that the tapes have been handed over to any other unauthorized individuals, however.

The discovery that the computer tapes are missing appears to have convinced government officials that the evidence against Mr. Lee may be more serious than initially believed. Stephen Younger, associate laboratory director for nuclear weapons, who oversees the division where Mr. Lee worked, has completed a highly classified analysis of Mr. Lee's computer activities showing that the potential damage to national security could be extensive, officials said.

If he is charged in the computer downloading case, Mr. Lee's lawyers appear likely to respond by saying that he is the victim of selective prosecution for relatively common practices. The former C.I.A. director John Deutch, for example, who was investigated by the intelligence agency's inspector general for improperly handling classified information on his computer, had his security clearance stripped this year, but was not charged with a crime.

But Los Alamos officials have said that they disagree with Mr. Lee's assertions that his computer activities were routine.

John Browne, the director of Los Alamos, said in an interview in August: ''We have no evidence that anyone has ever done anything like this before at Los Alamos, and we have looked. I have no doubt that he violated Los Alamos security regulations, and I have no doubt that he deserved to be terminated. We have fired people for much less.''

Lack of Evidence Led to Wider China Spy Inquiry

1999-10-03T14:15:00.000-07:00

http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/03/news/mn-18269
By Bob Drogin
October 03, 1999 in print edition A-34

The FBI decided to vastly expand its probe of alleged Chinese espionage after investigators determined that they had no evidence linking the chief suspect, former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, to the theft of nuclear weapons secrets, according to U.S. officials.

The FBI and Justice Department briefed Capitol Hill and the White House late last month on the revamped espionage inquiry, but haven’t publicly explained why they reversed course so sharply after nearly four years of targeting Lee, who has denied any wrongdoing.

Lee was alleged to have given Beijing highly classified design and engineering details about components of America’s most sophisticated thermonuclear warhead, the W-88. After the case became public last March, some counterintelligence officials, members of Congress and media accounts painted the shy, 60-year-old nuclear weapons expert as potentially one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history.

Lee consistently denied being a spy, however, and the FBI now privately agrees.

“It seems abundantly clear that we can’t, from anything we have, conclude Wen Ho Lee disclosed the W-88 information,” said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Investigators are starting from scratch. They plan to screen hundreds of nuclear scientists, physicists, engineers, Navy personnel and others who helped design, build and maintain the W-88 nuclear warhead between 1984, when the weapon was first developed at Los Alamos, and 1995, when the theft was first confirmed in a Chinese military document.

The FBI also will examine other possible compromises of classified information that were uncovered during the numerous inquiries into the Los Alamos scandal by congressional committees, intelligence agencies and advisory boards last spring. “They may end up looking at a lot more than just the W-88,” said one U.S. official.

A team of Energy Department scientists, which helped the U.S. intelligence community form a damage assessment of the loss, will be reassembled to work with the FBI.

Lee was born in Taiwan, but became a naturalized American before joining the Los Alamos National Laboratory 20 years ago. He was fired from Los Alamos last March for security violations. His lawyer could not be reached Saturday.

Lee was initially targeted by the FBI in 1996 on the basis of an administrative inquiry by the Department of Energy, which owns the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The inquiry pinpointed Los Alamos as the only possible site of the leak and identified Lee as the most likely source.

But the FBI’s Albuquerque office recently discovered that numerous scientists and officials at Los Alamos had vehemently disagreed with the inquiry’s findings.

Energy Secretary Urges Nuclear Lab to Punish 3 Over Security

1999-08-13T21:45:00.000-07:00

By JAMES RISEN
Published: August 13, 1999

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has recommended disciplinary action against a former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and two other officials for failing to handle properly the spy investigation at the lab, officials said today.

Mr. Richardson acted in response to a critical new report by the department's Inspector General that focused on the actions of 19 current or former officials at Los Alamos and at Energy Department headquarters who were involved in investigating evidence that China had stolen nuclear secrets.

The officials said one of Mr. Richardson's recommendations was aimed at Siegfried Hecker, director of Los Alamos in 1986-97, who still works there as a scientist. He also recommended to the current director, John Brown, that action be taken against Terry Craig, until recently a counterintelligence team leader at the lab, and Robert Vrooman, former chief of counterintelligence.

Mr. Craig is still employed at the lab; Mr. Vrooman has retired but works for a lab contractor. Mr. Craig and Mr. Hecker did not return telephone calls seeking comment; Mr. Vrooman could not be reached.

The form of discipline is up to Mr. Brown, but officials say Mr. Craig could be fired and Mr. Vrooman's ties to the lab could be ended. It is unclear what Mr. Hecker faces.

Mr. Brown said he would act soon.

The full report is classified, and does not assign specific blame. But it does include ''implied criticism'' of the actions of the former Energy Secretary, Federico Pena, and of the former Deputy Secretary, Elizabeth Moler, for not being more aggressive in handling the investigation, officials familiar with the report said.

In the face of mounting criticism, Mr. Richardson had promised action, but he decided to wait for the Inspector General's review.

In March a Los Alamos scientist, Wen Ho Lee, the chief suspect in the espionage investigation, was fired for security violations at the lab. He has not been charged with any crime, and he has denied that he spied for China. After he was fired, investigators found he had conducted unauthorized transfers of secrets from a classified computer into an unclassified network.

The United States Attorney in New Mexico has been considering whether to seek an indictment against Mr. Lee for his handling of classified information. Mr. Lee has stated that he transferred the data to protect the contents as a routine part of his job.

The Inspector General's report focuses on the investigation of Mr. Lee, particularly the failure of officials to restrict his access to classified material or to monitor his computer until long after he came under investigation.

Mr. Hecker was cited for failing to follow through on ''an express request by senior management to develop a plan for limiting the suspect's access, for failing to inform department's management that the plan had failed, and for failing to take alternative actions,'' according to a statement by Mr. Richardson. Though he did not name Mr. Hecker, other officials said his reference was to Mr. Hecker.

Mr. Vrooman was cited for allowing Mr. Lee continued access to nuclear secrets.

Mr. Craig, who was also not identified in the statement, was cited for failing to determine whether Mr. Lee had signed a waiver allowing monitoring of his computer. Mr. Lee signed the waiver in April 1995.

Wen Ho Lee, Designated Scapegoat

1999-08-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.polyconomics.com/memos/mm-990809.htm

Memo To: Bob Novak
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: Recapping the China Spy Story

I know this stuff gets awfully complicated, Bob, but the latest turn in the China spy story really deserves your attention. There seems to be no other journalist in the country who is interested in getting to the bottom of the story. Mike Wallace did a great job on 60 Minutes last Sunday making Bill Richardson look like the prevaricator he is. Yes, he is a good friend of yours and has been for a long time, but Richardson has become the designated liar for his pal, the President, from one assignment to the next.

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.

And it gets worse, Bob. According to Fox News, the Clinton Administration represented to Senator Thompson's Government Affairs Committee that DOE/FBI had presented in August 1997, in their third attempt to get a wiretap for Wen Ho Lee, 18 elements of "probable cause." One of the most important of those 18 elements that the FBI/DOE is now alleging that they presented in August 1997 is: Lee worked on "legacy codes" (vitally important computer data from U.S. nuclear tests), a top priority of Chinese intelligence.

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.

There's more, worse yet: When Chris Cox had Trent Lott and other key Senators in for a briefing on the "classified" evidence they said they had to back up their claim of massive penetration of the U.S. weapons labs decades ago, the "classified" evidence that Trent Lott later said made the "hair on the back of my neck stand on end." I will bet you that what Chris Cox showed Lott et al. was the "legacy files." Now as Gordon Prather states in his Report to Jack Kemp in summing up the W-88 caper:

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.

Here are excerpts from the April 28 Risen-Gerth NYT report about when they found the "legacy files" on Wen Ho Lee's's computer: "It was not until last month [March], just a few days before he was fired, that the FBI finally asked for and received Lee's authorization to search his computer, officials said. Once the bureau saw the transferred files in the unclassified computer network, investigators realized their significance. Within days, Richardson was briefed, and he then told the president [on March 31] and shut down the lab's computer systems for two weeks."

To recapitulate, Bob, from everything we have learned on the public record, we can now say that:

1. Wen Ho Lee was suspected by Energy Department Security "snoops" in the 1980s of doing something because he was Chinese and attended scientific meetings in Beijing on behalf of Los Alamos. Nevertheless, he had been cleared for Top Secret work when he first came to Los Alamos and had survived at least three periodic re-investigations of his suitability to hold a "Q" Clearance. Therefore, he continued to work in the most sensitive areas of Los Alamos, "X" Division.

2. According to Stephen Schwartz, the publisher of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists who appeared as an expert witness for Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, in 1995 a Chinese double agent presented documents to the CIA he said the PRC had stolen from the United States. On a single handwritten sheet there was information on several U.S. warheads and re-entry vehicles and a cutaway drawing of what purported to be the re-entry vehicle for the Trident II missile.

3. Ignoring all the rest, Energy Department Security agents immediately homed in on the W-88, Los Alamos and Wen Ho Lee. Everyone -- including Chris Cox, Warren Rudman and Fred Thompson -- who has examined this immediate focus on Wen Ho Lee on the part of the Energy Department Security officials has been baffled by it.

4. For three years, Energy's chief snoop, Notra Trulock, and the FBI got nowhere -- until the Cox Committee came along, which really had not been looking into this realm at the time. Cox was looking at the technology transfer involving the Loral-Hughes satellites and the Chinese commercial rockets used to lift them into orbit. But without hearing from the real experts on nuclear weapons, Chris Cox [over the objections of some of his Committee] accepted the Trulock hypothesis about the W-88 and Wen Ho Lee.

5. Arriving at the Energy Department from his previous post as United Nations ambassador, Bill Richardson became alarmed at the realization that Trulock was now being believed by Chris Cox, whereas for three years no one in the Clinton Administration, including Sandy Berger and Janet Reno, had believed Trulock. Richardson decided he immediately had to take drastic action, to take the heat off the White House. In December 1998, he ordered Wen Ho Lee removed from "X" Division. In February, he rescinded his "Q" clearance. On March 8, 1999 he pressured Los Alamos -- a private contractor -- into firing him.

6. But [according to 60 Minutes expert Schwartz] Wen Ho Lee had not worked on the W-88 warhead itself, but on the "primary" trigger that had been developed, put on the shelf along with other "primaries," then taken off the shelf and used in the W-88. Wen Ho Lee would not have, therefore, have had a "need to know" how the W-88 was designed or how thermonuclear warheads "worked" in general. Wen Ho Lee's work in the "X" Division on "primaries" would not have been of much interest to the PRC. But, because of Trulock's suspicions about Wen Ho Lee and the W-88, Wen Ho Lee was moved in 1993 from working on "primaries" to an "archiving" project [WARP], apparently in the belief that he could not learn much on an archiving project that would be of value to anyone. It was only in March of 1999 that Trulock et al. learned how wrong they had been. If Wen Ho Lee is a PRC mole, Trulock is responsible for planting this mole smack in the middle of the nuclear weapons developer's mother lode!

7. Lee's problems with Richardson and Cox, instead ending when nothing about the W-88 was found in mid-March on his computer or in his home, actually were exacerbated from mid-March on. The planting of Wen Ho Lee smack in the middle of mole heaven had been done by the Clinton Administration. When Richardson fired Wen Ho Lee he thought he was firing a Ronald Reagan mole. Until mid-March Richardson had been claiming that whatever Wen Ho Lee did had been done on Ronald Reagan's watch. Now, after discovery in mid-March of the downloaded "legacy files," Chris Cox could blame the Clinton Administration for leaking nuclear secrets to Beijing that would make Trent Lott's hair stand on end. It was now in both Richardson's and Cox's interest for everyone to believe that they had " known" all along that Wen Ho Lee gave the legacy files to the PRC. Clearly, they believed it to be so much in their interest that they have conspired to lie about it.

8. Both Richardson and Cox and the FBI desperately want Wen Ho Lee to "cop a plea" and agree that he "mishandled classified material" [as Peter Lee -- no relation -- had already done in 1997]. If they can get Wen Ho Lee to plead guilty to even a minor offense, then the Feds won't have to prove that he did. But more importantly to Richardson is that in his 60 Minutes interview, Wen Ho Lee said such transfers were routine at Los Alamos and elsewhere. Which is true, according to 60 Minutes expert Schwarz. Then Mike Wallace got Richardson to commit to finding out the identity of the hundreds or thousands of Lab employees who had similarly "mishandled classified material" and to deal with them in exactly the same manner as he intends to do with Wen Ho Lee. We have to hope, for God's sake, that Wen Ho Lee won't plead guilty. Make Richardson prosecute half the weapon scientists at Los Alamos and Livermore!!!

Why is it important that you get involved, Bob? Because the rest of the news media has invested so much of its credibility in this wild goose chase of the NYTimes and the Cox Commission that they will not admit their mistakes. I'm afraid that Wen Ho Lee will feel such pressure from the weight of the Political Establishment that he will buckle, as so many other innocent people have done when faced with the threats of the federal government. If the feds want you to go to prison, you will, even if you are named Mother Theresa. Your friend Bill Richardson seems prepared to do just that, to save his own skin.

I wish you would have a chat with him. Before you do, please read Stephen Schwartz's account in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. (http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1999/mj99/mj99schwartz.html)

Richardson Named WHL as Suspect

1999-03-09T21:22:00.000-08:00

Here is a quote from http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/2004/feb-b.html

On March 9, Risen published Lee's name in a report of an interview he had conducted with Energy Secretary Richardson. Risen reported Richardson told him that Lee had been fired on March 8 "for security breaches after the FBI questioned him in connection with China's suspected theft of American nuclear secrets." Richardson would later deny that he had named Lee in this interview.

U.S. Fires Scientist Suspected Of Giving China Bomb Data
By JAMES RISEN
Published: March 9, 1999

A Taiwan-born scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory was fired today for security breaches after the F.B.I. questioned him in connection with China's suspected theft of American nuclear secrets, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said.

The scientist, Wen Ho Lee, was questioned for three days by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, starting on Friday, but ''stonewalled'' during the questioning, Mr. Richardson said.

Mr. Lee, a computer scientist working in the nuclear weapons design area at Los Alamos, N.M., has not been charged with a crime, but he has been identified by Federal officials as the prime suspect in the spying.

China denies any such theft. But Administration officials said China, working with stolen data, has made a leap in developing nuclear weapons with much smaller warheads.

The handling of the spying case brought sharp criticism from Capitol Hill. Senator Fred Thompson, an influential Republican from Tennessee, attacked the Administration for failing to notify Congress in 1997 that China had stolen nuclear secrets when the Administration certified that Beijing was no longer helping other nations build nuclear bombs.

That certification ended a 12-year ban on the sale of nuclear technology to China, an action long sought by American companies eager to bid on the estimated $60 billion Chinese market for civilian nuclear plants.

Mr. Thompson said Senators would take up a ''serious and immediate review'' of the certification issue.

The F.B.I. began to question Mr. Lee on Friday to determine whether he had given American secrets to China. The questioning continued through late Sunday, but Mr. Lee failed to cooperate, according to Mr. Richardson.

F.B.I. officials acknowledged last week that they did not have enough information then to arrest Mr. Lee, but hoped that their questioning would lead to a break.

While he agreed to talk with investigators and nuclear experts, his failure to fully cooperate has apparently still left the investigators without enough evidence to prosecute.

But Mr. Richardson dismissed Mr. Lee for ''failure to properly notify Energy Department and lab officials about contacts with people from a sensitive country, specific instances of failing to properly safeguard classified material and apparently attempting to deceive lab officials about security matters.''

Reached at home in Los Alamos this afternoon, Mr. Lee's wife, Sylvia, a former secretary at Los Alamos, refused give his whereabouts or to comment on the matter.

Mr. Lee, who officials said is in his late 50's and has been working at the lab for more than a decade, did not hire an attorney to represent him during his questioning, officials said.

Mr. Lee has been the prime suspect in a nearly three-year investigation of reports of Beijing's theft of nuclear technology, senior officials from the bureau and the Energy Department said.

Until recently, China's nuclear weapon designs were a generation behind those of the United States, largely because Beijing had been unable to produce small warheads that could be launched from a single missile at multiple targets.

But by the mid-1990's, China had built and tested such small bombs, a breakthrough that officials say was accelerated by thefts from Los Alamos.

The espionage is believed to have occurred in the 1980's, officials said, but was not detected until 1995, when American experts from Los Alamos analyzing Chinese nuclear test results found similarities to America's most advanced miniature warhead, the W-88.

By February 1996, investigators from the Energy Department and the F.B.I. searching travel records and other data at Los Alamos and other weapons labs had identified five possible suspects, officials said.

Mr. Lee quickly emerged as the prime suspect, they added.

Investigators say they now believe that Mr. Lee gave the Chinese sensitive information on nuclear detonations during a 1988 seminar, senior Administration officials said.

But after opening a formal criminal investigation in June 1996, the bureau did not at first pursue the case aggressively, according to several senior officials.

Only in the last several weeks, after prodding from Congress and the Secretary of Energy, did officials administer lie-detector tests to Mr. Lee.

After a first test in December the bureau, unsatisfied with the results, gave Mr. Lee a second test in February, and the test indicated that he was being deceptive, officials said.

The F.B.I. then decided to interview Mr. Lee on Friday.

In response to criticism of their handling of the case, bureau officials said Chinese spying is far more difficult to investigate than the more traditional espionage of the former Soviet Union.

The Chinese often take advantage of scientific exchanges and other forms of informal contacts, gathering sensitive information from such a wide range of sources that it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly how American secrets leak out.

In fact, American officials say, they have concluded that Beijing is continuing to steal secrets as major nuclear weapons laboratories in the United States have been increasingly opened to visitors from other nations.

In this case, since the reported theft of the W-88 design information apparently occurred so far in the past, the Justice Department at first lacked the grounds to obtain a secret wiretap on the suspect, making it difficult initially to build a strong criminal case.

Still the Energy Department failed to move Mr. Lee out of his sensitive position or end his security clearances for more than a year after the bureau's director, Louis J. Freeh, told Energy Department officials in September 1997 that there was no longer any investigative reason to keep him on the job.

In espionage cases, the bureau often wants suspects left alone by their employers for fear of tipping them off to the investigations.

He was finally moved out of a sensitive area several weeks ago, officials said.

Mr. Lee's wife, Sylvia, stopped working at the lab sometime in the last year or two, Energy Department officials said.

F.B.I. and Energy Department officials said her activities had raised questions while she worked at Los Alamos. In the 1980's she was invited to China to give an academic paper on high-technology computer processing even though she was only a secretary at Los Alamos.

Her husband, who was the true expert, accompanied her, according to an American official.

Energy Department officials also said co-workers questioned why she frequently invited herself to gatherings at the lab with visiting Chinese delegations.

F.B.I. officials said she was not a target of their investigation, but said it is possible that others were involved in the theft of data. They have not yet identified any other suspects.

Meanwhile, in response to criticism of the lax security at Los Alamos and other weapons labs, Secretary Richardson said today that he is ordering polygraph examinations for a few thousand Energy Department and laboratory employees during the next few years.

The order does not cover all employees with ''Q'' security clearances, which give them access to nuclear secrets, Mr. Richardson said, but it does cover those who work in the most sensitive areas.

Currently only employees of the Central Intelligence Agency are required to submit to polygraph exams on a regular basis.