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?"
Showing posts with label Lies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lies. Show all posts
Monday, January 5, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Richardson's Lies Have Finally Caught Up to Him
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.
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.
Friday, December 14, 2007
I wish I had been stronger
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.
AMY GOODMAN: Gov. Bill Richardson. That was September 2005.
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.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Albuquerque Tribune Interview
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.
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.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Lying on his Resume
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."
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."
Monday, August 9, 1999
Wen Ho Lee, Designated Scapegoat
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)
Tuesday, March 9, 1999
Richardson Named WHL as Suspect
Here is a quote from http://www.aim.org/publications/aim_report/2004/feb-b.html
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.
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.
Friday, August 21, 1998
Lying to Congress
http://www.aim.org/media-monitor/bill-richardson-caught-in-clinton-undertow/
Ambassador Bill Richardson apparently lied when he said at his recent confirmation hearings that a UN job he offered to Monica Lewinsky last year was to fill an existing opening. As a result of this apparent deception, and the great lengths to which Richardson went in order to explain the job offer after the Lewinsky scandal broke publicly, Senator Frank Murkowski of Alaska, who chairs the Senate committee which confirmed Richardson as Energy secretary, has sent a letter to President Clinton urging him to hold off swearing Richardson in to his new post. This sounded to us like a major story. Another high ranking member of the Clinton administration is apparently in trouble for trying to quash a bimbo eruption, and he is getting dragged down into the muck of Clinton’s, quote, unquote “personal life.” After a distinguished career as a congressman from New Mexico, unofficial ambassador-at-large to world hot spots, and UN ambassador under Bill Clinton, Richardson’s career could end in infamy for trying to help Clinton by paying off Lewinsky, an unpaid White House intern, with a prestigious UN job. With so much news focusing on the Lewinsky story, we were surprised to see that in the first several days following the Washington Times breaking this story, there has been nothing in the New York Times, Washington Post, or any of the four major networks on Richardson’s new problems. The only place we saw it on TV was on Drudge on the Fox News Channel, where maverick Internet journalist Matt Drudge’s guest was Bill Sammon, the reporter who broke the story. According to Sammon, there were three main areas where Richardson deceived the panel. He had claimed that the position offered to Monica was an existing slot, though it later turned out not to have been so. There was no effort to fill the job that Monica was offered until three months later, after the scandal had broken publicly. Secondly, Richardson described the job as low-level. Monica was offered $30,000 a year. The senior-staff person, Paul Aronsohn, who later filled the slot that Richardson said was the same one offered Monica, was paid more than double what Monica was offered, plus he had high-level experience in areas such as nuclear disarmament and the UN dues controversy. The third main area of controversy had to do with what city and section the job entailed. Richardson said the job had to be in New York, though he had transferred Aronsohn to Washington from New York several weeks before testifying to the committee. An after-the-fact memo once the scandal broke shows how standard procedure was ignored in offering this job to Monica. Aronsohn was transferred from the political to the press section, contrary to a State Department Inspector General recommendation - in an effort to try to create a credible scenario. Senator Murkowski wrote the following in his letter to the president on August 7: “A news story published in the Washington Times today contains information in apparent contradiction to Ambassador Richardson’s sworn statements to the committee. I have an obligation to look into these serious allegations,” unquote. Stay tuned.
Ambassador Bill Richardson apparently lied when he said at his recent confirmation hearings that a UN job he offered to Monica Lewinsky last year was to fill an existing opening. As a result of this apparent deception, and the great lengths to which Richardson went in order to explain the job offer after the Lewinsky scandal broke publicly, Senator Frank Murkowski of Alaska, who chairs the Senate committee which confirmed Richardson as Energy secretary, has sent a letter to President Clinton urging him to hold off swearing Richardson in to his new post. This sounded to us like a major story. Another high ranking member of the Clinton administration is apparently in trouble for trying to quash a bimbo eruption, and he is getting dragged down into the muck of Clinton’s, quote, unquote “personal life.” After a distinguished career as a congressman from New Mexico, unofficial ambassador-at-large to world hot spots, and UN ambassador under Bill Clinton, Richardson’s career could end in infamy for trying to help Clinton by paying off Lewinsky, an unpaid White House intern, with a prestigious UN job. With so much news focusing on the Lewinsky story, we were surprised to see that in the first several days following the Washington Times breaking this story, there has been nothing in the New York Times, Washington Post, or any of the four major networks on Richardson’s new problems. The only place we saw it on TV was on Drudge on the Fox News Channel, where maverick Internet journalist Matt Drudge’s guest was Bill Sammon, the reporter who broke the story. According to Sammon, there were three main areas where Richardson deceived the panel. He had claimed that the position offered to Monica was an existing slot, though it later turned out not to have been so. There was no effort to fill the job that Monica was offered until three months later, after the scandal had broken publicly. Secondly, Richardson described the job as low-level. Monica was offered $30,000 a year. The senior-staff person, Paul Aronsohn, who later filled the slot that Richardson said was the same one offered Monica, was paid more than double what Monica was offered, plus he had high-level experience in areas such as nuclear disarmament and the UN dues controversy. The third main area of controversy had to do with what city and section the job entailed. Richardson said the job had to be in New York, though he had transferred Aronsohn to Washington from New York several weeks before testifying to the committee. An after-the-fact memo once the scandal broke shows how standard procedure was ignored in offering this job to Monica. Aronsohn was transferred from the political to the press section, contrary to a State Department Inspector General recommendation - in an effort to try to create a credible scenario. Senator Murkowski wrote the following in his letter to the president on August 7: “A news story published in the Washington Times today contains information in apparent contradiction to Ambassador Richardson’s sworn statements to the committee. I have an obligation to look into these serious allegations,” unquote. Stay tuned.
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