Congressional Record: September 11, 2000 (Senate)
Page S8297-S8337
TO AUTHORIZE EXTENSION OF NONDISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT TO THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA [...] Mr. SPECTER. [...] We have two other matters that have come to the fore recently--both issues where the Senator from Tennessee and I have been involved collaboratively. One is on the issue of the efforts by the People's Republic of China to influence U.S. elections, and the second is the effort of the People's Republic of China on espionage. China has portrayed a very aggressive posture, in my judgment. China has moved ahead with many people who have made contributions in the political arena in flat violation of U.S. law, and there are cases--now documented--of the aggressive efforts of the People's Republic of China on espionage. The Judiciary subcommittee that I chair on the Department of Justice oversight has prepared a very lengthy report on Dr. Peter Hoong-Yee Lee. Dr. Peter Lee on October 7 and 8, 1997, confessed to the FBI that he had provided classified nuclear weapons design and testing information to scientists of the People's Republic of China on two occasions in 1985 and had given classified anti-submarine-warfare information to the Chinese in May of 1997. Now it is true that espionage is not limited to the People's Republic of China. But when they recruit a scientist in the United States and acquire information about our classified nuclear weapons design and information on our anti-submarine-warfare procedures, that is a matter of considerable importance. There is another major case which is very much in the forefront today and has been for some considerable period of time, and that is the case involving Dr. Wen Ho Lee, where this morning's media accounts disclose that later today, within a few hours, the Department of Justice has agreed to a plea negotiation for 1 count of a 59-count indictment concerning taking classified material and not maintaining the appropriate classification. This is a case that was under investigation by the Department of Justice Oversight Subcommittee, which I chair, and we had looked into it from October of last year until December 14 when the FBI asked that we cease our oversight inquiries because Dr. Wen Ho Lee was being indicted. We complied with that request so there would be no question at all about any interference in the prosecution of Dr. Wen Ho Lee. Now that the matter is finished, we will move ahead very promptly on that oversight investigation. But the case against Dr. Wen Ho Lee is an extraordinary one which raised very serious questions about whether Dr. Wen Ho Lee provided the People's Republic of China highly classified information. The investigation as to Dr. Lee proceeded from 1982, was accelerated in 1993 and 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. Then there was a request by the FBI, which was a personal request from FBI Director Louis Freeh, transmitted by Assistant Director John Lewis, who went personally to Attorney General Reno. Attorney General Reno assigned the matter to a man named Daniel Seikaly who had never had any experience with an application for a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In a context that was reasonably clear that the warrant should have been granted, Attorney General Reno rejected that application. Then, inexplicably, from August of 1998 until December of 1999, the FBI did not act to further investigate Dr. Wen Ho Lee. Then, when the Cox Commission was about to publish a report in January of 1999, suddenly the Department of Justice and the FBI sprang into action, but did not take any steps to terminate Dr. Lee until March, and no steps to get a search warrant until April. Now there is no doubt that Dr. Wen Ho Lee is entitled to the presumption of innocence as to passing any matters to the People's Republic of China, which was the essence of the FBI investigation. Equally, there is no doubt that the Department of Justice has been convicted of extraordinary incompetence in the way this case has been handled, and the questions as to whether the People's Republic of China gathered key information remain unanswered and perhaps will be illuminated by oversight by our Judiciary Subcommittee. But it is hard to understand how the Department of Justice could maintain last week that Dr. Wen Ho Lee had information at his disposal that would "change the global strategic balance'' or could "result in the military defeat of America's conventional forces,'' posing the "gravest possible security risk to the supreme national interests'' of the United States. So when the matter is concluded--as we have every reason to suspect it will be--with the plea bargain, the Department of Justice is going to have a great many questions to answer in terms of why they permitted Dr. Wen Ho Lee to have access to classified information for such a protracted period of time when they had very substantial probable cause, as shown in the application for the warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that there were connections with the People's Republic of China, which might have access to very important nuclear secrets. I mention that case because here is another illustration like the Dr. Peter [[Page S8308]] Lee case where there were questions in the Dr. Peter Lee case, and he confessed and was convicted of passing secrets to the People's Republic of China. But in the long investigation on Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the Department of Justice is going to have some very important questions to answer about why Dr. Wen Ho Lee was enabled to have access to this classified information for such a long period of time, and why they kept him in detention with arguments which they have made. They argued even that on his release he should not have contact with his wife on their assertion that she might pass this highly classified information on, and fought it even to the Court of Appeals. Now, suddenly, in a day of reversal of position, which by the accounts will result in Dr. Wen Ho Lee's release later today, is really very extraordinary. The incompetence of the Department of Justice is obvious. The Department of Justice owes an explanation perhaps to Dr. Wen Ho Lee and to the people of the United States for their bungling of that case. But the point of the matter is, and it is sufficient really for Dr. Peter Lee's case, that you have an aggressive People's Republic of China which is after U.S. military secrets. [...]