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Q: Admiral, can you give us an update -- bring us up to speed on the petty officer who has been charged with espionage or passing classified information?
Admiral Quigley: Yes, I can. This is a first class petty officer, is an E-6, for those of you not familiar with the Navy rank structure, named Daniel M. King. He was charged on November 5th with wrongful disclosure of classified information to a non-authorized person -- that's Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice; and espionage, which is Article 106(a) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He is being held in pre-trial confinement at the brig in Quantico, Virginia, the Marine Corps Base there. He was apprehended on the 28th of October, and again, charged on the 5th of November.
This is still very much a work in progress with the investigation continuing. He is 40 years old. He is a native of Elyria, Ohio and has served in the Navy for 18 years. And the Article 32 has - the convening authority for the Article 32 is the Commander Naval Air Forces U.S. Atlantic Fleet, Vice Admiral Joe Mobley down at Norfolk, Virginia. No date has been set for that Article 32, again because there is still investigative work to be done by the Navy Criminal Investigative Service.
Q: I understand that, according to reports, that the offenses were committed while he was stationed at Fort Meade or working at Fort Meade, and then he was transferred to Guam and then had come back at the time of his arrest. Is that correct?
Admiral Quigley: I can't give you the specifics because of the ongoing nature of that investigation. It is not helpful to the ongoing investigation work to be too specific as to what we know and what we don't know as part of the ongoing investigation. But it's still very much a work in progress.
Q: What was the monetary consideration involved, if any; do we know?
Admiral Quigley: I don't have that, I'm sorry.
Q: On the same subject, what is the policy regarding release of information in situations like this? This guy was thrown in jail on the 5th. There was no announcement made, as far as I can tell. There was no intention of making any announcement.
Admiral Quigley: No, no public announcement was made. I think it's -- there's nothing classified about it. Once charges have been filed, that's certainly a matter of public record. But it was still very much a work in progress, and that's still true today. I think the Navy was looking for more specifics before announcing what it did or didn't have, felt comfortable that it had enough to charge him on the 5th, but the investigation was still very much an ongoing work.
Q: Why no public announcement? The guy is charged, he's thrown in jail, an investigation that's gone on for months; it's espionage, it's a crime against the nation, and no public announcement.
Admiral Quigley: Well, I guess the same answer, I guess, Chris. The investigation on the 5th was still very much a work in progress. That's still true today. But the Navy felt --
Q: At what point do you announce it, then?
Admiral Quigley: Well, when you had a little bit more -- I mean, we are disclosing what we can today. But I think that there was probably a feeling that we'd like to wait until we had a little bit more mature investigation and a little bit more concrete knowledge of what we know and what we don't know before we went out with that.
Q: Craig, do you see any connection between --
Admiral Quigley: Rather subjective, I will give you that, but I think it was still rather immature on the 5th of November, and all kinds of very good questions we didn't have very good answers for.
Q: Well, the story broke on the 29th of November, and there was no statement of any kind by the DOD.
Admiral Quigley: The Navy was pretty forthcoming on that yesterday.
Q: Well, once the story broke, that's true.
Admiral Quigley: Yeah. But I think that was the reason why nothing on the 5th or the 6th or something of November.
Q: Was there an intention to make an announcement of any kind? And whose responsibility is that? Is that DOD or is that Navy or -- ?
Admiral Quigley: All the above is -- the answer was yes. I mean, once the investigation would be, if not complete, then mature to the point where you had more concrete knowledge of what you had and what you didn't have, absolutely there would be a commitment to get that information out. I share all of your thoughts. This is something that should -- is and should be very public information. But it just wasn't fully mature at the time that he was arrested. Enough to place him in the pre-trial confinement and charge him, but it was true then and it's still true today that the investigative work is not complete.
Pam?
Q: Russian news agency says that an American woman was arrested and charged -- or, arrested in Russia for -- she's the military political advisor in the embassy there. Apparently this happened yesterday. Can you shed any light on whether or not this actually happened?
Admiral Quigley: I have not seen that report. I mean, was it in conjunction with Petty Officer King?
Q: The BBC reported it out of TASS.
Admiral Quigley: Was it in conjunction with Petty Officer King, or was this a separate --
Q: No, no. Separate.
Q: Separate.
Admiral Quigley: I have not seen that story. I'm sorry.
Q: No, it was supposed to be tit for tat. The State Department --
Q: Is there any connection?
Admiral Quigley: Again, I have not seen that. Perhaps the State Department would have some more knowledge than I in that regard.
Jim?
Q: He's charged with espionage, which, if I recall correctly --
Admiral Quigley: Are you back to Petty Officer King now?
Q: Yes, sir.
Admiral Quigley: Okay.
Q: I believe that the espionage, on conviction, would carry a possible death penalty, but my recollection is that nobody's been executed in quite a while. Do you recall the last time anyone convicted of espionage was executed in this country?
Admiral Quigley: I would have to check what sort of public records we have on that. I'm sure it's out there in the public record, but I don't have that date off the top of my head. But there is an interim judgment point, however, that's made on whether or not to pursue a capital or non-capital punishment, if we get to that point, and again, we're way premature for that decision.
Q: Can I follow up on Chris Plante's question, and that is, in one sense you're saying you still wanted to pursue the investigation, you wanted it to be a mature investigation. That sounds like a public relations decision, because if it wasn't a public relations decision and they wanted the investigation to keep going, why didn't they keep it under wraps? Can you explain what you mean?
Admiral Quigley: There are -- I would recommend that you ask investigators, whether they be police departments, the FBI, private investigators, and ask them whether they feel that their investigative work is best done in the clear light of day or out of the public eye. And I think that to a person, they would almost all tell you that it's not something that is best done in the clear light of day with too much visibility -- in order to scare off potential witnesses, the possible destruction of any evidence, the removal from the country of someone that might bear materially on evidence in the case at hand. This is --
On the other hand, there is a desire here to be as publicly forthcoming as you can be, but you trade that off with the - clearly the fact that an individual was charged is not a classified issue. The issue of charges is typically a public record. But if you have an ongoing investigation during which you think that there would be benefits gained of keeping this less of a public issue, then investigators, I think, would universally tell you that that is their preferred way to go.
Q: Is this something that could have been kept completely quiet? I mean, can you -- I don't know how that works. Could you arrest somebody and not --
Admiral Quigley: Ultimately that's something we would never do. When the investigation was mature enough to the point and investigators would say that there's no further benefit of any kind to be gained by that, this would clearly have been announced as an issue that -- you know, "We have an espionage case here, and this person has been charged with this specific charge, here are the details as best we know them," right on down the line. You would have classification issues that would be an element of your full disclosure, and you would have to work around those. But everything else as much as we could would be disclosed.
Q: How much money and damage involved here?
Admiral Quigley: Don't know.
Q: Who else might be -- are you aware of might be in pre-trial custody on espionage charges at the moment? Is there anybody else in the brig?
Admiral Quigley: I don't know. I'll take that. I don't know.
Q: Have there been cases where members of the military may have been tried on espionage and jailed where there would be no public announcement of the arrest, the trial, the --
Admiral Quigley: Not that I'm aware of. Certainly not in recent years. Short of doing a historical record search, I don't think I can give you a comprehensive answer, but certainly not in recent years. Most of the cases that I can think of have been very much cases within the public domain.
Q: Well, the ones we know about.
Q: How much of the facts of this case are you confirming; I mean, for example, that this involved an exchange of information or providing of information to the Russians in Washington or Moscow, or when it happened, or where?
Admiral Quigley: I don't think I have any of that. No, I'm sorry, I don't have any of that. It's all the specifics of that investigation are just ongoing and I can't get into the who or the what or the when or the how much or aany of those issues until the investigation is more mature.
Q: So you can't confirm the reports that have been widely distributed in the last 24 hours that this involved a Russian?
Admiral Quigley: No, I can't.
Q: I take it then, at this point, since the investigation is still in its early stages, you can't say whether there are indications that this was a one off -- one individual type of event or whether it's part of a larger network?
Admiral Quigley: No, I can't. The Navy might have more information on that than I do. And if there are sources that have been more specific as to the contents of the charges, I have not seen those sources named.
Q: That's why we're asking you.
Admiral Quigley: But I don't have that level of detail with me. Perhaps the Navy would, but I don't think so.
Q: Mainly Russians and Chinese are after U.S. information, and there may be more people doing the same thing -- (inaudible) - and all that. But do you have set up or are you planning to set up some kind of task force of watching others in Pentagon or other classified information agencies or --
Admiral Quigley: Well, it's very much an ongoing effort throughout the entire Department of Defense. There's a variety of times, security background checks, reclassifications, an increase or a decrease in an individual's security classification -- a variety of opportunities. And we're always trying to be very watchful during those times for anything that just doesn't look right.
Q: Thank you.
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Q: Thank you.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov1999/t11301999_t130dasd.html