Biden Bugged During Late '80s

A little more than a year after Sen. Joseph Biden abandoned his short-lived bid for the White House and led the charge against Judge Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court, Capitol Police discovered a listening device in the Delaware Democrat's former office.

The bug was discovered under a table in 1989 before then freshman Sen. Trent Lott moved into the fourth floor suite that Biden had just vacated, the Mississippi Republican told Roll Call last week.

"That was the table where we did all the presidential planning," Biden, who mounted a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1987, said Friday in confirming Lott's report. "We had all my meetings when I was running for president at the conference table." The culprit in the eavesdropping incident was never discovered.

The revelation came after Lott was asked about the Capitol Police's use of a surveillance camera in Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell's (R-Colo.)office (see story, above).

Lott said that when the discovery was made, the bug was not operational and police "didn't know how it got there or how long it had been there."

The Minority Leader, who at the time had just been elected to the Senate, said that when he told Biden about the bug, the Democrat was "floored."

"I went and told him him 'I don't know if this was put there in your era or put there by you or what, but I want you to know when we had the place swept they found a bug in your conference room,'" said Lott.

Biden said he was "not going to speculate" on who might have planted the listening device, but acknowledged he was probably its target and that it might have been related to his presidential campaign.

"I was the only one to use" the room, Biden said. "I was the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, but Iwas running for president of the United States."

A spokesman for the Capitol Police said he was unaware of the Biden bugging.

"I don't know anything about that bug, but if, in fact, it occurred, that information would be confidential anyhow," said Lt. Dan Nichols.

Biden, who is considering a second run for the White House, said those in his inner circle always wondered how information from their strategy sessions was being leaked.

"We couldn't understand how certain things and certain information and rumors and all this stuff about me, the plagiarizing and that stuff" made its way outside the room, Biden said. "We couldn't understand how the hell people knew some of this stuff."

Biden exited the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in September 1987 under a dark cloud after he was accused of lifting parts of a speech from British politician Neil Kinnock and overstating his academic credentials. Although he failed in his bid for the White House, Biden was successful in helping to scuttle Bork's opportunity to move up from his perch on the court of appeals to the Supreme Court.

Biden no longer chairs the Judiciary Committee, choosing instead to take the helm at the Foreign Relations panel. Still, the Delaware Democrat said the discovery of the listening device has not prompted him to conduct routine sweeps of his personal office.

"To tell you the truth, I should, but I haven't," he said.

Meanwhile, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.) said security officials do conduct sweeps of his personal office about twice a year.

"They never have found anything," Graham said.

But the Intelligence chairman acknowledged he is very concerned about top secret information leaking out of his committee, which is charged with overseeing the country's intelligence strategy and data.

"I have put a very high priority, in light of some of the lapses elsewhere, on our internal security," he said. "We have a man who is solely dedicated to that, and as we are starting our Sept. 11 review with a separate staff, there will be one of the staff members who will also be singularly devoted to internal security."

Citing the sensitive nature of the situation, Nichols would not comment on any other instances in which the Capitol Police have found listening devices in Congressional offices. "That information I am not going to be able to disclose," he said.

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