Lawyers Seek Source of Leaks

Washington Post ^ | 8/28/03 | Carol D. Leonnig

[TastyManatees]

Lawyers Seek Source of Leaks
Ex-Los Alamos Worker Seeks Permission to Query Reporters

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 28, 2003; Page A25

Lawyers for former government scientist Wen Ho Lee argued in federal court yesterday that they are having such a tough time getting government officials to acknowledge releasing information about Lee to the news media that they need to question reporters who published the information.

"They either deny it or say they don't recall," Brian Sun, Lee's attorney, said of 21 Justice Department, FBI and Department of Energy officials his team has deposed. "In this town, apparently, that 'I don't recall' language is quite popular."

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson acknowledged the Washington phenomenon with a chuckle.

"Oh, it's very popular," the judge said.

Lee, a former Las Alamos National Laboratory scientist once accused of passing nuclear secrets to China, has sued the Justice Department, alleging it violated his privacy by releasing his name as a suspected spy to reporters and providing other personal information. His attorneys have subpoenaed {grv}reporters from the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and other organizations to question them to learn which agencies employed the government officials anonymously quoted.

The FBI has acknowledged that it botched the Lee investigation, and in 2000, moved from charging Lee with 59 counts of felony espionage to letting him plead guilty to one felony count of copying classified documents onto computer tapes. Lee, who has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, had been jailed for nine months by then. The case led to internal investigations, congressional hearings, a federal judge's criticism that the government's treatment of Lee "had embarrassed this entire nation" and this lawsuit.

Lawyers for several news organizations and individual reporters, trying to quash the subpoenas, insisted in U.S. District Court in Washington yesterday that Lee's failure to ascertain who leaked information is not a justification to force reporters to submit to court-ordered questioning about their reporting.

[TastyManatees]

If there was justice in this world, this guy would be sleeping in a prison cell with a guy named "Icepick", not suing government officials who uncovered the overwhelming evidence of his treason. He pled guilty to a lesser charge of unlawful retention of national defense information, but the last administration should have had the guts to prosecute him with the evidence it had. One positive aspect of this lawsuit is it will likely again call public attention to the substantial evidence that this man has betrayed his country.

Tasty Manatees

[archy]

Lawyers Seek Source of Leaks
Ex-Los Alamos Worker Seeks Permission to Query Reporters

Leaks? What they need are some good Washingtonian plumbers.