Posted on 01/30/2002 7:21:38 AM PST by truthandlife
The director of the F.B.I., Robert S. Mueller III, has removed a senior counterintelligence official from her job over her handling of an investigation into suspicions of Chinese espionage, bureau officials say.
The espionage investigation centers on suspicions that China tried to recruit a spy against the United States. Officials provided few additional details, and as a result the identity of the subject of the investigation is unknown. They also would not say whether any spying had actually taken place and what, if any, information may have been compromised.
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials said Mr. Mueller had lost patience with Sheila Horan, one of the bureau's highest ranking women, for failing, in his view, to conduct a sufficiently aggressive inquiry into the accusations. Mr. Mueller was said to be especially displeased that she did not provide him sooner with details about the case.
In what officials said was an unusually swift decision, Mr. Mueller transferred Ms. Horan from her job as acting head of the bureau's national security division to an administrative support position. They said she was expected to leave the bureau. Ms. Horan did not respond to a telephone call to her office.
The agency's national security division, also known as the counterintelligence division, has been reeling since the espionage inquiry last year that unmasked a senior agent, Robert P. Hanssen, as a Russian spy, and has been trying to regroup at a time when the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence operation has been vastly overshadowed by the bureau's efforts to cope with terrorism.
Any suggestion of Chinese involvement in espionage has been particularly delicate to the Justice Department since the collapse of the case against Wen Ho Lee, a nuclear weapons scientist who was initially suspected of spying for China. Dr. Lee, who pleaded guilty in September 2000 to one count of mishandling classified material, has charged that he was singled out for hostile scrutiny because he is Chinese-American.
Mr. Mueller, who was on the job less than two weeks when the Sept. 11 terror attacks occurred, has been preparing to announce a broader personnel shakeup and reorganization of the F.B.I.'s top managerial ranks. His actions in Ms. Horan's case are widely viewed in the bureau as reflecting his increasing confidence as head of the law enforcement agency.
Mr. Mueller has been demanding more accountability from top officials at the F.B.I. and has been under pressure from Attorney General John Ashcroft to strengthen the bureau's management.
The espionage inquiry is said to be unrelated to Beijing's discovery last month of sophisticated satellite-activated bugging devices installed aboard a Boeing 767 jetliner that was delivered to China in September as President Jiang Zemin's official aircraft.
President Bush is scheduled to visit Beijing in a few weeks. Thus far, the bugging case has brought no official protest and appears to have had little impact on the United States- China relationship.
Friends of Ms. Horan said that Mr. Mueller had unfairly blamed her for longstanding problems in the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence operations. In particular, they said, she was singled out for weaknesses that Mr. Mueller had concluded had hampered the bureau's efforts to thwart Chinese espionage.
Other officials said that Mr. Mueller had been planning to overhaul the counterespionage operations and had been impatient with the breezy and independent style of Ms. Horan, an agent with more than two decades of experience at the F.B.I.
In recent months, Ms. Horan's standing had eroded. She had been a deputy to Neil Gallagher, who before his retirement had headed the national security division and took much of the criticism from Congress concerning the Lee case. Under Mr. Gallagher, Ms. Horan had been in day-to-day charge of spy investigations.
Earlier, Ms. Horan had worked at the F.B.I.'s Washington office heading counterterrorism investigations. She was placed in charge of the initial investigation into the East Africa embassy bombings in 1998, an inquiry that led to the conviction of several Al Qaeda followers of Osama bin Laden.
The shakeup over the Chinese case comes as Justice Department internal inquiries into the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence operation are nearing completion and are expected to conclude that the national security division needs to be strengthened and brought under tighter managerial control.
A broad review of the F.B.I.'s counterespionage division has been under way for nearly a year led by William H. Webster, the former director of the F.B.I. and the Central Intelligence Agency. Another review by the Justice Department's inspector general is nearing completion.
Or leaks more of the details about the Islamic fundamentalists involved in the Oklahoma City Bombing....
Mr. Mueller has been demanding more accountability from top officials at the F.B.I. and has been under pressure from Attorney General John Ashcroft to strengthen the bureau's management.
About time
Having thoroughly compromised Obubba Been Clinton, would seem a hard act to follow.
/Sarcasm
Anyway, I have a feeling she's about to become a client of Judicial Watch.
Another possible explanation for her demotion is that Horan knew too much about transfers of US nuclear technology to China alleged by Sam Cohen (father of the neutron bomb)to have occurred under HW Bush. Win Ho Lee's wife worked for the CIA & FBI during the years that Win Ho spoke to Peter LEE and when the neutron bomb and US nuclear weapon design legacy codes were lost or transferred to the China.
While at FBI Horan certainly would also have known about the transfer of US missile defense (SDI) tech to the Chinese at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico during HW Bush tenure as VP and President. Army intelligence tried to get the FBI to do something about CHinese aquisiton of US missile defense and AWACS JSTARS radar technology and the FBI refused under HWBush.
GW Bush has reportedly revealed some operational details of the new US missile defense system to China and Horan would know about those revelations as well.
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