Cabinet head met with Wen Ho kin

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. Cabinet official secretly met with the daughter
of former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee as government prosecutors
tried to build a case against him for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets,
WorldNetDaily has learned.

Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta talked with Alberta Lee about the
then-still-active prosecution of her father in a July 29 meeting in
Atlanta, according to security officials within the department.

They say Mineta, the first Asian-American member of a U.S. Cabinet,
reassured Lee that her father was not targeted because of his race and
encouraged her to send that message to the Asian-American community,
which has threatened to rein in political donations to the Democratic
National Committee.

That same day, Mineta gave a speech to members of the Organization of
Chinese Americans gathered in Atlanta for their annual convention. The
10,000-member group includes several prominent DNC fund-raisers.

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"He was trying to calm the waters in the Chinese-American community,"
said a Commerce security specialist who requested anonymity.

But members of the executive protection team who
travel with the secretary were concerned about the
appearance of the meeting between Mineta and Lee, a
potential witness in the case.

"With all this stuff going on, it was so stupid," one security
official said. "It looks really bad."

At the time, Lee's outspoken daughter was campaigning to free her
jailed father, who was charged with 59 counts of mishandling classified
nuclear information. He was freed last month in a surprise plea-bargain
deal that dropped 58 of the counts against him. He was convicted of a
single felony.

Critics of the deal and the Clinton administration's overall handling
of the four-year investigation of Lee, who originally was a Chinese spy
suspect, say the meeting confirms their fears that politics derailed the
probe.

"They met after Mineta was confirmed and before Lee was convicted?
Knock me over with a feather," said Notra Trulock, the former Energy
Department counterintelligence chief who first put Lee on a suspect
list, which included several Caucasians.

"This is kind of the smoking gun that shows there was a political
effort to make this case go away," Trulock said.

Asked to comment on the appropriateness of the meeting, Mineta's
spokesman demurred.

"He wasn't Commerce secretary then," Commerce press secretary Morrie
Goodman argued. "I don't think he was, I don't think he was. I don't
think he was Commerce secretary then."

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Told Mineta was confirmed fully a week before the Atlanta meeting, on
July 20, Goodman declined to comment further and insisted questions be
submitted in writing under the Freedom of Information Act.

Alberta Lee could not be reached for comment. "She's in a quiet
period," said Cecilia Chang, a family friend who helped set up the
WenHoLee.org website and his legal defense fund.

At the Organization of Chinese Americans convention, held at the
Grand Hyatt in Atlanta's tony Buckhead district, Lee gave several
speeches herself.

"She spoke out at workshops and the general membership session," said
Daphne Kwok, the group's executive director.

The workshops focused on reaffirming the need for social justice and
equal opportunity for Asian-Americans.

In his speech, Mineta told members that last year alone the "Small
Business Administration granted three-and-a-half times more loans to
Asian Pacific American businesses than in 1992."

He also pointed out that "President Clinton and Vice President Gore
have appointed 70 Asian Pacific Americans to the administration."

John Huang and Melinda Yee are among several top DNC fund-raisers who
are members of the Organization of Chinese Americans, but Kwok says they
did not attend the Atlanta gathering. However, prominent DNC fund-raiser
and activist Maeley Tom, who has White House clout, did attend.

Before taking over the helm at Commerce, Mineta spoke out publicly on
the Lee case, echoing complaints that he was singled out because of his
race.

In July 1999, Mineta joined a panel discussion in Dallas on Lee
titled "The Loyalty Question." He told the audience they must speak out
to fight racial injustice.

Mineta's predecessor at Commerce, Bill Daley, has said he thinks Lee
was a victim of "great hysteria."

"There was a great hysteria when those revelations (of Chinese
spying) were made (in March 1999)," Daley said on CBS' "Face the Nation"
just days after Lee's release. "And there were all sorts of
congressional statements. There were all sorts of newspapers, to be
frank with you, with outrageous allegations based upon -- seemingly
based upon no evidence."

Daley, now running Gore's campaign, led the White House's recent
lobbying of Congress to pass permanent trade benefits for China.

A former Daley aide at Commerce says he doesn't know if Daley has met
with Alberta Lee since he took over the Gore campaign July 15.

"I don't know that he did, but I just don't know,"
said Andy Pincus, who left his job as Commerce's
general counsel and followed Daley to Nashville,
Tenn., to work on the Gore campaign as an unpaid
volunteer.

Chang says during a campaign stop about six months ago
in San Francisco, Tipper Gore told her "I'm very
sorry" about what happened to Lee.

Now that her father has been released, Chang says
Alberta Lee will lobby the president to pardon him for
the single felony to which he pleaded guilty.

President Clinton has said he was "quite troubled" by Lee's
treatment, which included nine months in solitary confinement.

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