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FISHRGAME
///
Did
Katrina and Her FBI Lovers Have Influence on U.S.
1996 Elections?
April 27,
2003 / Lieberman asks
for an inquiry in connection with spying
allegations against Katrina Leung.
-----Citing concern
that an alleged spy case may also have tainted the
nation's political system, U.S. Sen. Joseph I.
Lieberman (D-Conn.) has asked federal authorities
to investigate whether suspected double agent
Katrina M. Leung illegally funneled money into
campaigns at the direction of China.
-----In a letter to
U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and FBI Director
Robert S. Mueller III, Lieberman noted that the
lengthy 1997 congressional investigation into the
1996 federal elections and, particularly, the
Democratic campaign of then-President Bill Clinton
was based largely on information provided by the
FBI and other law enforcement agencies.
-----"I am asking that
you investigate whether firm evidence has now
arisen" that Chinese officials influenced U.S.
elections through campaign contributions, Lieberman
wrote.
-----Press accounts
and public records, Lieberman said, show that
Leung, a San Marino businesswoman, was active in
political circles and contributed to the Republican
National Committee. He cited a 1997 story in The
Times in which Leung dismissed allegations that an
Indonesian businessman she knew might be a Beijing
political operative.
-----"The prospect of
a foreign government illegally influencing our
political campaigns is a very troubling one, and
any evidence that that might have occurred must be
vigilantly investigated and pursued," Lieberman
wrote.
-----FBI officials
have said their investigation of Leung and her FBI
contact, former Los Angeles counterintelligence
agent James Smith, would include every aspect of
their work during a 20-year association that
included a romance. Officials also have
acknowledged that Smith's assignments included the
bureau's 1997 campaign finance investigation.
///
May
1, 2003 / Congress Rejects Katrina Spy
Case
----- May 1, 2003 /
WASHINGTON The Republican leadership has rejected a
request for a prompt hearing into the FBI's
handling of accused China double agent Katrina M.
Leung, saying any congressional oversight should be
delayed until the bureau and the Justice Department
complete their own reviews of the spy
episode..
----- "Given the
current pending criminal case and the FBI's and
Justice Department inspector general's ongoing
efforts to investigate this matter, I do not
believe that now is the appropriate time to conduct
oversight hearings on this matter," Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch
(R-Utah) said in a letter released
Wednesday..
----- A group of
senior lawmakers Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.),
Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Arlen Specter
(R-Pa.) pressed Hatch last week for an immediate
congressional investigation of the case, saying it
raised major concerns about national security and
the FBI's use of informants in counterintelligence
operations..
----- Leung was
arrested April 9 and charged with passing
classified information to China that she got from
James J. Smith, a top FBI counterintelligence agent
in Los Angeles who was also her lover, prosecutors
say. Attorneys for Leung, who was paid $1.7 million
over 20 years as an informant for the FBI, have
said she was merely doing what the bureau and its
agents told her to do. Smith, who retired from the
FBI in 2000, was charged with negligent handling of
classified information. In his response to the
three senators, Hatch said he would support a "full
review" by the Judiciary Committee of the FBI and
Justice probes, once they are complete, "to
determine whether there are additional steps the
committee should take to prevent future national
security
breaches.".
----- Leahy said the
delay is unjustified. "It's difficult for me to
understand why we can't find time to come to grips
with issues that are jeopardizing our security," he
said.
///
Why
No Lie Detector Test Given To
Katrina?
May 2, 2003 / It was suggested that suspect be
tested in the mid-1990s, U.S. officials say, but
she was not.\By Greg Krikorian and Scott Glover,
Times Staff
Writers.
----- Years before
Katrina Leung's arrest for allegedly obtaining
secret documents for China, officials at FBI
headquarters in Washington, D.C., suggested that
she submit to a polygraph test because of questions
about her reliability, according to federal law
enforcement
officials..
----- But Leung, who
allegedly worked for China for decades while the
FBI thought she was spying for the United States,
never took the test in the
mid-1990s..
----- One former
Justice Department official involved in the Leung
case said she refused to take the test. Other
sources close to the investigation say that
although it is certain she did not take a test, the
reason is unclear. The sources said they could find
no written record of any refusal by
Leung..
----- "All we know is
that she didn't take it," said one
official..
----- Janet I. Levine,
one of Leung's lawyers, said her client had never
refused an order to take a polygraph test. "Katrina
Leung did as she was directed, and was at all times
a loyal American," Levine wrote in a prepared
statement..
----- In a telephone
interview, Levine said she knew neither whether the
topic of a polygraph had been broached on a less
formal basis nor whether Leung may have said she
preferred not to take the
exam..
----- Leung was
arrested April 9 with her longtime handler, former
FBI agent James J. Smith. Smith's attorney, Brian
Sun, said that his client never received a
directive from FBI headquarters in the mid-1990s to
have Leung take a
polygraph..
----- It was unclear
whether a lie detector test could have helped the
FBI uncover Leung's alleged treachery years before
May 2000, when the bureau launched an investigation
into her and Smith, her longtime FBI contact and
alleged lover..
----- Sources close to
the investigation say that Leung, a highly regarded
informant for nearly two decades, passed two lie
detector tests in the 1980s. The suggestion that
she be given another exam in the mid-1990s was
prompted by "inconsistencies" in some of her
reports to the FBI, but it was never pressed by
headquarters, according to one
official..
----- Nearly a month
after the arrests of Leung and Smith, current and
former FBI officials continue to voice concern that
the bureau missed several opportunities to uncover
the case years earlier. "If the informant was asked
and declined to take a polygraph, it would
certainly be another alarm," said one former
assistant
director..
----- Rep. Jane Harman
(D-Venice), the ranking Democrat on the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said
Thursday that she remains troubled by the potential
damage to national security allegedly caused by
Leung and Smith..
----- "I am very
concerned about this case and I don't know how far
it will go," Harman said in an interview. "No one
is claiming yet that we have gotten to the bottom
of this case.".
----- Harman, who was
briefed Thursday by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller
and CIA Director George Tenet, praised the breadth
and depth of the FBI's current investigation. She
said she was optimistic that "the same vigilance
that unearthed this problem is being employed" by
the FBI as it investigates the Leung
case..
----- She said she had
received assurances that investigators would leave
"no stone unturned" in pursuing the case well
beyond the Los Angeles field office and FBI
headquarters..
----- "If it goes to
San Francisco and other offices, so be it," said
Harman..
----- As far back as
1991, records and interviews show, Leung's actions
drew concerns at the FBI. Though a prized "asset,"
the Chinese businesswoman rankled
counterintelligence officials when it was
discovered that she had made unauthorized contact
with a Chinese
official..
----- A now-retired
FBI agent in San Francisco approached then-Agent
Smith with worries about Leung after discovering
her voice on an "intercepted conversation" with a
Chinese official. That same year, the two agents
discussed the issue with FBI officials in
Washington, where it was decided that Leung's
actions would be handled by
Smith..
----- The former
Justice Department official involved in the Leung
case said that when Leung declined to take the
exam, officials at FBI headquarters "did not press"
the matter because they were worried about losing
her as a counterintelligence
source..
----- Other law
enforcement officials versed in
counterintelligence, however, said it would not be
surprising if Leung or any longtime source would
decline a polygraph, especially in the murky world
of informants and
espionage..
----- "It was not
outside the norm for an informant to refuse a
polygraph and we knew that was a possibility," said
one federal law enforcement source. "You are not
dealing with choir boys here. They are reluctant
because of their past or because of things they are
currently involved
in.".
----- One former FBI
official who worked for years in
counterintelligence agreed. "This is always a
difficult area when you are dealing with long-term
assets," said the official, who had no role in this
case. "To be successful at what they do, informants
or sources have to be liars, so there is almost no
way they could ever pass a
polygraph.".
----- But one current
counter-terrorism agent disagreed, insisting that
polygraph examinations with all their potential
pitfalls can be helpful in assessing an informant's
credibility. And, the agent said, any source worth
keeping had to be willing at any time to submit to
a polygraph..
----- "If one of mine
tried to [refuse], I would make it clear
this is not open to discussion," said the agent.
"Either you do this or the relationship is over. It
is not an
option.".
----- Even with her
later arrest as a suspected double agent, the
sources agreed, it is impossible to say whether a
polygraph could have helped the FBI uncover Leung's
alleged betrayal..
----- "I don't think
anybody knows whether the polygraph would have made
a difference," one official said.
///
Updates:
Did Katrina Have
Influence on U.S.1996 Elections, ask
Congres?
Lawmakers To Study FBI
Handling of China Counter-Spy
-----A
letter released today says the arrest of accused
Chinese double agent Katrina Leung is among cases
that underscore "long-standing concern" about FBI
dealings with informants.
-----10:29 AM PDT,
April 28, 2003 / From Associated Press - WASHINGTON
-- The FBI's handling of confidential informants
should be a key part of Senate hearings into the
arrests on spying charges of a former FBI
counterintelligence agent and an alleged Chinese
double-agent, three senior senators say.
-----"We believe that
it is incumbent on the Judiciary Committee to
examine whether there are larger security issues
that continue to persist," said a letter signed by
Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Charles Grassley,
R-Iowa; and Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
-----The letter to
Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch requests
hearings as soon as possible into the case of
former FBI agent James J. Smith and Katrina Leung,
a Los Angeles businesswoman and socialite who is
accused of being a Chinese double agent --; and
also Smith's longtime lover.
-----Smith is free on
bond; Leung has been jailed without bond since the
two were arrested April 9.
-----The letter
released today said the Leung case, as well as the
FBI's handling of informants in the Boston case of
fugitive mobster James "Whitey" Bulger, underscore
"long-standing concern" about FBI dealings with
informants.
-----In the Boston
case, former FBI agent John Connolly is serving a
10-year prison sentence for protecting Bulger and
another crime kingpin. While senior FBI officials
have portrayed Connolly and several colleagues as
rogue agents, there were also at least 26 memos
written between the Boston field office and FBI
headquarters indicating top officials knew what was
going on.
-----It remains
unclear exactly how much officials at FBI
headquarters knew about Smith and Leung, who is
accused of passing classified information she took
from Smith to the People's Republic of China. Leung
was Smith's intelligence asset for 18 years, during
which time the two also had a sexual relationship,
prosecutors say.
-----"If even a
portion of the allegations raised in the public
affidavit are true, we cannot afford to wait until
yet another breach of national security occurs
before we work with the FBI to improve security and
the handling of confidential informants," the
senators' letter says.
-----A spokeswoman for
Hatch, a Utah Republican, did not immediately
return a telephone call seeking reaction.
-----Sen. Joseph
Lieberman, D-Conn., also has asked for a Justice
Department and FBI investigation. He wants to know
whether any of Leung's contributions to Republican
campaigns came from the Chinese government.
-----Lieberman's
Republican-controlled committee conducted an
investigation in 1997 into whether Chinese
government officials tried to influence the 1996
election with donations to Democratic candidates.
The committee's findings were inconclusive.
///
WAS
KATRINA REALLY a double agent ?
-----April
22, 2003. A special team of FBI agents has arrived
in Los Angeles to question bureau personnel over
management lapses that may have allowed an alleged
double agent access to U.S. secrets.
-----Eight agents from
the FBI's inspections unit will question bureau
personnel who worked in the agency's Chinese
counterintelligence unit and in other parts of the
office. The probe is to "assess responsibility for
the management lapses," that allowed the scandal to
occur, FBI director Robert S. Mueller said.
-----FBI spokeswoman
Cheryl Mimura in Los Angeles said the inspectors
would be here "as long as it takes to finish up
their inquiries. We're putting as much manpower
into this as we need to. We will help them in any
way we can," she said.
-----A former FBI
agent, who has been following the probe closely,
said his understanding is that the inspectors,
known inside the FBI as "the goon squad," will
"turn this place upside down."
-----"They are going
to be asking every agent," who might have any
knowledge of the scandal what they know about the
case and why they did not come forward earlier, the
former agent said.
-----The former agent
added that he had been informed that one agent in
the Los Angeles office already had declined to
answer questions from the inspectors. Mimura
declined to respond to questions on that
subject.
-----On April 8,
Mueller announced that Katrina M. Leung, a Chinese
American businesswoman from San Marino, had been
arrested and accused of taking classified documents
and passing them to the Chinese. She is being held
without bail.
-----A former Los
Angeles agent, James J. Smith, who was Leung's FBI
"handler" for two decades, was arrested the same
day and charged with gross negligence for allegedly
permitting Leung to gain access to the documents.
He has been released on $250,000 bail.
-----Attorneys for
Leung and Smith have said that their clients have
not broken any law and said they will receive a
vigorous defense.
-----Smith and Leung
had a sexual relationship for many years, according
to allegations in court documents. FBI sources have
said that the investigation began before Smith
retired from the bureau's counterintelligence squad
in Los Angeles in November 2000.
-----During Leung's 20
years as an FBI "asset," she was paid about $1.7
million in fees and expenses.
-----FBI regulations
specify that whenever an informant is paid, at
least two agents have to be present and verify in
writing the payment was made. The former agent said
he had been told that, among other matters, the FBI
inspectors are investigating whether that rule was
followed in Smith's dealings with Leung. Former
assistant FBI director Bill Baker said he expected
the probe would be thorough. "I'm sure this is a
specially selected team," including agents with
backgrounds in counterintelligence work, Baker
said.
-----"The post mortem
on this will be how well did the L.A. office and
the FBI [in Washington] look at the
long-term relationship" between Smith and Leung,
particularly because the bureau received
information as long ago as 1991 that Leung was
having unauthorized contacts with Chinese
intelligence agencies.
-----The probe here is
one of three internal investigations being
conducted by the FBI in this case.
-----Mueller has also
ordered a top-to-bottom review of practices and
procedures governing how agents handle informants.
And he has asked Glenn Fine, the Justice
Department's inspector general, "to conduct a
thorough review of the performance and management
issues relating to this case."
///
Is
the FBI Trying To Clear Katrina?
April 25, 2003 - Times Sources say FBI officials
knew of Katrina Leung and Agent James Smith's
relationship, but looked the other way despite a
potential security threat
-----Smith, 59, and
Leung, 49, were arrested April 9, 2003. Leung is
accused of having taken classified documents and
passing them to the Chinese. She is being held
without bail in the Metropolitan Detention Center
in downtown Los Angeles. She has denied any
wrongdoing. Her lawyers have said she was merely
doing what Smith and other FBI officials had asked
her to do during a more than 20-year career as an
FBI spy during which she was paid $1.7 million.
-----Smith was charged
with gross negligence for allegedly having allowed
Leung access to the classified material she is
suspected of providing to the Chinese. He is free
on $250,000 bond.
-----How Smith managed
for years to sidestep the regulations governing
counterintelligence sources remains a source of
embarrassment for the FBI because some of his
actions were known to top officials, records and
interviews show.
-----Although veteran
FBI agents acknowledge that meeting alone with
sources occurs more frequently than it should, they
expressed surprise that Smith did so repeatedly and
with the knowledge of superiors.
-----"It is one of
those things that you don't want to happen," an FBI
official said. "But we know it did happen here and
people, apparently, just looked the other way."
-----Said another
source: "People understood he had a very close
relationship with her [and] though it was a
technical violation of the rules, I don't think
anyone saw it as the world's biggest infraction. In
hindsight, however, it was."
-----Shortly after the
2000 meeting with Smith, three supervisors in the
Los Angeles office were summoned to Washington for
a meeting with top bureau officials to discuss the
developing situation regarding Smith and Leung.
-----The details of
what was discussed in the meeting, how matters were
left when it concluded, and what happened next are
unclear.
-----Sheila Horan, who
attended the meeting and was then an official with
the FBI's national-security division, declined to
comment.
-----Early last year,
Mueller, who had come aboard as FBI director the
previous summer, removed Horan from her post; she
subsequently left the bureau in a disagreement over
the pace of certain China investigations, including
a matter that didn't involve Leung, according to a
federal law enforcement source.
-----Angered that more
had not been done in the investigation into the
activities of Leung, Mueller contacted the Justice
Department in early January 2002, said another
source close to the investigation. There, Assistant
U.S. Atty. Randy Bellows, who had been appointed a
special counsel, launched an internal inquiry and
recommended the appointment of an
inspector-in-charge. The inspector's 13-month
criminal investigation led to the charges against
Smith and Leung.
-----"Bob
[Mueller] was incensed and wanted to take
care of this [publicly] before it was
leaked to the Hill and it appeared he was trying to
cover it up," said one source close to the
investigation. "He wanted to act decisively and I
think he has accomplished that," said the source.
Now investigators "are trying to find all the
evidence to fit that theory."
-----Officials at the
FBI, including those at headquarters in Washington,
were aware of an especially close relationship
between once-prized spy Katrina Leung and her FBI
handler, and allowed at least one departure from
FBI policy designed to protect the integrity of the
bureau's counterespionage system.
-----A source close to
the investigation said officials were aware for
years that Agent James J. Smith would meet with
Leung to pay her in person, despite a policy that
normally requires the presence of two agents at
such meetings, in part to discourage theft
-----Top FBI brass
were willing to make the accommodation because
Leung, whose code name was Parlor Maid, was a
particularly valuable "asset" in the FBI's effort
to spy on the Chinese, said the source, a former
Justice Department official.
-----"She was hot," he
said, "a very integral part of the Chinese
program."
-----What officials
did not know at the time was that Smith and Leung
were involved in a long-term sexual relationship,
which federal prosecutors allege served as the
backdrop for Leung's secret copying of classified
documents and providing them to the Chinese
government.
-----The fact that
Smith had a close friendship with Leung was an open
secret in the FBI's Los Angeles field office she
attended his retirement party wielding a video
camera. But the disclosure that officials in the
FBI's Washington headquarters were also aware of
aspects of the relationship and appear to have
looked the other way may shed new light on the
"management lapses" that FBI Director Robert S.
Mueller III has said allowed the scandal to
occur.
-----Recently, Mueller
dispatched a team of agents from the bureau's
inspections unit in an effort to get to the bottom
of the case that resulted in criminal charges being
filed against Leung and Smith earlier this month.
Some current agents already have been questioned,
and none has refused to be interviewed, sources
familiar with the investigation said.
-----The special
treatment given to the meetings between Smith and
Leung was one of several apparent opportunities to
recognize the potential security threat caused by
their relationship.
-----The investigation
into Leung and her relationship with Smith began in
2000 when "the China program went to hell," said
the former Justice Department official, who is
familiar with some aspects of the Parlor Maid case
as it developed in Washington and Los Angeles.
-----At the time,
officials were concerned that the Chinese had
discovered various electronic surveillance
operations by the United States, according to the
former Justice Department official.
-----As part of the
probe into what had gone wrong with the China
program, FBI supervisors in Los Angeles questioned
Smith about Leung. According to the source, Smith
said that Leung was trustworthy and that he was
confident she was not responsible for any security
breaches. The meeting, which occurred shortly
before Smith retired from the FBI in November 2000,
was not confrontational because Smith was not
suspected of any wrongdoing, the source said.
-----"J.J. was a very
trusted guy," the source added. "Knowing what we
suspect about him now I think even if he knew she
was a double agent, he thought he was smart enough
to manage that."
///
April
20, 2003 /
FBI Protecting Its Own Katrina Spy Case
Storyline
Other than disputing one claim by Leung's
attorneys, agency declines to respond.
Attorneys for an alleged Chinese double agent
released a statement accusing the FBI of engaging
in a cover-up that focuses on the foreign-born
woman while minimizing the misdeeds of its own
agents.
-----Katrina M. Leung,
a Chinese American businesswoman from San Marino,
and former FBI counterintelligence agent James
Smith were arrested earlier this month. Leung has
been accused of taking classified documents and
passing them to the Chinese, and Smith has been
accused of gross negligence for giving Leung access
to the documents.
-----Matthew
McLaughlin, a Los Angeles FBI spokesman, declined
to comment on the document but did dispute a
passage in the statement that said Leung's home was
searched multiple times, but Smith's Westlake home
was not.
-----"We did search
his house after we arrested him," McLaughlin
said.
-----The
seven-paragraph statement by "family and friends"
of Leung, 49, portrays her as a patriot who made
numerous trips to China at the request of the FBI,
only to be used as a scapegoat by an agency that
was "embarrassed" after discovering that Smith, 59,
and another former agent, William Cleveland Jr.,
were having affairs with Leung.
-----"The FBI is doing
what they have done in other cases of FBI
bungling," the statement says. "They blame the
non-agent and the foreign born, especially the
Asian, especially the woman."
-----Thom Mrozek, a
spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los
Angeles, said he would not respond to statements or
allegations made by Leung, her lawyers or her
supporters outside of court.
-----"She will be
given an opportunity to defend herself in court,"
Mrozek said.
-----Justice
Department sources said that an investigation of
Smith has been underway for almost three years,
since before his retirement from the FBI's
counterintelligence squad in Los Angeles in
November of 2000.
///
April 16, 2003
Magistrate
Denies Bail for Suspect in Spy Case
Katrina Leung, accused of being a Chinese double
agent, is called a flight risk.
----- Calling her a
flight risk and potential threat to national
security, a federal magistrate denied bail Tuesday
to Katrina Leung, a longtime FBI informer accused
of working as a Chinese double agent.
-----U.S. Magistrate
Victor Kenton ordered the wealthy San Marino
businesswoman jailed at the federal Metropolitan
Detention Center pending her trial on a charge of
illegally obtaining classified documents from her
FBI handler, with whom she carried on a 20-year
sexual relationship.
-----The agent, James
J. Smith, now retired, was charged with gross
negligence in the handling of national security
documents and freed on $250,000 bond following his
arrest April 9 along with Leung.
-----During a
four-hour hearing before Kenton on Tuesday, Leung's
lawyers argued that she was more deserving of bail
than Smith.
-----At one point,
defense attorney Janet Levine wondered aloud
whether prosecutors were motivated by prejudice in
seeking detention for Leung, a naturalized U.S.
citizen who was born in China.
-----Assistant U.S.
Atty. Rebecca Lonergan denounced the suggestion as
outrageous and untrue. Lonergan contended that if
allowed to go free on bond, Leung might flee to
China, where she has friends in high places and
which does not have an extradition treaty with the
United States.
-----Although Leung,
49, and her family had offered to post as much as
$2 million in property to secure her freedom,
Lonergan argued that the defendant had possibly
millions of dollars stashed away in hidden foreign
bank accounts, money she could use if she chose to
flee.
-----The prosecutor
described Leung's foreign assets as "enormous and
complex," and charged that the suspect had
concealed her overseas earnings in her annual U.S.
tax returns.
-----Lonergan also
asserted that while working as a paid informant,
Leung made about 15 overseas trips between 1989 and
2002 without telling her FBI handler.
-----And just last
month, the prosecutor said, Leung was offered a
five-year visa to China during a meeting with the
deputy chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy in
Washington.
-----But defense
attorney Levine and co-counsel John Vandevelde
accused the government of distorting the facts
about Leung's conduct.
-----Levine said that
Leung has had opportunities to flee since December,
when FBI agents searched her home and interviewed
her at length over seven days.
-----During her
interrogation, Vandevelde said, Leung cooperated
with the FBI, volunteering information and
documents, despite the fact that she had been
presented with a search warrant that said she was
suspected of committing an act of espionage
carrying a possible death sentence. The actual
charge against her carries a maximum 10-year prison
term.
-----Vandevelde also
said that Leung gave advance notice to FBI
investigators about her meeting with the Chinese
diplomat in Washington last month and reported
afterward on what transpired.
-----"Ms. Leung was
exceedingly candid and forthcoming with the FBI,"
said Vandevelde. "In contrast, agent Smith withheld
information when he was questioned in this
investigation."
-----The defense
lawyers suggested that Leung be placed on home
detention with electronic monitoring of her
movements. Leung's husband, brother and sister
attended the hearing and indicated they were
willing to post assets for her bail.
-----In deciding
against releasing her, Kenton cited an FBI
statement that the agency has been forced to review
a number of national security cases to determine
whether they were compromised by unauthorized
information that Leung might have passed to
China.
-----"The court cannot
conclude that the defendant does not pose a danger
to national security," he said.
Rspectfully
Submitted
Josie
Cory
Publisher/Editor
TVI Magazine
TVI
Magazine, tviNews.net, YES90, Associated Press,
Reuters, BBC, LA Times, NY Times, VRA's D-Diaries,
Press Releases and SmartSearch were used in
compiling and ascertaining this news
report.
//
April 15, 2003
Katrina Blames
the FBI For Her Spy Activities and the arrest of
her FBI boyfriend. They paid her $1.7
million.
- Her defense attorneys say the alleged
Chinese double agent was exploited by the
bureau.
was the cause for his "stealing" the
secret U.S. documents.
-----Attorneys for
longtime FBI informant and alleged Chinese
double agent Katrina Leung asserted Monday that
she consistently took her orders from bureau
agents, one of whom is facing federal charges of
allowing her access to government
secrets.
was the cause for his "stealing" the
secret U.S. documents.
-----But an FBI
agent alleged in an affidavit unsealed Monday
that Leung's spying for China has called into
question two decades of U.S. counterintelligence
investigations that relied on her
information.
was the cause for his "stealing" the
secret U.S. documents.
-----Characterized
by some media as a modern Mata Hari, the
49-year-old Los Angeles businesswoman faces
charges that she illegally obtained secret
documents for China.
was the cause for his "stealing" the
secret U.S. documents.
-----Her lawyers
described her as a woman exploited by her FBI
handlers, including former Los Angeles Agent
James J. Smith, who is charged with gross
negligence in allowing her access to classified
material. "The FBI controlled everything" Leung
did since she became an informant more than 20
years ago, her defense attorneys John D.
Vandevelde and Janet I. Levine said in court
papers.was the cause for his "stealing" the
secret U.S. documents.
was the cause for his "stealing" the
secret U.S. documents.
-----But on the eve
of today's bail hearing for Leung, federal
authorities alleged that she "deceived the FBI
about her relationship with [Chinese]
intelligence services for
years."
was the cause for his "stealing" the
secret U.S. documen |
