THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release September 15, 2000
PRESS BRIEFING
BY
JOE LOCKHART
The James S. Brady Briefing Room
1:00 P.M. EDT
Q Joe, does the White House take issue with the characterization
of the President's remarks yesterday on the Wen Ho Lee case as a rebuke
of the Attorney General, of the Justice Department, of federal
investigators?
MR. LOCKHART: I think I said yesterday it was not a rebuke of any
particular person. I think the President made clear today that it was
not -- that he did not view his remarks as directed toward the Attorney
General. The President believes very strongly in her, the job she's
done and in her abilities.
There are questions, though, as he said, that should be answered,
and we hope they will be.
...
Q Joe, on Wen Ho Lee, what sort of follow up review is the White
House considering?
MR. LOCKHART: Well, there were some discussions yesterday between
the White House staff and the Justice Department. I think as the
President -- get it today, he will take an opportunity at some point to
talk to the Attorney General. I don't know what form it will take, but
I think we're looking for some sort of process that can look at the
narrow question that the President posed about holding someone pretrial,
you know, without the possibility of bail.
I think he put into perspective today many of the important issues
about what is crucial here is finding out what happened to the tapes,
looking at a very serious national security violation by the gentleman
in question. But there are questions about the legal issues surrounding
the pretrial bail, and the timing of the bail hearing versus the
arguments made in the bail hearing and the arguments made subsequently
in the plea bargain. That needs some examination. I think he was
fairly clear on that.
Q Is he considering, though, appointing some sort of outside
person?
MR. LOCKHART: The conversations haven't gone that far. I know
that there was some very helpful advice provided on editorial pages
about how we should do this -- the very same pages that provided exactly
the opposite advice some months ago. But I think we'll ignore the
editorials and rely on our own counsel.
Q Joe, do you think -- the President said he doesn't think
racial bias was a factor here. Do you think that just an atmosphere of
hysteria may have been a factor in --
MR. LOCKHART: I'll tell you, we take these kinds of issues very
seriously. And I think when there are troubling questions, we think
there should be answers. And I think the President was very clear on
what the American people deserve. And it's certainly our hope, although
it is not a hope that we genuinely believe anything will be done about,
that others will take some time and do some examination.
I think there was a climate of -- a very difficult climate that was
generated in this town when this story came out, a climate generated by
some very explosive and near-hysterical investigative reporting, a
climate that was fueled by explosive comments from political leaders,
including members of Congress. And I hope everybody takes a moment,
looks at how they handled this situation, and looks to see if in the
future they can do better -- just as I think the executive branch will
do.
Q Joe, do you believe that the media reporting and the explosive
atmosphere that you've described affected the prosector's decisions on
which charges to bring and how this case was --
MR. LOCKHART: That would be a question you would have to put to
the prosecutors, and they will stand up, I'm certain, and answer their
questions. It's certainly my hope that those who wrote the stories will
also be willing to stand up and talk about their motivations and whether
there is anything they can learn in the aftermath of their reporting.
Q What about the question of an apology? The judge raised the
fact that he could not apologize for the executive branch, but he could
apologize for what he thought had happened in his courtroom. Is there
any thought being given to contacting Mr. Lee and making any kind of
formal apology?
MR. LOCKHART: I think given the limited and the proper role, and
hands-off role that was played here by the White House, there is no
discussion of that.
I think the President's obligation, as he addressed directly
yesterday and then again this morning, was when questions are raised,
when they are legitimate questions, when people are troubled by things
-- and he, indeed, is troubled, himself, by some of these questions --
we should look at it. We should look at it and see what it is we can
learn from this experience and see if anything needs to be done to
improve in the future.
Q So who should apologize in this case here? Is Mr. Lee due an
apology?
MR. LOCKHART: I'm in no position to make a judgment on that.
Q Joe, can you clarify something I think you said this morning?
The President, when he had the opportunity, I guess, to talk about this
earlier but chose not to talk about it until yesterday, you suggested
that the press would have jumped on him if he had made a statement
earlier --
MR. LOCKHART: No. I think, quite rightly, the President -- again,
we're looking at a very narrow band of issues here in this case, and we
shouldn't loose sight of that. But there were -- he had an
understanding of the reasons for holding this gentleman without bail,
and within the last week or so -- and I think, as he said this morning,
it is a very high standard in this country, as it should be. I think he
said that we often lean in the other direction on this, for good reason.
The questions are generated, the specific questions are generated
from the fact that between a bail hearing on one day and three or four
days later, those reasons seem to have dissipated in a plea agreement,
as far as the risk of -- posed by allowing the gentleman before a trial
out of prison.
So I think he has a general, as I think most Americans do, high
standard, and always a sense of unease when someone is being held
without the possibility for bail. And in this question -- the questions
are generated and derived from, just in the last week, you know, the
difference between where they were from the bail hearing and where they
were in the trial, or the plea agreement.
Q But it wasn't a fear of an adverse press reaction that kept
him from speaking out earlier?
MR. LOCKHART: No, I think the -- I think what I was referring to
yesterday, and I think he touched on a little bit this morning is, that
there were certainly -- and the little that he knew about this -- there
was a case made for why they had to go in this direction. And I think
that you would all understand, and would have, I think, had a field day
reporting, if somehow he tried to intervene in this case, as somehow
being politically motivated.
Q Could the President -- does the President think he could have
done anything to sort of calm the hysteria you described earlier?
MR. LOCKHART: Well, let me tell you something, because I happened
to be around here during that period, and I think most of you who talked
to me on a variety of bases, heard a pretty clear and consistent
message, which is -- and particularly with some news organizations --
that we believe that you were out ahead of yourself. There were a lot
of people jumping to a lot of conclusions, and we ought to sit back and
make suer that we know all the facts.
So I don't think that in this particular case that, at least from
this particular podium in this particular building, we'll take the blame
for creating whatever sort of environment we were in, in this case. And
I would suggest that those of you who didn't talk to me during that
period talk to your colleagues who did.
END 1:25 P.M. EDT
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