By Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 7, 1999; Page A26

The Justice Department is establishing a team of FBI agents and federal prosecutors to review the government's response to suspicions that the Chinese were engaged in espionage at some of the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories, Attorney General Janet Reno said yesterday.

Describing the review as "administrative" and not a criminal investigation, Reno said the inquiry will determine whether "there was anything, either in this administration or in prior administrations, that could have been done differently."

Republicans have blasted the Clinton administration for being slow to respond to evidence of major security breaches at Los Alamos National Laboratory and other nuclear weapons facilities run by the Department of Energy. Senate Republicans unveiled new evidence this week that investigations of the chief suspect in possible Chinese espionage have been marked by repeated bungles over the past 15 years.

"I don't have any allegation that anybody did anything wrong," Reno said. "What I have is a process, a process that is always a very difficult process, and I want to look at it from the point of view of performance to see what we could have done in any way differently."

The focus of the review will be the government's investigation of Wen Ho Lee, a former scientist at Los Alamos who is under investigation for possible espionage. Lee's lawyer has denied Lee committed any crime and China has denied stealing U.S. secrets.

A search of Lee's lab computer in March and April discovered that he had transferred classified computer codes dealing with nuclear weapons to the unclassified computer. Earlier in the investigation, officials at Los Alamos had told the FBI they could search Lee's computer at any time because he, like other lab employees, had signed a waiver permitting a search without his knowledge.

FBI officials decided against this course because any information discovered in a search under the voluntary waiver could not be used in a criminal prosecution and might taint other evidence developed by the investigation. Instead, in 1997 the FBI sought a warrant to search Lee's computer and tap his telephone. But this request was turned down by the Justice Department on the grounds that the investigation had found no current information linking Lee to possible criminal activity.

Congressional Republicans have seized on this chain of events to accuse the administration of mishandling the Lee investigation and of tolerating lax security measures at the nuclear weapons labs that may have jeopardized national security. At a hearing Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) told Reno, "It appears to me that had the department acted promptly and properly two years ago – when urged by the FBI to petition a court for wiretap authority over Wen Ho Lee's phone and computer – that much of this apparent damage to our national security may have been avoided."

Senate Republicans continued that criticism yesterday. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) said he wanted an explanation of why the Justice Department "didn't give the FBI the authority to initiate an investigation and monitor [Lee's] computer."