January 8, 2000
Web posted at: 2:08 p.m. EST (1908 GMT)

WASHINGTON -- The FBI misled nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee, accused of mishandling U.S. nuclear weapons secrets, into believing he had failed a polygraph test administered by the Department of Energy, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Lee had maintained during an adversarial March 7 tape- recorded interrogation by the FBI that he was telling the truth -- unaware that DOE polygraph examiners had given him a high score for honesty. The FBI was asking him if he had passed weapons secrets on to China. The session ended only after Lee repeatedly asked to leave, according to the Post article.

"I don't know why I fail," Lee told FBI agents, according to a transcript obtained by The Washington Post. "But I do know I have not done anything ... I never give any classified information to Chinese people."

The March interrogation came one day before the Taiwan-born scientist was fired from his job at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Lee, 60, was arrested in December and is being held without bail, charged with illegally transferring classified nuclear data to computer tapes, seven of which are missing.

Lee's family and supporters view the transcript as proof that the FBI was unfair and even devious in its probe.

Mark Holscher, one of Lee's lawyers, told the Post that the FBI's false statements and veiled threats, including one of execution, should make it apparent why Lee "is reluctant to be subjected to further questioning."

"The transcript clearly shows that the FBI on at least a dozen occasions (during the interrogation) pressured Dr. Lee to confess to a death penalty offense, which even the Department of Justice must now concede he did not commit," Holscher said.

Prosecutors say the investigation was not unethical in any way, and that the FBI was justified in its skepticism by a series of lies the scientist had told colleagues, superiors and investigators over a period of many years, the Post reported.

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