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Lawmakers Accuse Obama Prosecutors Of Lying About Espionage Probe At NASA

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Photo Credit: AP

Congressional leaders are challenging a U.S. Attorney’s denial that the Justice Department shut down a federal espionage investigation involving the illegal transfer of U.S. space defense weapons technology to foreign countries, including China, The Washington Examiner has learned.

Melinda Haag, the U.S. Attorney for Northern California, also denied that she had ever requested authority to prosecute anybody as a result of the espionage investigation.

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-IA, and Representatives Lamar Smith, R-TX, and Frank Wolf, R-VA, say Haag’s denials don’t square with evidence they’ve reviewed and they wonder if Justice Department or White House officials interfered with a potentially explosive espionage investigation or if “politics played a role in the prosecutorial decisions made in this case.”

“Your statement conflicts factually with information we received from federal law enforcement,” Wolf, Smith and Grassley said in letters sent today to Haag and Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco questioning the abrupt end to an FBI national security investigation and grand jury probe.

At the center of the controversy is cancellation of a national security probe once led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Fry. Frustrating attempts by foreign powers to steal U.S. space weapons technology have long been priorities for the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and NASA’s Inspector General.

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House Intel Committee: China’s Largest Phone Equipment Maker Could Imperil US Telecommunications Infrastructure

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U.S. companies should avoid business with Huawei Technologies Co., China’s largest phone-equipment maker, to guard against intellectual-property theft and spying, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee chairman said.

U.S. companies considering purchases from Huawei should “find another vendor if you care about your intellectual property, if you care about your consumers’ privacy, and you care about the national security of the United States of America,” Representative Mike Rogers told CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” according to a CBS release about an interview set to air tomorrow.

Rogers, a Michigan Republican, and the committee’s top Democrat, Maryland Representative C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, are preparing to issue a report Oct. 8 on their yearlong investigation of Huawei and ZTE Corp. (763), another Chinese phone- equipment maker. The lawmakers have been looking at whether the companies’ expansion in the U.S. market enables Chinese government espionage and imperils the U.S. telecommunications infrastructure.

“Huawei is a globally trusted and respected company doing business in almost 150 markets with over 500 operator customers, including nationwide carriers across every continent save Antarctica,” William Plummer, a Washington-based spokesman for Huawei, said in an e-mail. “The security and integrity of our products are world proven. Those are the facts today. Those will still be the facts next week, political agendas aside.”

Susan Phalen, a spokeswoman for the committee, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more from this story HERE.