Congressional Look at Spy Case Rejected

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.