Bill Richardson Should Not be Nominated or Confirmed for Any Cabinet-Level Position

Bill Richardson Should Not be Nominated or Confirmed for Any Cabinet-Level Position



An Open Letter To President Elect Obama and the Obama-Biden Transition Team:

First, let me introduce myself as someone who has been part of your campaign for the past 20+ months. I attended the Democratic National Convention as a pledged delegate to select you as our party’s nominee and served as the Team Coordinator for the grass-roots organization here in California's 14th Congressional District (represented by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo) during the primary campaign. I became one of the campaign managers for Silicon Valley for Obama, which was one of the most respected grass-roots organizations around the country for its work during the general election.

Throughout this campaign, we're often asked to tell about our story and why we got involved. My story is very much connected to the nuclear espionage case at Los Alamos National Laboratory involving the Taiwanese-American scientist, Dr. Wen Ho Lee. Back then I was an undergraduate entering my senior year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). I'd never been that politically active and am not related to Dr. Lee, but I became drawn to the case because of my Chinese ancestry and the cloud of suspicion that befalls onto an entire community when someone of the same ethnicity is suspected of committing such serious violations. The conduct of Bill Richardson, then Secretary of Energy at the time, has always greatly troubled me, and it’s one of the reasons I first got involved in politics and why I’m writing to express my concerns about confirming him to serve in any kind of position in an Obama administration.

I listened with incredulity to Bill Richardson explain his rationale during a 60 Minutes interview for publicly firing Dr. Lee and linking the scientist’s name to the ongoing espionage investigation at Los Alamos. He insisted that if anybody in the national lab had done what Wen Ho Lee did, the individual would have been treated the same way. The pre-trial detention of Dr. Lee, which spanned 278 days of solitary confinement and resulted in the presiding judge to issue an apology for the "unnecessary, punitive conditions" for the “unfair manner” in which Dr. Lee was held in custody, does not support Richardson’s claims. Richardson’s actions were simply inexcusable, and his handling of this case reflects poorly on his judgment.

This sad moment in our nation’s history must be considered a potential disqualifier for Richardson from consideration to any Cabinet-level position. The presiding judge of the case aims blame directly on those responsible, which included Secretary Richardson: "It is only the top decision makers in the Executive Branch, especially the Department of Justice and the Department of Energy and locally…who have caused embarrassment by the way this case began and was handled. They did not embarrass me alone. They have embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it." To ignore this difficult episode in our nation’s history would be to condone Bill Richardson's actions.

Let the record state my opposition to any consideration for his possible appointment to Commerce Secretary. Bill Richardson may have admirable accomplishments in his tenures as Ambassador to the United Nations and as the Governor of New Mexico, but his actions and behavior in the Wen Ho Lee case raise serious questions about his character and ability to make critical decisions that affect the lives of ordinary citizens.

I hope you will reconsider your decision to allow him to serve in any Cabinet-level positions in your administration.

Roger Hu