From The Washington Post, 9/16/04:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24703-2004Sep15.html
Powell Aide Gave Papers To Taiwan, FBI Says
By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 16, 2004; Page A01
A former high-ranking State Department official who is one of the
nation's leading experts on China passed documents to Taiwanese
intelligence agents and was charged yesterday with concealing a trip
to Taiwan, court papers say.
Donald W. Keyser, who was elevated to principal deputy assistant
secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs this year, made the trip
last year, according to an FBI affidavit filed in U.S. District Court
in Alexandria. Keyser, 61, who advised Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell on China issues, met with one of the agents in Taipei last
September during an official trip to China and Japan, the affidavit
says.
Tailed by the FBI in recent weeks, Keyser and two Taiwanese agents
conducted a series of covert meetings around Washington.
At a meeting July 31 at the Potowmack Landing restaurant, the
affidavit says, Keyser handed the Taiwanese two envelopes "that
appeared to bear U.S. government printing.''
On Sept. 4 at the same Alexandria restaurant, on the Potomac River
with a view of downtown Washington, FBI agents saw Keyser pass a
document captioned "discussion topics,'' the affidavit says.
FBI agents stopped the three men outside the restaurant and took the
six-page document, described in the affidavit as something "derived
from material to which Keyser had access as a result of his employment
with the Department of State."
The court documents do not say that Keyser accepted money and do not
otherwise ascribe a motive.
Neither Keyser nor his attorney returned phone calls yesterday.
Keyser told the FBI that the document he gave the two Taiwanese agents
contained "talking points" that he often would prepare for his
meetings with the two agents, according to the affidavit.
He said that his trip to Taiwan had been for sightseeing and that he
had not notified anyone about it, including his family.
His wife is a CIA officer.
State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said the department is
cooperating with the FBI, but he declined to comment further.
The affidavit does not describe the documents Keyser allegedly handed
over as classified, and it is unclear whether any damage could have
been done to national security.
Keyser is charged with concealing the trip to Taiwan by lying in May
on State Department forms for security clearance that required him to
disclose foreign travel.
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How much more bungling are we to accept from this dangerously inept
administration?
Harry
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