In particular, the paper says, Lee's FBI interrogators are probing two visits he made in 1998 to the island's leading military research facility.
Lee, who turned 61 this weekend, pleaded guilty to a single felony charge of mishandling classified information earlier this year as part of a plea bargain that ended his controversial prosecution over security breaches at the secret Los Alamos nuclear laboratory where he had worked. He was realesed from jail after spending nine months in solitary confinement.
The interrogation under oath by FBI agents – which the Post reports took ten days and ended Dec. 12 – was also part of the deal. Lee was promised immunity from further prosecution providing he was honest with his interrogators.
The Post reports that Lee told investigators that he visited the Chung Shan Institute for Science and technology in April-May 1998, and again in December that year to do consulting work on unclassified scientific matters. The paper reports that the Institute was involved in Taiwanese efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and adds that investigators say Lee's travel expenses on both occasions were met by a Taiwanese businessman for whom he had consulted in the late 1980's and early 1990's.
Although Lee's visits to the Institute were approved by the management at Los Alamos, details were never passed to the Department of Energy's counterintelligence office, the paper reports, adding that Lee also failed to disclose he was paid a fee of about $5,000 for the work he did there.
The Taiwanese government has repeatedly denied reports that it is attempting to develop nuclear weapons.
The original focus of the investigation that resulted in Lee's prosecution was his visits to the Chinese mainland and meetings with scientists there. At the time of the plea bargain, officials said that the main purpose of the questioning Lee agreed to undergo would be to determine what had happened to the equivalent of 400,000 pages of nuclear data that Lee downloaded from the computers at Los Alamos onto small tape cassettes. Lee reportedly told investigators that he threw the tapes away, but they have found no evidence to either support or refute these statements, despite sifting through tons of trash in a New Mexico landfill.
Now, unnamed sources described as "close to the case" have told the Post that the focus has shifted to Lee's links with Taiwan.
In particular, investigators are reported to be looking into an attempt Lee made from a computer at the Chung Shan Institute to remotely access the Los Alamos computer network.
The paper also quotes Lee's lawyer, Mark Holscher, as denying that there was anything improper in his visits to Taiwan. Holscher also expressed his frustration at leaks from the investigation, which he said were designed to discredit his client.
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