(Washington, D.C.). Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, has been litigating defamation lawsuits against convicted felon Wen Ho Lee and others who, to deflect blame for their own actions, slandered and libeled Trulock. Specifically, as part of a media, public relations campaign, these defendants claimed in widely published reports that Trulock had singled Wen Ho Lee out for prosecution because he is ethic Chinese, a variation of the O.J. Simpson defense. As a result, Trulock, a hero who blew the whistle on the biggest breach of nuclear security since the Rosenbergs at Los Alamos National Laboratories, lost his job and had his reputation destroyed.

A later government report which issued in Judicial Watch's litigation on behalf of Trulock proved that he had not engaged in “racial profiling.” Nevertheless, Wen Ho Lee recently published another defamatory book making these and other claims, further damaging Trulock, who is now destitute and penny-less. It hit the bookstores on January 15, 2002.

During discovery in the cases brought for Trulock, Judicial Watch obtained admissions from Wen Ho Lee that he had never been discriminated against, and did not even know what racial profiling is. Further, he was forced to admit that the government had valid reasons to investigate him.

Nevertheless, just days before trial, which was scheduled to begin February 19, the full weight of the Bush Justice Department was used by the administration to intervene in Judicial Watch's private cases for Trulock, to argue that if the trial was allowed to proceed, that national security would be violated.

The lower court granted the Bush Justice Department's request to stop the cases this afternoon, on the eve of trial. Judicial Watch will appeal on behalf of Trulock. Already, another case filed before the same court, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which was dismissed, has been reinstated by the Fourth Circuit. This reinstated case involves Trulock's claims against former FBI Director Louis Freeh for violating his constitutional rights.

“The Bush Justice Department feared that if the Trulock defamation cases went to trial that it would be embarrassed for allowing Wen Ho Lee to violate national security, and for this reason conjured up a bogus argument, backed by secret CIA affidavits submitted to the court ex parte, that trying this simple defamation case would itself breach national security. This action by the administration amounts to a cover-up of the negligence of the FBI, which allowed Wen Ho Lee to pick the pockets of the American nuclear arsenal. To this day, Lee cannot account for the whereabouts of the secrets he stole,” stated Judicial Watch Chairman and General Counsel Larry Klayman.