A Couple Noteworthy Items

Wen Ho Lee Settles Lawsuit Against Gov't For $1.6 Million - Partly Paid For By News Organizations Paul Farhi for WaPo reports that "Wen Ho Lee, the U.S. nuclear scientist once identified in news reports as the target of a spying investigation, will receive more than $1.6 million from the federal government and five media organizations, including The Washington Post, to settle allegations that government leaks violated his privacy." The United States will pay Lee $895,000 to drop his lawsuit, filed in 1999, which alleged that officials in the Clinton administration had disclosed to the news media that he was under investigation for spying for China while working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. In addition, the news organizations agreed to pay Lee $750,000. None of the media outlets -- which included The Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, ABC News and the Associated Press -- had been sued by Lee, and none of their reporting was directly challenged. But all five agreed to the payment out of concern that their reporters would have to give Lee the names of their government sources, as courts had ordered. … Lee's attorney, Betsy Miller, said: "Our aim was never to target or punish journalists. It was to vindicate the injury suffered by Dr. Lee because of the unlawful leak by government officials against him." Watergategate: The Expanded Edition Update Davd Kirkpatrick for the NY Times has a lengthy story on Letitia Hoadley White, a big time lobbyist and former staff member of GOP congressman Jerry Lewis, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Lewis and other members of Congress took bribes, in a gigonzo spinoff of Dukester Cunningham's bribery indictment. Tick Tock. TPM Muckraker has many backstory details.