Posted on 06/03/2006 10:15:45 AM PDT by CedarDave
WASHINGTON— Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos nuclear weapons scientist once suspected of being a spy, settled his privacy lawsuit Friday and will receive $1.6 million from the government and five news organizations in a case that turned into a fight over reporters' confidential sources.
Lee will receive $895,000 from the government for legal fees and associated taxes in the 6 1/2-year-old lawsuit in which he accused the Energy and Justice departments of violating his privacy rights by leaking information that he was under investigation as a spy for China.
The Associated Press and four other news organizations have agreed to pay Lee $750,000 as part of the settlement, which ends contempt-of-court proceedings against five reporters who refused to disclose the sources of their stories about the espionage investigation.
Gov. Bill Richardson and others were identified in an earlier federal appeals court ruling in the privacy case as likely sources of the leaks that identified Lee as a suspect in the espionage investigation. The governor was federal Energy secretary when the Lee case emerged.
Richardson has steadfastly refused to comment on Lee's suit. A spokesman for the governor said Friday he was in rural northeastern New Mexico and couldn't be reached for comment.
Lee was fired from his job at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, but he was never charged with espionage. He was held in solitary confinement for nine months, then released in 2000 after pleading guilty to mishandling computer files. A judge apologized for Lee's treatment.
The appeals court decision said Richardson and two others were among those who "in particular had been identified as likely sources of the leaks" about Lee but that the three "were unable (or unwilling) to identify the leaker(s)" in depositions they gave for Lee's privacy suit.
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
It was funny though to see Governor Johnson and his driver, Dominici, Binghaman, Udall (in his very first visit to Los Alamos), and Richardson with his entourage of bodyguards (and publicists and whatnots) travelling around. Richardson wasn't easily accessible to the press but the others were. Johnson seemed to go about 3 weeks without sleep; I'm not sure he didn't just move into the helicoptor.
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It isn't tinfoil to NEVER FORGET, like we never do here, how the CLINTONS and their associates were actively supporting our then Communist terrorist enemy, North Vietnam Dictator HO CHI MINH, against we American Soldiers fighting for the Freedom of others during the Vietnam War.
It isn't tinfoil to NEVER FORGET, like we never do here, how sitting President CLINTON flew down to Free Nicauagua to apologize to the free people there for "our having fought on the wrong side" against CASTRO-backed Communists trying to take over that Central American country in the early 1980's.
It isn't tinfoil to NEVER FORGET, like we never do here, how sitting President CLINTON flew to Euroupe to say that there shouldn't be just one Superpower, like us, over the rest of the world. Rather a level playing field for all, including our enemies.
It isn't tinfoil to NEVER FORGET,
like we never do here, how a retired President CLINTON stated that "There may not even be an America around in 300 years."
As he continues his lifelong M.O. to make it so...
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You, sir, are very much correct in the instances you cite.
I'm not. I'm not on the side of any of these.
I said when this case was going on they'd never lay a glove on him because he was Chinese. PC rules.
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