Ho Lee Spy Money

The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, ABC News, AP and the federal government have to pay up $1.645 million to Wen Ho Lee.

"Lee had filed the suit in 1999 after the government and the five media outlets had disclosed his name as being part of a spying investigation. He had alleged in the lawsuit that senior officials in the Bill Clinton administration had leaked his name to the media that he was under investigation for spying for China while working at the Los Alamos Laboratory.

Lee, who was fired from his job in 1999 after the investigation began, was held in solitary confinement for nine months and released in 2000 without being charged with espionage, though he pleaded guilty to mishandling important computer files.

If the case had not been settled through money, Lee’s lawyers would have asked the court to direct the reporters to reveal their sources in government.

US District Judge Rosemary Collyer had threatened stiff sanctions against reporters who refused to name their sources. She said they would have had to pay a hefty fine from their own pockets."

Heftier than what Wen Ho Lee received to keep it out of court?

Collyer replaces Judge Walton in the Sibel "I-Know-Things-Maybe" Edmonds case which is about due for another round of high profile "left" media attention isn't it? (Collyer is a Reagan and Bush appointee although she has ruled favorably for DHS employees and put a 30 day block on moving Yemeni terrorists from Gitmo to another country until they get a hearing.)