WASHINGTON

LIBBY DEFENSE DEMANDS MORE DATA ON REPORTERS IN LEAK CASE

Lawyers for a former top White House aide charged in the CIA leak investigation said yesterday the prosecutor should surrender a wide range of information about news organizations and their reporters, including the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has failed to disclose information that would enable the vice president’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, to properly defend himself, his attorneys argued in papers filed with U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton. Mr. Libby is charged with five counts of obstruction, perjury, and lying to the FBI about disclosing the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

– Associated Press

NATIONWIDE

LETTER SHOWS POSSIBLE SINCLAIR COVER-UP

The discovery of a September 12, 1929, letter by Upton Sinclair to John Beardsley has recently put into question the muckraker’s character. Sinclair, best known for his book “The Jungle,” wrote a fictionalized account of the execution of two immigrants charged with committing murder during a robbery, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, “Boston.” “Boston” contended that the pair were innocent, and had been persecuted for the political leanings. But in a letter purchased at an auction by Paul Hegness of Newport Beach, Calif., the Los Angeles Times reported, Sinclair privately confessed the two might have been guilty. Sinclair had met Sacco and Vanzetti’s defense attorney, Fred Moore. Moore, he wrote, told him “that the men were guilty” and had framed alibis for them. Sinclair never divulged publicly this information.

— Staff Reporter of the Sun

WINFREY NOW SAYS FREY ‘BETRAYED MILLIONS OF READERS’

In a stunning switch from dismissive to disgusted, Oprah Winfrey took on one of her chosen authors, James Frey, accusing him on live television of lying about “A Million Little Pieces” and letting down the many fans of his memoir of addiction and recovery.

“I feel duped,” she said yesterday on her syndicated talk show. “But more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers.”

Mr. Frey, who found himself booed in the same Chicago studio where he had been embraced not long ago, acknowledged that he had lied. A sometimes angry, sometimes tearful Ms. Winfrey asked Mr. Frey why he “felt the need to lie.”

– Associated Press