Jailed reporter reaches deal in CIA leak probe
New York Times' Miller: 'It's good to be free'
From Kelly Wallace
CNN
Friday, September 30, 2005 Posted: 0306 GMT (1106 HKT)
(CNN) -- A New York Times reporter was released from jail Thursday after agreeing to provide evidence to a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's name.
Judith Miller will appear before the grand jury Friday after spending 12 weeks behind bars protecting a confidential source, whom she said has cleared her to testify.
Miller said her attorneys reached an agreement with prosecutors on the scope of her testimony that "satisfied my obligation as a reporter to keep faith with my sources."
"It's good to be free," Miller said in a statement. "I am leaving jail today because my source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations."
She did not identify the source.
New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said the newspaper supported Miller's decision.
"We are very pleased that she has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver, by phone and in writing, releasing her from any claim of confidentiality and enabling her to testify," he said in a statement.
Miller was released from a federal facility in Alexandria, Virginia, at about 4 p.m. after a contempt order against her was lifted by a federal judge, a source with detailed knowledge of her case told CNN.
The chain of events that led to the contempt charges against Miller began in July 2003, when syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who is also a CNN contributor, identified Valerie Plame as a CIA operative in his column. He cited unidentified senior administration sources for the information.
Plame's husband is Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Wilson charged that his wife's name was leaked to retaliate against him after he disputed Bush administration statements that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium in Africa.
That assertion was used as part of the administration's case for justifying the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Because federal law makes it a crime in some cases to deliberately reveal the identity of a CIA operative, the Justice Department launched an investigation, headed by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Illinois.
Journalists subpoenaed
As part of his probe, Fitzgerald subpoenaed a number of journalists to testify about their sources, including Miller.
Despite the fact that she never actually wrote a story on Plame or Wilson, Miller refused to testify about sources she developed during her research. She was jailed for contempt in July.
She could have been held until October, when the grand jury's term will expire.
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said that until recently, Miller had received "only a generic waiver" of her confidentiality promise, "and she believed she had ample reason to doubt it had been freely given."
"In recent days, several important things have changed that convinced Judy that she was released from her obligation," Keller said in a statement. He did not provide details of what those changes were.
Miller said in her statement that she would not comment further until after she testifies.
Time reporter Matthew Cooper testified in July after the magazine provided investigators with his notes.
Cooper told reporters that Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, told him Wilson's wife worked for the CIA but did not say her name.
Cooper also said that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, confirmed that piece of information.
President Bush told reporters in July that "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."
When asked in June 2004 whether he stood by his promise to fire whoever was found to have leaked Plame's name, Bush replied, "Yes."
Fitzgerald last year also questioned NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert, who has said he was not the recipient of a leak concerning Plame's identity.
Full Version: Judith Miller reaches deal in CIA leak probe
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Times Reporter Free From Jail; She Will Testify
By DAVID JOHNSTON
and DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: September 30, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - Judith Miller, the reporter for The New York Times who has been jailed since July 6 for refusing to testify in the C.I.A. leak case, was released on Thursday from a Virginia detention center after she and her lawyers reached an agreement with a federal prosecutor in which she would testify before a grand jury investigating the case, the publisher and executive editor of the paper said.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Judith Miller was flanked by her lawyers as she arrived for a hearing at federal court in Washington on July 6, the day she was jailed.
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
Ms. Miller was freed after spending more than 12 weeks in jail.
Ms. Miller was freed after spending more than 12 weeks in jail, during which she refused to cooperate with the inquiry. Her decision to testify was made after she had obtained what she described as a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality she had made to him. Ms. Miller said the source had made clear that he genuinely wanted her to testify.
That source was I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, according to people who have been officially briefed on the case. Ms. Miller met with Mr. Libby on July 8, 2003, and talked with him by telephone later that week, they said.
Discussions between officials and journalists that week that may have disclosed the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency officer, Valerie Wilson, have been a central focus of the investigation.
Ms. Miller said in a statement that she expected to appear before the grand jury on Friday. Ms. Miller was released after she and her lawyers met at the jail with Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the case, to discuss her testimony.
The publisher of The Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said in a statement that the newspaper supported Ms. Miller's decision, just as it had backed her refusal to testify.
"Judy has been unwavering in her commitment to protect the confidentiality of her source," Mr. Sulzberger said. "We are very pleased that she has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver, both by phone and in writing, releasing her from any claim of confidentiality and enabling her to testify."
For more than a year, Mr. Fitzgerald has sought testimony from Ms. Miller about conversations she had with Mr. Libby. Her willingness to testify was partly based on personal assurances given by Mr. Libby this month that he had no objection to her discussing their conversations with the grand jury, according to those officials briefed on the case.
Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation has centered on whether anyone in the Bush administration illegally disclosed to the news media the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency employee, Valerie Wilson, whose name was first published in July 2003 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak.
Another important question has been whether officials were truthful in their testimony to investigators and the grand jury.
Ms. Miller never wrote an article about Ms. Wilson. Mr. Fitzgerald has said that obtaining Ms. Miller's testimony was one of the last remaining objectives of his inquiry, and the deal with her suggests that the prosecutor may soon end the long-running investigation. It is unknown whether prosecutors will charge anyone in the Bush administration with wrongdoing.
The agreement that led to Ms. Miller's release followed intense negotiations among her; her lawyer, Robert Bennett; Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate; and Mr. Fitzgerald.
The talks began with a telephone call from Mr. Bennett to Mr. Tate in late August. Ms. Miller spoke with Mr. Libby by telephone this month as their lawyers listened, according to people who have been briefed on the case. It was then that Mr. Libby told Ms. Miller that she had his personal and voluntary waiver.
The discussions were at times strained, with Mr. Libby and Mr. Tate's asserting that they communicated their voluntary waiver to another lawyer for Ms. Miller, Floyd Abrams, more than year ago, according to those briefed on the case.
Other people involved in the case have said Ms. Miller did not understand that the waiver had been freely given and did not accept it until she had heard from Mr. Libby directly.
Ms. Miller authorized her lawyers to seek further clarification from Mr. Libby's representatives in late August , after she had been in jail for more than a month. Mr. Libby wrote to Ms. Miller in mid-September saying he believed that her lawyers understood during discussions last year that his waiver was voluntary.
On Sept. 16, Mr. Tate wrote to Mr. Fitzgerald saying his conversations with Mr. Abrams last year were meant to assure Ms. Miller that a broad waiver that Mr. Libby signed in late 2003 was not coerced and applied specifically to Ms. Miller.
On Thursday, Mr. Abrams wrote to Mr. Tate disputing parts of Mr. Tate's account. His letter said although Mr. Tate had said the waiver was voluntary, Mr. Tate had also said any waiver sought as a condition of employment was inherently coercive.
Mr. Abrams would not discuss the question in a brief telephone conversation on Thursday.
As part of the agreement, Mr. Bennett gave Mr. Fitzgerald edited versions of notes taken by Ms. Miller about her conversations with Mr. Libby.
In statements on Thursday, Ms. Miller and executives of The Times did not identify the source who had urged Ms. Miller to testify. Bill Keller, executive editor, said Mr. Fitzgerald had assured Ms. Miller's lawyer that "he intended to limit his grand jury interrogation so that it would not implicate other sources of hers."
Ms. Miller's lawyers had sought such an assurance as a condition of her testimony.
Mr. Keller said Mr. Fitzgerald cleared the way to an agreement by assuring Ms. Miller and her source that he would not regard a conversation between the two about a possible waiver as an obstruction of justice.
Ms. Miller said she believed that the agreement between her lawyers and Mr. Fitzgerald "satisfies my obligation as a reporter to keep faith with my sources."
"I went to jail," she added, "to preserve the time-honored principle that a journalist must respect a promise not to reveal the identity of a confidential source. I chose to take the consequences, 85 days in prison, rather than violate that promise. The principle was more important to uphold than my personal freedom. "
Ms. Miller said she was grateful for the "unwavering support" shown by her husband, family and friends and The Times. She said that she would say nothing more publicly about the case until after her grand jury testimony.
Mr. Fitzgerald declined to comment, a spokesman, Randall Samborn, said.
The case has been the most significant test in decades of whether reporters can refuse to disclose to prosecutors their discussions with confidential sources. Many journalists say those sources would refuse to provide information if their anonymity could not be protected.
At least four other reporters are known to have provided information to Mr. Fitzgerald. But Ms. Miller had refused to do so. In July, the Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal of a lower court order that she be jailed for contempt for her refusal to testify.
Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C.. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, traveled to Niger in 2002 on behalf of the C.I.A. to investigate reports related to a nuclear weapons program in Iraq. When Mr. Wilson emerged as a critic of the Bush administration in July 2003, administration officials questioned his credibility. The column by Mr. Novak said Mr. Wilson's wife, who worked for the agency, had suggested the trip.
New details about the case have emerged in recent month. Karl Rove, the president's senior political strategist, and Mr. Libby both discussed Ms. Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame, with reporters, according to testimony provided by Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter, and by others.
But neither White House official is known to have mentioned Ms. Wilson by name or to have mentioned her status at the C.I.A.
Mr. Cooper testified in August 2004 about a conversation with Mr. Libby conducted in 2003. But Mr. Cooper had resisted a subpoena to appear before the grand jury to discuss a conversation with Mr. Rove.
In July, after his employer, Time-Warner, complied with a subpoena seeking his notes from the period, Mr. Cooper agreed to testify, after seeking and obtaining what he called a specific waiver from Mr. Rove, releasing him from a pledge of confidentiality.
That decision left Ms. Miller alone in resisting the prosecutors' demand to testify. Much about Ms. Miler's role remains unclear. Mr. Keller, the executive editor, has declined to say whether she was assigned to report about Mr. Wilson's trip, whether she tried to write an article about it or whether she ever told editors or colleagues at The Times that she had obtained information about Ms. Wilson's role.
Under the terms of her jailing, Ms. Miller faced incarceration through the duration of the current term of the grand jury hearing the case, and that is due to expire on Oct. 28. Had Ms. Miller continued to resist, lawyers involved in the case said they believed that it was highly likely that Mr. Fitzgerald would have tried to keep her in jail by extending the grand jury term or convening a new grand jury.
Ms. Miller had been housed at the Alexandria Detention Center, a county jail in suburban Virginia. As a federal prisoner, Ms. Miller was an exceptional case. But a spokesman for the sheriff's office, which administers the center, said she had been granted no special privileges.
Times Reporter Free From Jail; She Will Testify
By DAVID JOHNSTON
and DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: September 30, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - Judith Miller, the reporter for The New York Times who has been jailed since July 6 for refusing to testify in the C.I.A. leak case, was released on Thursday from a Virginia detention center after she and her lawyers reached an agreement with a federal prosecutor in which she would testify before a grand jury investigating the case, the publisher and executive editor of the paper said.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Judith Miller was flanked by her lawyers as she arrived for a hearing at federal court in Washington on July 6, the day she was jailed.
Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times
Ms. Miller was freed after spending more than 12 weeks in jail.
Ms. Miller was freed after spending more than 12 weeks in jail, during which she refused to cooperate with the inquiry. Her decision to testify was made after she had obtained what she described as a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality she had made to him. Ms. Miller said the source had made clear that he genuinely wanted her to testify.
That source was I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, according to people who have been officially briefed on the case. Ms. Miller met with Mr. Libby on July 8, 2003, and talked with him by telephone later that week, they said.
Discussions between officials and journalists that week that may have disclosed the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency officer, Valerie Wilson, have been a central focus of the investigation.
Ms. Miller said in a statement that she expected to appear before the grand jury on Friday. Ms. Miller was released after she and her lawyers met at the jail with Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the case, to discuss her testimony.
The publisher of The Times, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said in a statement that the newspaper supported Ms. Miller's decision, just as it had backed her refusal to testify.
"Judy has been unwavering in her commitment to protect the confidentiality of her source," Mr. Sulzberger said. "We are very pleased that she has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver, both by phone and in writing, releasing her from any claim of confidentiality and enabling her to testify."
For more than a year, Mr. Fitzgerald has sought testimony from Ms. Miller about conversations she had with Mr. Libby. Her willingness to testify was partly based on personal assurances given by Mr. Libby this month that he had no objection to her discussing their conversations with the grand jury, according to those officials briefed on the case.
Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation has centered on whether anyone in the Bush administration illegally disclosed to the news media the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency employee, Valerie Wilson, whose name was first published in July 2003 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak.
Another important question has been whether officials were truthful in their testimony to investigators and the grand jury.
Ms. Miller never wrote an article about Ms. Wilson. Mr. Fitzgerald has said that obtaining Ms. Miller's testimony was one of the last remaining objectives of his inquiry, and the deal with her suggests that the prosecutor may soon end the long-running investigation. It is unknown whether prosecutors will charge anyone in the Bush administration with wrongdoing.
The agreement that led to Ms. Miller's release followed intense negotiations among her; her lawyer, Robert Bennett; Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate; and Mr. Fitzgerald.
The talks began with a telephone call from Mr. Bennett to Mr. Tate in late August. Ms. Miller spoke with Mr. Libby by telephone this month as their lawyers listened, according to people who have been briefed on the case. It was then that Mr. Libby told Ms. Miller that she had his personal and voluntary waiver.
The discussions were at times strained, with Mr. Libby and Mr. Tate's asserting that they communicated their voluntary waiver to another lawyer for Ms. Miller, Floyd Abrams, more than year ago, according to those briefed on the case.
Other people involved in the case have said Ms. Miller did not understand that the waiver had been freely given and did not accept it until she had heard from Mr. Libby directly.
Ms. Miller authorized her lawyers to seek further clarification from Mr. Libby's representatives in late August , after she had been in jail for more than a month. Mr. Libby wrote to Ms. Miller in mid-September saying he believed that her lawyers understood during discussions last year that his waiver was voluntary.
On Sept. 16, Mr. Tate wrote to Mr. Fitzgerald saying his conversations with Mr. Abrams last year were meant to assure Ms. Miller that a broad waiver that Mr. Libby signed in late 2003 was not coerced and applied specifically to Ms. Miller.
On Thursday, Mr. Abrams wrote to Mr. Tate disputing parts of Mr. Tate's account. His letter said although Mr. Tate had said the waiver was voluntary, Mr. Tate had also said any waiver sought as a condition of employment was inherently coercive.
Mr. Abrams would not discuss the question in a brief telephone conversation on Thursday.
As part of the agreement, Mr. Bennett gave Mr. Fitzgerald edited versions of notes taken by Ms. Miller about her conversations with Mr. Libby.
In statements on Thursday, Ms. Miller and executives of The Times did not identify the source who had urged Ms. Miller to testify. Bill Keller, executive editor, said Mr. Fitzgerald had assured Ms. Miller's lawyer that "he intended to limit his grand jury interrogation so that it would not implicate other sources of hers."
Ms. Miller's lawyers had sought such an assurance as a condition of her testimony.
Mr. Keller said Mr. Fitzgerald cleared the way to an agreement by assuring Ms. Miller and her source that he would not regard a conversation between the two about a possible waiver as an obstruction of justice.
Ms. Miller said she believed that the agreement between her lawyers and Mr. Fitzgerald "satisfies my obligation as a reporter to keep faith with my sources."
"I went to jail," she added, "to preserve the time-honored principle that a journalist must respect a promise not to reveal the identity of a confidential source. I chose to take the consequences, 85 days in prison, rather than violate that promise. The principle was more important to uphold than my personal freedom. "
Ms. Miller said she was grateful for the "unwavering support" shown by her husband, family and friends and The Times. She said that she would say nothing more publicly about the case until after her grand jury testimony.
Mr. Fitzgerald declined to comment, a spokesman, Randall Samborn, said.
The case has been the most significant test in decades of whether reporters can refuse to disclose to prosecutors their discussions with confidential sources. Many journalists say those sources would refuse to provide information if their anonymity could not be protected.
At least four other reporters are known to have provided information to Mr. Fitzgerald. But Ms. Miller had refused to do so. In July, the Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal of a lower court order that she be jailed for contempt for her refusal to testify.
Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C.. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, traveled to Niger in 2002 on behalf of the C.I.A. to investigate reports related to a nuclear weapons program in Iraq. When Mr. Wilson emerged as a critic of the Bush administration in July 2003, administration officials questioned his credibility. The column by Mr. Novak said Mr. Wilson's wife, who worked for the agency, had suggested the trip.
New details about the case have emerged in recent month. Karl Rove, the president's senior political strategist, and Mr. Libby both discussed Ms. Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame, with reporters, according to testimony provided by Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter, and by others.
But neither White House official is known to have mentioned Ms. Wilson by name or to have mentioned her status at the C.I.A.
Mr. Cooper testified in August 2004 about a conversation with Mr. Libby conducted in 2003. But Mr. Cooper had resisted a subpoena to appear before the grand jury to discuss a conversation with Mr. Rove.
In July, after his employer, Time-Warner, complied with a subpoena seeking his notes from the period, Mr. Cooper agreed to testify, after seeking and obtaining what he called a specific waiver from Mr. Rove, releasing him from a pledge of confidentiality.
That decision left Ms. Miller alone in resisting the prosecutors' demand to testify. Much about Ms. Miler's role remains unclear. Mr. Keller, the executive editor, has declined to say whether she was assigned to report about Mr. Wilson's trip, whether she tried to write an article about it or whether she ever told editors or colleagues at The Times that she had obtained information about Ms. Wilson's role.
Under the terms of her jailing, Ms. Miller faced incarceration through the duration of the current term of the grand jury hearing the case, and that is due to expire on Oct. 28. Had Ms. Miller continued to resist, lawyers involved in the case said they believed that it was highly likely that Mr. Fitzgerald would have tried to keep her in jail by extending the grand jury term or convening a new grand jury.
Ms. Miller had been housed at the Alexandria Detention Center, a county jail in suburban Virginia. As a federal prisoner, Ms. Miller was an exceptional case. But a spokesman for the sheriff's office, which administers the center, said she had been granted no special privileges.
N.Y. Times Reporter Released From Jail
By Susan Schmidt and Jim VandeHei
New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released from jail late yesterday and is scheduled to testify this morning before a federal grand jury investigating whether any government officials illegally leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media, according to lawyers involved in the case.
Miller, 57, has been jailed for contempt of court since July 6 for refusing to testify about conversations with news sources. She was released from the Alexandria Detention Center shortly after 4 p.m. yesterday after her attorney, Robert S. Bennett, reached an agreement on her testimony with special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, according to two lawyers familiar with the case.
Miller had refused to testify about information she received from confidential sources. But she said she changed her mind after I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, assured her in a telephone call last week that a waiver he gave prosecutors authorizing them to question reporters about their conversations with him was not coerced.
"It's good to be free," Miller said in a statement last night. "I went to jail to preserve the time-honored principle that a journalist must respect a promise not to reveal the identity of a confidential source. . . . I am leaving jail today because my source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations relating to the Wilson-Plame matter."
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said in a statement: "Judy refused to testify in this case because she gave her professional word that she would keep her interview with her source confidential. In recent days, several important things have changed that convinced Judy that she was released from her obligation."
But Joseph Tate, an attorney for Libby, said yesterday that he told Miller's attorney, Floyd Abrams, a year ago that Libby's waiver was voluntary and that Miller was free to testify. He said last night that he was contacted by Bennett several weeks ago, and was surprised to learn that Miller had not accepted that representation as authorization to speak with prosecutors.
"We told her lawyers it was not coerced," Tate said. "We are surprised to learn we had anything to do with her incarceration."
Tate said that he and Bennett then asked Fitzgerald whether their clients could talk without fear of being accused of obstructing the investigation, and were assured that Fitzgerald would not oppose them doing so. After the phone call from Libby on Sept. 19 or 20, Tate said, the lawyers wrote a letter to Fitzgerald indicating that Miller accepted Libby's representation that the waiver was voluntary.
In July, when Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered Miller to jail, he told her she was mistaken in her belief that she was defending a free press, stressing that the government source she "alleges she is protecting" had already released her from her promise of confidentiality.
Fitzgerald has been investigating whether senior Bush administration officials broke the law by knowingly leaking Plame's identity to reporters as retaliation for an opinion article written by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson accused the administration of twisting intelligence about Iraq's attempt to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war.
Plame's name first appeared in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak in July 2003, eight days after Wilson's accusations.
According to a source familiar with Libby's account of his conversations with Miller in July 2003, the subject of Wilson's wife came up on two occasions. In the first, on July 8, Miller met with Libby to interview him about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the source said.
At that time, she asked him why Wilson had been chosen to investigate questions Cheney had posed about whether Iraq attempted to buy uranium in the African nation of Niger. Libby, the source familiar with his account said, told her that the White House was working with the CIA to find out more about Wilson's trip and how he came to be selected.
Libby told Miller he heard that Wilson's wife had something to do with sending him but he did not know who she was or where she worked, the source said.
Libby had a second conversation with Miller on July 12 or July 13, the source said, in which he told her that he had learned that Wilson's wife had a role in sending him on the trip and that she worked for the CIA. Libby never knew Plame's name or that she was a covert operative, the source said.
One lawyer involved in the case said Miller's attorneys reached an agreement with Fitzgerald that may confine prosecutors' questions solely to Miller's conversations with Libby. Bennett, reached last night, said he could not discuss the terms of the agreement for Miller's testimony. Abrams did not return a call seeking comment.
One lawyer said it could become clear as early as next week whether Fitzgerald plans to indict anyone or has negotiated a plea bargain.
Other reporters, including Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post, have provided limited testimony about their conversations with Libby after receiving what they said were explicit waivers of their confidentiality agreements.
Lawyers involved in the case believe today's testimony could mark the end of an investigation in which more than a dozen Bush administration officials have testified before a federal grand jury or talked to FBI agents involved in the nearly two-year-old probe. President Bush was interviewed as part of the investigation.
Fitzgerald cast a wide net, interviewing numerous State Department officials and some of Bush's closest advisers, including Karl Rove, to determine if anyone illegally revealed Plame's name.
Fitzgerald has made it clear for more than a year that Miller was the main obstacle to completing the case, and that he was prepared to exert pressure on her to testify. People involved in the case said they began to hear earlier this week that Miller was looking for a way out of jail.
In recent weeks, people close to Miller said her attorneys grew anxious that Fitzgerald would extend her time behind bars. Fitzgerald has the authority to extend the grand jury investigating possible leaks for another 18 months, and he could ask the judge to hold Miller in jail for another six months, lawyers familiar with the case said.
Miller's role had been one of the great mysteries in the leak probe. It is unclear why she emerged as a central figure in the probe despite never having written a story about the case.
Staff writer Carol Leonnig contributed to this report.
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By Susan Schmidt and Jim VandeHei
New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released from jail late yesterday and is scheduled to testify this morning before a federal grand jury investigating whether any government officials illegally leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media, according to lawyers involved in the case.
Miller, 57, has been jailed for contempt of court since July 6 for refusing to testify about conversations with news sources. She was released from the Alexandria Detention Center shortly after 4 p.m. yesterday after her attorney, Robert S. Bennett, reached an agreement on her testimony with special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, according to two lawyers familiar with the case.
Miller had refused to testify about information she received from confidential sources. But she said she changed her mind after I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, assured her in a telephone call last week that a waiver he gave prosecutors authorizing them to question reporters about their conversations with him was not coerced.
"It's good to be free," Miller said in a statement last night. "I went to jail to preserve the time-honored principle that a journalist must respect a promise not to reveal the identity of a confidential source. . . . I am leaving jail today because my source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations relating to the Wilson-Plame matter."
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said in a statement: "Judy refused to testify in this case because she gave her professional word that she would keep her interview with her source confidential. In recent days, several important things have changed that convinced Judy that she was released from her obligation."
But Joseph Tate, an attorney for Libby, said yesterday that he told Miller's attorney, Floyd Abrams, a year ago that Libby's waiver was voluntary and that Miller was free to testify. He said last night that he was contacted by Bennett several weeks ago, and was surprised to learn that Miller had not accepted that representation as authorization to speak with prosecutors.
"We told her lawyers it was not coerced," Tate said. "We are surprised to learn we had anything to do with her incarceration."
Tate said that he and Bennett then asked Fitzgerald whether their clients could talk without fear of being accused of obstructing the investigation, and were assured that Fitzgerald would not oppose them doing so. After the phone call from Libby on Sept. 19 or 20, Tate said, the lawyers wrote a letter to Fitzgerald indicating that Miller accepted Libby's representation that the waiver was voluntary.
In July, when Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered Miller to jail, he told her she was mistaken in her belief that she was defending a free press, stressing that the government source she "alleges she is protecting" had already released her from her promise of confidentiality.
Fitzgerald has been investigating whether senior Bush administration officials broke the law by knowingly leaking Plame's identity to reporters as retaliation for an opinion article written by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson accused the administration of twisting intelligence about Iraq's attempt to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war.
Plame's name first appeared in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak in July 2003, eight days after Wilson's accusations.
According to a source familiar with Libby's account of his conversations with Miller in July 2003, the subject of Wilson's wife came up on two occasions. In the first, on July 8, Miller met with Libby to interview him about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the source said.
At that time, she asked him why Wilson had been chosen to investigate questions Cheney had posed about whether Iraq attempted to buy uranium in the African nation of Niger. Libby, the source familiar with his account said, told her that the White House was working with the CIA to find out more about Wilson's trip and how he came to be selected.
Libby told Miller he heard that Wilson's wife had something to do with sending him but he did not know who she was or where she worked, the source said.
Libby had a second conversation with Miller on July 12 or July 13, the source said, in which he told her that he had learned that Wilson's wife had a role in sending him on the trip and that she worked for the CIA. Libby never knew Plame's name or that she was a covert operative, the source said.
One lawyer involved in the case said Miller's attorneys reached an agreement with Fitzgerald that may confine prosecutors' questions solely to Miller's conversations with Libby. Bennett, reached last night, said he could not discuss the terms of the agreement for Miller's testimony. Abrams did not return a call seeking comment.
One lawyer said it could become clear as early as next week whether Fitzgerald plans to indict anyone or has negotiated a plea bargain.
Other reporters, including Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post, have provided limited testimony about their conversations with Libby after receiving what they said were explicit waivers of their confidentiality agreements.
Lawyers involved in the case believe today's testimony could mark the end of an investigation in which more than a dozen Bush administration officials have testified before a federal grand jury or talked to FBI agents involved in the nearly two-year-old probe. President Bush was interviewed as part of the investigation.
Fitzgerald cast a wide net, interviewing numerous State Department officials and some of Bush's closest advisers, including Karl Rove, to determine if anyone illegally revealed Plame's name.
Fitzgerald has made it clear for more than a year that Miller was the main obstacle to completing the case, and that he was prepared to exert pressure on her to testify. People involved in the case said they began to hear earlier this week that Miller was looking for a way out of jail.
In recent weeks, people close to Miller said her attorneys grew anxious that Fitzgerald would extend her time behind bars. Fitzgerald has the authority to extend the grand jury investigating possible leaks for another 18 months, and he could ask the judge to hold Miller in jail for another six months, lawyers familiar with the case said.
Miller's role had been one of the great mysteries in the leak probe. It is unclear why she emerged as a central figure in the probe despite never having written a story about the case.
Staff writer Carol Leonnig contributed to this report.
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Miller Agrees to Testify in CIA Leak Probe
Updated 11:03 PM ET September 29, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...29_2035&src=abc
After nearly three months behind bars, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released Thursday after agreeing to testify about the Bush administration's disclosure of a covert CIA officer's identity.
Miller left the federal detention center in Alexandria, Va., after reaching an agreement with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. She will appear Friday morning before a grand jury investigating the case.
"My source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations," Miller said in a statement.
Her source was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, reported the Times, which supported her contention that her source should be protected.
"As we have throughout this ordeal, we continue to support Judy Miller in the decision she has made," said Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "We are very pleased that she has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver, both by phone and in writing, releasing her from any claim of confidentiality and enabling her to testify."
Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment.
Until this past summer, President Bush said leakers in the Plame probe would be fired. But in July after it was revealed that top aide Karl Rove and Libby had been involved in the leaks, Bush said "if someone committed a crime," he would be fired.
Miller has been in custody since July 6. A federal judge ordered her jailed when she refused to testify before the grand jury investigating the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's name by White House officials.
The disclosure of Plame's identity by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July 2003 triggered an inquiry that has caused political damage to the Bush White House and could still result in criminal charges against government officials.
The federal grand jury delving into the matter expires Oct. 28. Miller would have been freed at that time, but prosecutors could have pursued a criminal contempt of court charge against the reporter if she continued to defy Fitzgerald.
Of the reporters swept up in Fitzgerald's investigation, Miller is the only one to go to jail. She was found in civil contempt of court.
Time reporter Matthew Cooper testified to the grand jury after his magazine surrendered his notes and e-mail detailing a conversation with presidential aide Karl Rove.
Last year, Cooper and NBC's Tim Russert answered some of the prosecutor's questions about conversations they had with Libby.
Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus also answered the prosecutor's questions about a conversation with an unidentified administration official. Under the arrangements for his testimony, Pincus did not identify the official to the investigators, who already knew the official's identity. Prosecutors also say they know the identity of Miller's source.
Novak apparently has cooperated with prosecutors, though neither he nor his lawyer has said so.
Novak's column on July 14, 2003, came eight days after Plame's husband said in an opinion piece in the Times that the Bush administration twisted intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
Novak wrote that two senior administration officials told him Plame had suggested sending her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to the African nation of Niger on behalf of the CIA to look into possible Iraqi purchases of uranium yellowcake.
Wilson's article in the Times had stated it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.
The timing of Wilson's article was devastating for the White House, which was struggling to fend off criticism because no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. The president's claims of such weapons in Iraq were the main justification for going to war.
According to an affidavit of Miller's in the investigation, the reporter spoke to one or more confidential sources regarding Wilson's op-ed piece, which was titled, "What I Didn't Find In Africa." She never wrote a story about Wilson or Plame.
Fitzgerald wanted Miller to tell the grand jury about the confidential conversations she had with a particular administration official and the prosecutor demanded that she produce documents relating to those conversations.
Fitzgerald said in July that he thought he had identified Miller's source and that the source had waived confidentiality.
Miller's cooperation could clear the way for Fitzgerald to wind up his investigation. Whether he will seek any indictments or is trying to negotiate guilty pleas with anyone isn't publicly known.
While the expiration of the grand jury on Oct. 28 would seem to be a milestone signifying the end of the investigation, Fitzgerald could ask the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Thomas Hogan, to impanel a new grand jury.
Miller is a veteran national security reporter. In the 1980s, she became the first woman to be named chief of The Times' Cairo bureau in Egypt. For her work on Osama bin Laden in 2001, she won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism as part of a small team of Times reporters.
Starting in 2002, her stories about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq helped bolster the Bush administration's case for toppling Saddam Hussein. The failure to find the weapons prompted heavy criticism of Miller and the Times as well as of the Bush administration.
The news media is in a less-than-ideal position in the Plame probe.
The reporters' sources rather than being whistle-blowers exposing wrongdoing and facing retaliation if identified are government officials whose motives in leaking appear to have been to undermine the credibility of a critic of the Bush administration.
AP reporter Pete Yost in Washington contributed to this report
Updated 11:03 PM ET September 29, 2005
http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...29_2035&src=abc
After nearly three months behind bars, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released Thursday after agreeing to testify about the Bush administration's disclosure of a covert CIA officer's identity.
Miller left the federal detention center in Alexandria, Va., after reaching an agreement with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. She will appear Friday morning before a grand jury investigating the case.
"My source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations," Miller said in a statement.
Her source was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, reported the Times, which supported her contention that her source should be protected.
"As we have throughout this ordeal, we continue to support Judy Miller in the decision she has made," said Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "We are very pleased that she has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver, both by phone and in writing, releasing her from any claim of confidentiality and enabling her to testify."
Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment.
Until this past summer, President Bush said leakers in the Plame probe would be fired. But in July after it was revealed that top aide Karl Rove and Libby had been involved in the leaks, Bush said "if someone committed a crime," he would be fired.
Miller has been in custody since July 6. A federal judge ordered her jailed when she refused to testify before the grand jury investigating the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's name by White House officials.
The disclosure of Plame's identity by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July 2003 triggered an inquiry that has caused political damage to the Bush White House and could still result in criminal charges against government officials.
The federal grand jury delving into the matter expires Oct. 28. Miller would have been freed at that time, but prosecutors could have pursued a criminal contempt of court charge against the reporter if she continued to defy Fitzgerald.
Of the reporters swept up in Fitzgerald's investigation, Miller is the only one to go to jail. She was found in civil contempt of court.
Time reporter Matthew Cooper testified to the grand jury after his magazine surrendered his notes and e-mail detailing a conversation with presidential aide Karl Rove.
Last year, Cooper and NBC's Tim Russert answered some of the prosecutor's questions about conversations they had with Libby.
Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus also answered the prosecutor's questions about a conversation with an unidentified administration official. Under the arrangements for his testimony, Pincus did not identify the official to the investigators, who already knew the official's identity. Prosecutors also say they know the identity of Miller's source.
Novak apparently has cooperated with prosecutors, though neither he nor his lawyer has said so.
Novak's column on July 14, 2003, came eight days after Plame's husband said in an opinion piece in the Times that the Bush administration twisted intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
Novak wrote that two senior administration officials told him Plame had suggested sending her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to the African nation of Niger on behalf of the CIA to look into possible Iraqi purchases of uranium yellowcake.
Wilson's article in the Times had stated it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.
The timing of Wilson's article was devastating for the White House, which was struggling to fend off criticism because no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. The president's claims of such weapons in Iraq were the main justification for going to war.
According to an affidavit of Miller's in the investigation, the reporter spoke to one or more confidential sources regarding Wilson's op-ed piece, which was titled, "What I Didn't Find In Africa." She never wrote a story about Wilson or Plame.
Fitzgerald wanted Miller to tell the grand jury about the confidential conversations she had with a particular administration official and the prosecutor demanded that she produce documents relating to those conversations.
Fitzgerald said in July that he thought he had identified Miller's source and that the source had waived confidentiality.
Miller's cooperation could clear the way for Fitzgerald to wind up his investigation. Whether he will seek any indictments or is trying to negotiate guilty pleas with anyone isn't publicly known.
While the expiration of the grand jury on Oct. 28 would seem to be a milestone signifying the end of the investigation, Fitzgerald could ask the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Thomas Hogan, to impanel a new grand jury.
Miller is a veteran national security reporter. In the 1980s, she became the first woman to be named chief of The Times' Cairo bureau in Egypt. For her work on Osama bin Laden in 2001, she won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism as part of a small team of Times reporters.
Starting in 2002, her stories about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq helped bolster the Bush administration's case for toppling Saddam Hussein. The failure to find the weapons prompted heavy criticism of Miller and the Times as well as of the Bush administration.
The news media is in a less-than-ideal position in the Plame probe.
The reporters' sources rather than being whistle-blowers exposing wrongdoing and facing retaliation if identified are government officials whose motives in leaking appear to have been to undermine the credibility of a critic of the Bush administration.
AP reporter Pete Yost in Washington contributed to this report
No More Miller Time
By Howard Kurtz
Would you like to send this article to a friend? Go to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By Howard Kurtz
Would you like to send this article to a friend? Go to
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff09302005.html
Scooter's Stoolie
Judith Miller's Strange Voluntary Jail Time
By DAVE LINDORFF
Judith Miller really must have a lot of embarrassing things to hide.
She has portrayed herself as a noble journalist going to jail to protect her source's identity, and to uphold a journalistic principle.
The only problem is, her source didn't need protection. The source, VP Dick Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, says he told her quite clearly a year ago that she was free to discuss him and their conversation with Justice Department Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is leading a federal grand jury investigation into the disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.
That is to say, Miller had no reason to refuse to testify, to face a contempt charge, and to go to jail.
Miller claims she "wasn't sure" that Libby's releasing her from their confidentiality agreement was sincere or freely given. She "fretted" that the poor fellow (one of the most powerful and influential men in Washington) might have been coerced by his bosses, Cheney and Bush.
But Libby, through his attorney, insists he was not coerced and that he made that clear to Miller a year ago.
This all seems passing strange, doesn't it? The woman just did 85 days in the can on a civil contempt of court rap because she allegedly didn't believe that her source was being honest with her when he said she was free to talk about their conversations with the prosecutor?
Curiously though, Miller is not one to give much thought to the veracity of what her sources are telling her. After all, she certainly never questioned the sincerity of her sources, like Ahmad Chalabi (and Libby), when they were spilling their lies in her ear regarding uranium yellow cake purchases and biological weapons labs and poison gas hoards in Iraq. She took them at their word without even bothering to go to other sources to check them out, writing breathless and inaccurate scare stories that her employer, the NY Times, has subsequently had to apologize to readers for.
Maybe she's belatedly decided that these guys can't be trusted to tell the truth?
There has been speculation for some time that Miller, who never did write a story about the Plame case, but who had been a willing propagandist for the Bush administration's pre-Iraq War campaign of scare tactics regarding alleged weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's hands, and for the cynical "hunt" for those mythical WMDs in the early days of the war and occupation, was actually more a source or at least conveyor of the Plame outing story than a reporter of it.
If so, that would make her bizarre voluntary incarceration in the federal lock-up much more understandable. It would be embarrassing, and damaging to her reputation if it turned out she was behind the Plame outing to the media, or if she had helped White House sources to spread the word to the media.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall of U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's deposition room.
Scooter's Stoolie
Judith Miller's Strange Voluntary Jail Time
By DAVE LINDORFF
Judith Miller really must have a lot of embarrassing things to hide.
She has portrayed herself as a noble journalist going to jail to protect her source's identity, and to uphold a journalistic principle.
The only problem is, her source didn't need protection. The source, VP Dick Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, says he told her quite clearly a year ago that she was free to discuss him and their conversation with Justice Department Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is leading a federal grand jury investigation into the disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.
That is to say, Miller had no reason to refuse to testify, to face a contempt charge, and to go to jail.
Miller claims she "wasn't sure" that Libby's releasing her from their confidentiality agreement was sincere or freely given. She "fretted" that the poor fellow (one of the most powerful and influential men in Washington) might have been coerced by his bosses, Cheney and Bush.
But Libby, through his attorney, insists he was not coerced and that he made that clear to Miller a year ago.
This all seems passing strange, doesn't it? The woman just did 85 days in the can on a civil contempt of court rap because she allegedly didn't believe that her source was being honest with her when he said she was free to talk about their conversations with the prosecutor?
Curiously though, Miller is not one to give much thought to the veracity of what her sources are telling her. After all, she certainly never questioned the sincerity of her sources, like Ahmad Chalabi (and Libby), when they were spilling their lies in her ear regarding uranium yellow cake purchases and biological weapons labs and poison gas hoards in Iraq. She took them at their word without even bothering to go to other sources to check them out, writing breathless and inaccurate scare stories that her employer, the NY Times, has subsequently had to apologize to readers for.
Maybe she's belatedly decided that these guys can't be trusted to tell the truth?
There has been speculation for some time that Miller, who never did write a story about the Plame case, but who had been a willing propagandist for the Bush administration's pre-Iraq War campaign of scare tactics regarding alleged weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's hands, and for the cynical "hunt" for those mythical WMDs in the early days of the war and occupation, was actually more a source or at least conveyor of the Plame outing story than a reporter of it.
If so, that would make her bizarre voluntary incarceration in the federal lock-up much more understandable. It would be embarrassing, and damaging to her reputation if it turned out she was behind the Plame outing to the media, or if she had helped White House sources to spread the word to the media.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall of U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald's deposition room.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/30/politics...ipt-miller.html
Judy Miller's Statement
Following is the transcript of a statement by Judith Miller on Friday afternoon, as recorded by The New York Times:
MILLER. I'm happy to be free and finally able to talk to all of you.
Recently, I heard directly from my source that I should testify before the grand jury. This was in the form of a personal letter and most important, a telephone conversation, a telephone call to me at the jail. I concluded from this that my source genuinely wanted me to testify. These were not form waivers. They were not discussions among lawyers. They were given after the special counsel assured us that such communication would not be regarded as obstruction of justice.
Once I got a personal, voluntary waiver my lawyer, Mr. Bennett, approached the special counsel to see if my grand jury testimony could be limited to the communications with the source from whom I had received that personal and voluntary waiver. The special counsel agreed to this and that was very important to me.
I served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources.
Believe me, I did not want to be in jail. But I would have stayed even longer if I had not achieved these two things: the personal waiver and the narrow testify - and the narrow testimony. I could not have testified without both of them. I said to the court before I was jailed that I did not believe I was above the law and that I would therefore have to go to jail because of my principles. But once I satisfied those principles, I was prepared to testify.
I am hopeful that my very long stay in jail will serve to strengthen the bond between reporters and their sources. I hope that blanket waivers are a thing of the past. They do not count. They are not voluntary and they should not be accepted by journalists.
I am also hopeful that my time in jail will help pass a federal shield law so that the public's right to know can be protected.
And finally I want to thank everyone, particularly Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and The New York Times, my family, my husband, my friends, my colleagues, the citizens of this country who wrote to me and from all over the world, who said they understood the position of principle that I was taking and supported me. They supported me through a very difficult time.
I will take a few questions. But bear with me. I'm really tired. I have a meal that I want my husband to prepare, a dog I want to hug and I'd like to go home to Sag Harbor. Thank you.
Q. Can you describe your role in this case since you didn't file a story but did go to jail? How would you characterize your role in this whole investigation?
MILLER. I was a journalist doing my job, protecting my source until my source freed me to perform my civic duty to testify.
Q. Scooter Libby's lawyer - and your source's lawyer - I suspect you're not going to tell us if that's correct.
MILLER. I am not going to tell you if that's correct.
Q. Your source's lawyer has said that had you asked, you wouldn't have had to spend any time in jail; he would have been more than willing to give you the explicit waiver you say you now accepted.
MILLER. No. Since I was not a party to those discussions, I'm going to let you refer those questions to my lawyer. I can only tell you that as soon as I received a personal assurance from the source that I was able to talk to him and talk to the source about my testimony, it was only then and as a result of the special prosecutor's agreement to narrow the focus of the inquiry to focus on the way - on that source, that I was able to testify. I testified as soon as I could. And I will ask you to please address the questions to which I was not a party to my lawyers.
Q. But Judy, a conversation you were party to: On the steps of this courthouse, when you and Matt faced contempt of court charges, you said out here, when Matt was asked the same question, your answer was different. You said no waiver would be acceptable.
MILLER. No. I said I had not received a personal, explicit, voluntary waiver from my source - what I considered that. That was my position and I said it many times. I said it before I went to jail. I said it when I was in jail. Q. What about the perception that you spent 85 days dancing on the head of a pin?
MILLER. I will let people draw their own conclusions. I know what my conscience would allow and I was - I stood fast to that.
Q. Beyond the narrowest of principles involved, what is this really all about? Why was your testimony so important in Mr. Fitzgerald's . . .
MILLER. You'll have to ask Mr. Fitzgerald why it's important.
ARTHUR SULZBERGER JR. O.K. I think we're done here folks.
Thanks. Thank you very much.
MILLER. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Judy Miller's Statement
Following is the transcript of a statement by Judith Miller on Friday afternoon, as recorded by The New York Times:
MILLER. I'm happy to be free and finally able to talk to all of you.
Recently, I heard directly from my source that I should testify before the grand jury. This was in the form of a personal letter and most important, a telephone conversation, a telephone call to me at the jail. I concluded from this that my source genuinely wanted me to testify. These were not form waivers. They were not discussions among lawyers. They were given after the special counsel assured us that such communication would not be regarded as obstruction of justice.
Once I got a personal, voluntary waiver my lawyer, Mr. Bennett, approached the special counsel to see if my grand jury testimony could be limited to the communications with the source from whom I had received that personal and voluntary waiver. The special counsel agreed to this and that was very important to me.
I served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources.
Believe me, I did not want to be in jail. But I would have stayed even longer if I had not achieved these two things: the personal waiver and the narrow testify - and the narrow testimony. I could not have testified without both of them. I said to the court before I was jailed that I did not believe I was above the law and that I would therefore have to go to jail because of my principles. But once I satisfied those principles, I was prepared to testify.
I am hopeful that my very long stay in jail will serve to strengthen the bond between reporters and their sources. I hope that blanket waivers are a thing of the past. They do not count. They are not voluntary and they should not be accepted by journalists.
I am also hopeful that my time in jail will help pass a federal shield law so that the public's right to know can be protected.
And finally I want to thank everyone, particularly Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and The New York Times, my family, my husband, my friends, my colleagues, the citizens of this country who wrote to me and from all over the world, who said they understood the position of principle that I was taking and supported me. They supported me through a very difficult time.
I will take a few questions. But bear with me. I'm really tired. I have a meal that I want my husband to prepare, a dog I want to hug and I'd like to go home to Sag Harbor. Thank you.
Q. Can you describe your role in this case since you didn't file a story but did go to jail? How would you characterize your role in this whole investigation?
MILLER. I was a journalist doing my job, protecting my source until my source freed me to perform my civic duty to testify.
Q. Scooter Libby's lawyer - and your source's lawyer - I suspect you're not going to tell us if that's correct.
MILLER. I am not going to tell you if that's correct.
Q. Your source's lawyer has said that had you asked, you wouldn't have had to spend any time in jail; he would have been more than willing to give you the explicit waiver you say you now accepted.
MILLER. No. Since I was not a party to those discussions, I'm going to let you refer those questions to my lawyer. I can only tell you that as soon as I received a personal assurance from the source that I was able to talk to him and talk to the source about my testimony, it was only then and as a result of the special prosecutor's agreement to narrow the focus of the inquiry to focus on the way - on that source, that I was able to testify. I testified as soon as I could. And I will ask you to please address the questions to which I was not a party to my lawyers.
Q. But Judy, a conversation you were party to: On the steps of this courthouse, when you and Matt faced contempt of court charges, you said out here, when Matt was asked the same question, your answer was different. You said no waiver would be acceptable.
MILLER. No. I said I had not received a personal, explicit, voluntary waiver from my source - what I considered that. That was my position and I said it many times. I said it before I went to jail. I said it when I was in jail. Q. What about the perception that you spent 85 days dancing on the head of a pin?
MILLER. I will let people draw their own conclusions. I know what my conscience would allow and I was - I stood fast to that.
Q. Beyond the narrowest of principles involved, what is this really all about? Why was your testimony so important in Mr. Fitzgerald's . . .
MILLER. You'll have to ask Mr. Fitzgerald why it's important.
ARTHUR SULZBERGER JR. O.K. I think we're done here folks.
Thanks. Thank you very much.
MILLER. Thank you very much. Thank you.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20050930...HNlYwMlJVRPUCUl
A CIA-Did-It Defense for Scooter in the Plame Leak Case? David Corn
Fri Sep 30, 1:05 PM ET
The Nation -- When you already have a fall guy, use him--especially if he's a dead man.
Could that be the legal strategy of I. Lewis Libby (a.k.a. Scooter), Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, in the Plame/ CIA leak case?
The news of the day in this scandal is that New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was imprisoned for refusing to cooperate with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, is free. She and the Times cut a deal with Fitzgerald, after Miller had served 12 weeks for being in contempt of court. Under this arrangement, Miller agreed to testify before Fitzgerald's grand jury and to hand over edited version of her notes.
This is not much of a noble denouement to Miller's crusade for the First Amendment. Throughout this episode, she and her paper took what appeared to be an absolutist position against cooperating with subpoena-wielding prosecutors who yearn to poke around newsrooms--while other reporters accommodated Fitzgerald. Now Miller and the Times have also elected to cooperate. But what distinguishes her case is that it seems she went to jail because of a mistake.
Upon her release, Miller declared she had been imprisoned because "a journalist must respect a promise not to reveal the identity of a confidential source." She added, "I am leaving jail today because my source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations relating to the Wilson-Plame matter." This source was Libby. But a lawyer for Libby, Joseph Tate, told The Washington Post on Friday that a year ago he had informed Floyd Abrams, an attorney for Miller, that Libby had waived confidentiality and that Miller was free to discuss her chats with Libby. (The New York Times account of this--which presumably was heavily lawyered--is rather convoluted; if you want to avoid a headache, stick to the Post piece.) Only a few weeks ago, Tate said, he was contacted by Robert Bennett, another Miller attorney, and was told that Miller had not accepted Libby's waiver and was in jail protecting Libby. Tate claimed he and Libby were "surprised to learn we had anything to do with her incarceration." The lawyers for Libby and Miller arranged a phone call between the two, in which Libby apparently assured Miller his year-old wavier was voluntary. Then she and the Times negotiated a deal with Fitzgerald.
This suggests that Miller ended up going to jail due to a miscommunication. Could she had avoided jail had the lawyers done a better job? Was she a martyr because of a mistake? Her position now is the same as the other reporters who are known to have cooperated with Fitzgerald: if the source waives protection, then a reporter can talk. Her crusade is over.
But back to the fall guy. The end of this sub-plot has caused Libby's team to leak his defense to the media. The Post quotes "a source familiar with Libby's account of his conversations with Miller." The odds are that source is Libby or his attorney. This super-secret source says that on July 8, 2003, Miller and Libby talked. This was six days before columnist Bob Novak disclosed the CIA identity of Valerie Wilson and two days after former Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote an explosive Times op-ed disclosing that his trip to Niger in February 2002 had led him to conclude that President Bush had falsely claimed that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium in Africa. In this conversation, Miller asked Libby why Wilson had been sent on this mission by the CIA. (Miller, whose prewar reporting had promoted the administration's case that Iraq was loaded with WMDs, had a personal, as well as professional, interest in Wilson's tale.) Libby, according to this source, told Miller that the White House was, as the Post puts it, "working with the CIA to find out more about Wilson's trip and how he was selected." Libby noted he had heard that Wilson's wife had something to do with it but he did not know where she worked.
Four or five days later, according to the Libby-friendly source, Libby and Miller spoke again. Now Libby knew more. He told Miller that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and had a role in sending Wilson to Niger. This source tells the Post that Libby did not know her name or that she was an undercover officer at the CIA. That latter point is crucial, for, under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Fitzgerald can only prosecute Libby if Libby disclosed information about a CIA officer whom he knew was a covert employee.
There's no telling whether this source is being truthful. Karl Rove's attorney put out facts that crumbled as more information became public. But you don't have to look too far between the lines to discern Libby's cover story. It goes something like this: Wilson wrote his Times article. All hell broke loose. The White House asked, "Who authorized this trip?" Someone called the CIA for information. The CIA reported back that Wilson was contacted by the counter-proliferation office, where his wife Valerie was working. But--and here's the crucial "but"--the CIA did not tell the White House that Valerie was undercover. Thus, if any White House officials--say, Rove or Libby--repeated this information to reporters, then they may have been engaged in leaking classified and sensitive information to discredit a critic but they were not committing a crime. And who was at fault? George Tenet, the CIA director at the time.
How convenient. Tenet has already taken the fall for Bush's decision to launch the war in Iraq. He reportedly told Bush that the WMD case was a "slam-dunk." And subsequent investigations--from the Republican-controlled Senate intelligence committee and an independent commission that only looked at the intelligence community, not the White House--have excoriated Tenet's CIA for botching the WMD job. (Still, Bush saw fit to give Tenet a nice medal.)
Tenet is finished in Washington. (Paul Wolfowitz got a medal and was given the top job at the World Bank.) Is Libby looking to point to the dead body in the room and say, "It was him!"? If Libby or any other top White House aide wanted to know what had happened at the CIA regarding Wilson's trip to Niger, what would he or she have done? The obvious answer is that he or she would have called Tenet and demanded answers. And if Tenet--when he or an aide reported back--did not tell the White House Valerie Wilson was undercover, that would not be the White House's fault, right? In this scenario, the CIA outed Valerie Wilson.
Can such a defense fly? It will depend on what facts--or purported facts--Libby and the White House present to the prosecutor (or, if indictments ever come, to a jury). But a CIA-did-it defense might be in the making. And that has worked for this White House before.
All this speculation aside, the public record does show that both Rove and Libby spoke to several reporters (Novak, Miller and Time's Matt Cooper-- about Valerie Wilson and her CIA job. Wittingly or not, they disclosed classified information that derailed her career and that undermined her past and present work to thwart the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These leaks might have imperiled her contacts, previous operations, and one or more front groups used by her and her colleagues in their efforts to stop the spread of WMDs. (No damage assessment of the Plame leak has been made public.) At the least, contrition is warranted. But there has been none from the WHite House. And Bush's previous vow to dismiss anyone caught leaking classified information has been tossed into the waste bin, now that it is undeniable that Rove and Libby leaked classified information.
When Fitzgerald first pursued Miller and Cooper, it was easy to dismiss him as an overzealous prosecutor interested more in a vendetta than in making a case. But as the Cooper portion of this episode demonstrated, Fitzgerald was after information crucial to his investigation. From Cooper he obtained material that showed Rove had discussed the CIA identity of Wilson's wife with a reporter. Though Fitzgerald and Miller have clashed on non-Plame business previously, perhaps he has been seeking information just as critical from her.
For anyone following the matter, it's impossible not to guess about what's going on and what Fitzgerald will do. His grand jury expires at the end of October. He could impanel a new one and keep investigating. But all indications suggest he's close to done. One person who recently had contact with Fitzgerald and his attorneys says that they seem confident about whatever it is they are pursuing. The Miller matter was something of a sideshow that at times drew more attention than the central issue. Now that Miller has decided to follow the course of the other reporters, perhaps Fitzgerald will be ready to end his inquiry and render decisions about indictment. Throughout Washington, those who have closely observed this investigation express different hunches about whether there will be indictments, about whom will be indicted if there are indictments, about what laws will be invoked if there are indictments. There have been no leaks making one guess more probable than another. Those who care are all waiting for Fitzgerald.
A CIA-Did-It Defense for Scooter in the Plame Leak Case? David Corn
Fri Sep 30, 1:05 PM ET
The Nation -- When you already have a fall guy, use him--especially if he's a dead man.
Could that be the legal strategy of I. Lewis Libby (a.k.a. Scooter), Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, in the Plame/ CIA leak case?
The news of the day in this scandal is that New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was imprisoned for refusing to cooperate with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, is free. She and the Times cut a deal with Fitzgerald, after Miller had served 12 weeks for being in contempt of court. Under this arrangement, Miller agreed to testify before Fitzgerald's grand jury and to hand over edited version of her notes.
This is not much of a noble denouement to Miller's crusade for the First Amendment. Throughout this episode, she and her paper took what appeared to be an absolutist position against cooperating with subpoena-wielding prosecutors who yearn to poke around newsrooms--while other reporters accommodated Fitzgerald. Now Miller and the Times have also elected to cooperate. But what distinguishes her case is that it seems she went to jail because of a mistake.
Upon her release, Miller declared she had been imprisoned because "a journalist must respect a promise not to reveal the identity of a confidential source." She added, "I am leaving jail today because my source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations relating to the Wilson-Plame matter." This source was Libby. But a lawyer for Libby, Joseph Tate, told The Washington Post on Friday that a year ago he had informed Floyd Abrams, an attorney for Miller, that Libby had waived confidentiality and that Miller was free to discuss her chats with Libby. (The New York Times account of this--which presumably was heavily lawyered--is rather convoluted; if you want to avoid a headache, stick to the Post piece.) Only a few weeks ago, Tate said, he was contacted by Robert Bennett, another Miller attorney, and was told that Miller had not accepted Libby's waiver and was in jail protecting Libby. Tate claimed he and Libby were "surprised to learn we had anything to do with her incarceration." The lawyers for Libby and Miller arranged a phone call between the two, in which Libby apparently assured Miller his year-old wavier was voluntary. Then she and the Times negotiated a deal with Fitzgerald.
This suggests that Miller ended up going to jail due to a miscommunication. Could she had avoided jail had the lawyers done a better job? Was she a martyr because of a mistake? Her position now is the same as the other reporters who are known to have cooperated with Fitzgerald: if the source waives protection, then a reporter can talk. Her crusade is over.
But back to the fall guy. The end of this sub-plot has caused Libby's team to leak his defense to the media. The Post quotes "a source familiar with Libby's account of his conversations with Miller." The odds are that source is Libby or his attorney. This super-secret source says that on July 8, 2003, Miller and Libby talked. This was six days before columnist Bob Novak disclosed the CIA identity of Valerie Wilson and two days after former Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote an explosive Times op-ed disclosing that his trip to Niger in February 2002 had led him to conclude that President Bush had falsely claimed that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium in Africa. In this conversation, Miller asked Libby why Wilson had been sent on this mission by the CIA. (Miller, whose prewar reporting had promoted the administration's case that Iraq was loaded with WMDs, had a personal, as well as professional, interest in Wilson's tale.) Libby, according to this source, told Miller that the White House was, as the Post puts it, "working with the CIA to find out more about Wilson's trip and how he was selected." Libby noted he had heard that Wilson's wife had something to do with it but he did not know where she worked.
Four or five days later, according to the Libby-friendly source, Libby and Miller spoke again. Now Libby knew more. He told Miller that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and had a role in sending Wilson to Niger. This source tells the Post that Libby did not know her name or that she was an undercover officer at the CIA. That latter point is crucial, for, under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Fitzgerald can only prosecute Libby if Libby disclosed information about a CIA officer whom he knew was a covert employee.
There's no telling whether this source is being truthful. Karl Rove's attorney put out facts that crumbled as more information became public. But you don't have to look too far between the lines to discern Libby's cover story. It goes something like this: Wilson wrote his Times article. All hell broke loose. The White House asked, "Who authorized this trip?" Someone called the CIA for information. The CIA reported back that Wilson was contacted by the counter-proliferation office, where his wife Valerie was working. But--and here's the crucial "but"--the CIA did not tell the White House that Valerie was undercover. Thus, if any White House officials--say, Rove or Libby--repeated this information to reporters, then they may have been engaged in leaking classified and sensitive information to discredit a critic but they were not committing a crime. And who was at fault? George Tenet, the CIA director at the time.
How convenient. Tenet has already taken the fall for Bush's decision to launch the war in Iraq. He reportedly told Bush that the WMD case was a "slam-dunk." And subsequent investigations--from the Republican-controlled Senate intelligence committee and an independent commission that only looked at the intelligence community, not the White House--have excoriated Tenet's CIA for botching the WMD job. (Still, Bush saw fit to give Tenet a nice medal.)
Tenet is finished in Washington. (Paul Wolfowitz got a medal and was given the top job at the World Bank.) Is Libby looking to point to the dead body in the room and say, "It was him!"? If Libby or any other top White House aide wanted to know what had happened at the CIA regarding Wilson's trip to Niger, what would he or she have done? The obvious answer is that he or she would have called Tenet and demanded answers. And if Tenet--when he or an aide reported back--did not tell the White House Valerie Wilson was undercover, that would not be the White House's fault, right? In this scenario, the CIA outed Valerie Wilson.
Can such a defense fly? It will depend on what facts--or purported facts--Libby and the White House present to the prosecutor (or, if indictments ever come, to a jury). But a CIA-did-it defense might be in the making. And that has worked for this White House before.
All this speculation aside, the public record does show that both Rove and Libby spoke to several reporters (Novak, Miller and Time's Matt Cooper-- about Valerie Wilson and her CIA job. Wittingly or not, they disclosed classified information that derailed her career and that undermined her past and present work to thwart the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These leaks might have imperiled her contacts, previous operations, and one or more front groups used by her and her colleagues in their efforts to stop the spread of WMDs. (No damage assessment of the Plame leak has been made public.) At the least, contrition is warranted. But there has been none from the WHite House. And Bush's previous vow to dismiss anyone caught leaking classified information has been tossed into the waste bin, now that it is undeniable that Rove and Libby leaked classified information.
When Fitzgerald first pursued Miller and Cooper, it was easy to dismiss him as an overzealous prosecutor interested more in a vendetta than in making a case. But as the Cooper portion of this episode demonstrated, Fitzgerald was after information crucial to his investigation. From Cooper he obtained material that showed Rove had discussed the CIA identity of Wilson's wife with a reporter. Though Fitzgerald and Miller have clashed on non-Plame business previously, perhaps he has been seeking information just as critical from her.
For anyone following the matter, it's impossible not to guess about what's going on and what Fitzgerald will do. His grand jury expires at the end of October. He could impanel a new one and keep investigating. But all indications suggest he's close to done. One person who recently had contact with Fitzgerald and his attorneys says that they seem confident about whatever it is they are pursuing. The Miller matter was something of a sideshow that at times drew more attention than the central issue. Now that Miller has decided to follow the course of the other reporters, perhaps Fitzgerald will be ready to end his inquiry and render decisions about indictment. Throughout Washington, those who have closely observed this investigation express different hunches about whether there will be indictments, about whom will be indicted if there are indictments, about what laws will be invoked if there are indictments. There have been no leaks making one guess more probable than another. Those who care are all waiting for Fitzgerald.
QUOTE
undefinedMiller said her attorneys reached an agreement with prosecutors on the scope of her testimony that "satisfied my obligation as a reporter to keep faith with my sources."
Sources? She agreed to testify against Libby but wouldn't answer questions about any other sources. What were her other sources? 
QUOTE(Snuffysmith @ Sep 30 2005, 02:06 PM)
MILLER. No. Since I was not a party to those discussions, I'm going to let you refer those questions to my lawyer. I can only tell you that as soon as I received a personal assurance from the source that I was able to talk to him and talk to the source about my testimony, it was only then and as a result of the special prosecutor's agreement to narrow the focus of the inquiry to focus on the way - on that source, that I was able to testify. I testified as soon as I could. And I will ask you to please address the questions to which I was not a party to my lawyers.
Bingo.
That is why she spent 85 days in jail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/politics/01react.html
Journalists Fear Impact on Protecting Sources
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: October 1, 2005
The decision by Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, to testify before a grand jury after spending 85 days in jail for refusing to do so has left many people who are interested in the case confused and eager for more details.
Lawyers said it was difficult to predict the long-term legal consequences of Ms. Miller's sudden release from jail and subsequent testimony because many questions about the circumstances that led to those events remain.
But some lawyers and journalists said the claim by journalists that they have the right to protect confidential sources had been weakened. And they were less worried that Ms. Miller's case would cause sources to refuse to talk than it would cause prosecutors to clamp down.
"The inescapable conclusion that some could draw here is that after a certain period of time, when the reporter is fed up with being in prison, she will make a concession," said Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota. "I'm not saying that's what happened here. But that's the appearance. The danger is it will embolden others in more common garden-variety investigations to say to the judge, 'All you have to do is stick the reporter in jail, and we'll get what we want.' "
Some journalists said they would withhold judgment about Ms. Miller's actions until they could learn more about what had happened.
Eugene Roberts Jr., a former managing editor of The New York Times and former executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, said, "On the basis of The Times's stand so far and Judy's stand, I would certainly resolve any doubts in their favor, unless information emerges to the contrary, because they have certainly been the ones carrying the ball for an important journalistic principle."
Some were uncertain about the degree to which that principle - that journalists should be able to protect the confidentiality of their sources - had been compromised.
"I would hope that the principle in the end wasn't sacrificed," said Steven A. Smith, editor of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash.
But Martin London, a First Amendment lawyer who has represented clients as diverse as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in suits against journalists or news organizations, predicted a rough road for journalists who sought to protect confidential sources.
"At least in this case, the judge's sanction of confinement seems to have been very effective," said Mr. London, who does not support the position that a reporter has a legal right to withhold the names of sources. "It really goes to show how evanescent the claim of privilege is."
Still, Mr. London said, the developments surrounding Ms. Miller's testimony seemed "mighty strange." He said he was especially eager to learn more about the waiver that Ms. Miller had received from her source - identified in The Times yesterday as I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff - and why it was something she did not obtain earlier.
Lawyers for Mr. Libby said his waiver was available to her a year ago. Several people in journalism shared the view that the case was confounding.
"We're in an incredibly convoluted world here," said Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.
Michael Getler, the ombudsman for The Washington Post, said: "It's not clear to anybody on the outside what's going on here. On the one hand, she's gone to jail to protect something that's absolutely vital to journalists, and on the other it's still a mystery as to what this is all about and why her role was so central."
Several journalists said they hoped that The Times would publish a full account of the case. "You need to come clean with your readers," said Susan E. Tifft, co-author with Alex S. Jones of "The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times." "It's very important to the paper's credibility."
Other journalists said they doubted that Ms. Miller's actions would undercut the desire by confidential sources to speak with reporters. Walter Pincus, a reporter for The Washington Post who also testified to the grand jury in the leak case, said his testifying had "no effect" on sources.
"I still do what I do," he said.
Jim Kelly, managing editor of Time magazine, whose reporter Matthew Cooper testified in the same case this summer rather than go to jail, said, "Looking at what we've managed to publish since then, it is very hard for me to point to any damage that was done to Time magazine with its sources."
Jacques Steinberg contributed reporting for this article.
Journalists Fear Impact on Protecting Sources
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Published: October 1, 2005
The decision by Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, to testify before a grand jury after spending 85 days in jail for refusing to do so has left many people who are interested in the case confused and eager for more details.
Lawyers said it was difficult to predict the long-term legal consequences of Ms. Miller's sudden release from jail and subsequent testimony because many questions about the circumstances that led to those events remain.
But some lawyers and journalists said the claim by journalists that they have the right to protect confidential sources had been weakened. And they were less worried that Ms. Miller's case would cause sources to refuse to talk than it would cause prosecutors to clamp down.
"The inescapable conclusion that some could draw here is that after a certain period of time, when the reporter is fed up with being in prison, she will make a concession," said Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota. "I'm not saying that's what happened here. But that's the appearance. The danger is it will embolden others in more common garden-variety investigations to say to the judge, 'All you have to do is stick the reporter in jail, and we'll get what we want.' "
Some journalists said they would withhold judgment about Ms. Miller's actions until they could learn more about what had happened.
Eugene Roberts Jr., a former managing editor of The New York Times and former executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, said, "On the basis of The Times's stand so far and Judy's stand, I would certainly resolve any doubts in their favor, unless information emerges to the contrary, because they have certainly been the ones carrying the ball for an important journalistic principle."
Some were uncertain about the degree to which that principle - that journalists should be able to protect the confidentiality of their sources - had been compromised.
"I would hope that the principle in the end wasn't sacrificed," said Steven A. Smith, editor of The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash.
But Martin London, a First Amendment lawyer who has represented clients as diverse as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in suits against journalists or news organizations, predicted a rough road for journalists who sought to protect confidential sources.
"At least in this case, the judge's sanction of confinement seems to have been very effective," said Mr. London, who does not support the position that a reporter has a legal right to withhold the names of sources. "It really goes to show how evanescent the claim of privilege is."
Still, Mr. London said, the developments surrounding Ms. Miller's testimony seemed "mighty strange." He said he was especially eager to learn more about the waiver that Ms. Miller had received from her source - identified in The Times yesterday as I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff - and why it was something she did not obtain earlier.
Lawyers for Mr. Libby said his waiver was available to her a year ago. Several people in journalism shared the view that the case was confounding.
"We're in an incredibly convoluted world here," said Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.
Michael Getler, the ombudsman for The Washington Post, said: "It's not clear to anybody on the outside what's going on here. On the one hand, she's gone to jail to protect something that's absolutely vital to journalists, and on the other it's still a mystery as to what this is all about and why her role was so central."
Several journalists said they hoped that The Times would publish a full account of the case. "You need to come clean with your readers," said Susan E. Tifft, co-author with Alex S. Jones of "The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family Behind The New York Times." "It's very important to the paper's credibility."
Other journalists said they doubted that Ms. Miller's actions would undercut the desire by confidential sources to speak with reporters. Walter Pincus, a reporter for The Washington Post who also testified to the grand jury in the leak case, said his testifying had "no effect" on sources.
"I still do what I do," he said.
Jim Kelly, managing editor of Time magazine, whose reporter Matthew Cooper testified in the same case this summer rather than go to jail, said, "Looking at what we've managed to publish since then, it is very hard for me to point to any damage that was done to Time magazine with its sources."
Jacques Steinberg contributed reporting for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/opinion/01sat1.html?hp
Editorial
Judith Miller Leaves Jail
Published: October 1, 2005
After nearly three months in jail, Judith Miller was released on Thursday. No newspaper reporter has ever spent so much time in custody to defend the right to protect confidential sources. She is a Times colleague, and our chief reaction is relief that she is finally free.
The turning point came when Ms. Miller's source spoke to her on the phone and urged her to testify before a grand jury about their conversations relating to Valerie Wilson, an undercover C.I.A. agent whose identity was revealed by the columnist Robert Novak. A grand jury is investigating whether any government official broke the law by leaking that story. Ms. Miller testified yesterday.
Reporters are not given the luxury of choosing the circumstances under which they take a stand on their right to guarantee confidentiality to their sources. The case that enveloped Ms. Miller was not a situation in which a whistleblower came forth, under promises of anonymity, to offer information that would protect the public from wrongdoing. Instead, the questions involved the murky world of Washington politics, where reporters and government officials talk and trade information. But reporters do not get to limit themselves to working with saintly and heroic figures. While The Times and other news organizations have made enormous efforts to restrict references to unnamed sources, it is impossible to report on what happens in any administration - particularly one as secretive as this - if journalists talk only to people who are willing to be quoted by name.
The saga began when the C.I.A. asked Mrs. Wilson's husband, Joseph, a retired ambassador, to look into claims by the Bush administration that Iraq had been acquiring material for nuclear weapons from Niger. Mr. Wilson published an Op-Ed article in The New York Times debunking those claims. Later, Mr. Novak published a column linking Mr. Wilson's assignment to his wife's job and revealing that Mrs. Wilson was a C.I.A. operative. Since then, there have been questions about whether members of the Bush administration leaked the information to try to punish Mr. Wilson or undercut his credibility.
When Ms. Miller was subpoenaed by the grand jury investigating the case, she declined to testify about any conversations she had under guarantees of confidentiality. She did that even though the Bush administration had required every government employee who might have been involved to sign a waiver of any confidentiality agreement they had with reporters. Ms. Miller believed that a waiver that government employees were forced to sign or risk being fired was by its nature coercive. She was obviously right. Her source's lawyer admitted as much to Floyd Abrams, Ms. Miller's lawyer.
Why, then, did she agree to testify yesterday? Could Ms. Miller have gotten the permission earlier? Why didn't she just pick up the phone and ask?
When a journalist guarantees confidentiality, it means that he or she is willing to go to jail rather than disclose the source's identity. We also believe it means that the journalist will not try to coerce the source into granting a waiver to that promise - even if her back is against the wall. If Ms. Miller's source had wanted to release her from her promise, he could have held a press conference and identified himself. And obviously, he could have picked up the phone. Ms. Miller believed - and we agree - that it was not her place to try to hound him into telling her that she did not need to keep her promise.
Some journalists feel that when it comes to government employees, no waiver short of a public statement can be judged to be freely granted. We believe the person in the best position to judge when a source is sincerely waiving promises of confidentiality is the reporter who made the guarantee. We have confidence that Judith Miller's conversation with her source gave her the assurances she needed. She has won the right to that confidence with three months' stay in a tough jail.
The important lesson from her travails is the need for a federal shield law that would resolve such issues in the future. Judith Miller's rights would have been protected by state shield laws, including laws in New York and Washington D.C., which provide total protection. It is humiliating to realize that the rest of the world has been watching the federal government jail a reporter for doing her job.
Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia provide reporters limited or full protection from testifying about confidential sources. No state attorney general has ever said a case was abandoned or a trial sabotaged by a reporter's guarantee of confidentiality to a source.
It would be easy to extend such a shield to the federal courts. A law has even been written - a bipartisan bill languishing in Congress that would protect this vital tool of a free press while providing an exception in case of an immediate and demonstrable threat to national security.
We hope the sight of Judith Miller finally gaining her freedom will help spur Congressional leaders to take this one simple action to keep the First Amendment's promise of a free press.
Editorial
Judith Miller Leaves Jail
Published: October 1, 2005
After nearly three months in jail, Judith Miller was released on Thursday. No newspaper reporter has ever spent so much time in custody to defend the right to protect confidential sources. She is a Times colleague, and our chief reaction is relief that she is finally free.
The turning point came when Ms. Miller's source spoke to her on the phone and urged her to testify before a grand jury about their conversations relating to Valerie Wilson, an undercover C.I.A. agent whose identity was revealed by the columnist Robert Novak. A grand jury is investigating whether any government official broke the law by leaking that story. Ms. Miller testified yesterday.
Reporters are not given the luxury of choosing the circumstances under which they take a stand on their right to guarantee confidentiality to their sources. The case that enveloped Ms. Miller was not a situation in which a whistleblower came forth, under promises of anonymity, to offer information that would protect the public from wrongdoing. Instead, the questions involved the murky world of Washington politics, where reporters and government officials talk and trade information. But reporters do not get to limit themselves to working with saintly and heroic figures. While The Times and other news organizations have made enormous efforts to restrict references to unnamed sources, it is impossible to report on what happens in any administration - particularly one as secretive as this - if journalists talk only to people who are willing to be quoted by name.
The saga began when the C.I.A. asked Mrs. Wilson's husband, Joseph, a retired ambassador, to look into claims by the Bush administration that Iraq had been acquiring material for nuclear weapons from Niger. Mr. Wilson published an Op-Ed article in The New York Times debunking those claims. Later, Mr. Novak published a column linking Mr. Wilson's assignment to his wife's job and revealing that Mrs. Wilson was a C.I.A. operative. Since then, there have been questions about whether members of the Bush administration leaked the information to try to punish Mr. Wilson or undercut his credibility.
When Ms. Miller was subpoenaed by the grand jury investigating the case, she declined to testify about any conversations she had under guarantees of confidentiality. She did that even though the Bush administration had required every government employee who might have been involved to sign a waiver of any confidentiality agreement they had with reporters. Ms. Miller believed that a waiver that government employees were forced to sign or risk being fired was by its nature coercive. She was obviously right. Her source's lawyer admitted as much to Floyd Abrams, Ms. Miller's lawyer.
Why, then, did she agree to testify yesterday? Could Ms. Miller have gotten the permission earlier? Why didn't she just pick up the phone and ask?
When a journalist guarantees confidentiality, it means that he or she is willing to go to jail rather than disclose the source's identity. We also believe it means that the journalist will not try to coerce the source into granting a waiver to that promise - even if her back is against the wall. If Ms. Miller's source had wanted to release her from her promise, he could have held a press conference and identified himself. And obviously, he could have picked up the phone. Ms. Miller believed - and we agree - that it was not her place to try to hound him into telling her that she did not need to keep her promise.
Some journalists feel that when it comes to government employees, no waiver short of a public statement can be judged to be freely granted. We believe the person in the best position to judge when a source is sincerely waiving promises of confidentiality is the reporter who made the guarantee. We have confidence that Judith Miller's conversation with her source gave her the assurances she needed. She has won the right to that confidence with three months' stay in a tough jail.
The important lesson from her travails is the need for a federal shield law that would resolve such issues in the future. Judith Miller's rights would have been protected by state shield laws, including laws in New York and Washington D.C., which provide total protection. It is humiliating to realize that the rest of the world has been watching the federal government jail a reporter for doing her job.
Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia provide reporters limited or full protection from testifying about confidential sources. No state attorney general has ever said a case was abandoned or a trial sabotaged by a reporter's guarantee of confidentiality to a source.
It would be easy to extend such a shield to the federal courts. A law has even been written - a bipartisan bill languishing in Congress that would protect this vital tool of a free press while providing an exception in case of an immediate and demonstrable threat to national security.
We hope the sight of Judith Miller finally gaining her freedom will help spur Congressional leaders to take this one simple action to keep the First Amendment's promise of a free press.
Miller and Her Stand Draw Strong Reactions
By Howard Kurtz
In the end, what did Judith Miller accomplish by spending 85 days in an Alexandria jail?
Not much, say her detractors, noting that the deal the New York Times reporter ultimately made to testify about her confidential source in the Valerie Plame leak investigation was similar to agreements reached by Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and other journalists in the murky case.
Some of Miller's colleagues at the Times, who declined to be identified because they are challenging their bosses' stance, say much of the staff is frustrated and confused.
"People are angry," one staffer said. "Was this a charade on her part for martyrdom, or a real principle? She wanted to resurrect herself from the WMD thing," the staffer said, a reference to Miller stories about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be wrong.
"I am truly depressed," another staffer said. "It absolutely makes no sense. Basically she did the same thing Matt Cooper did, with the intervening weeks in jail. But I just don't buy that she's doing it for her own image enhancement."
Other journalists and media advocates say Miller and her newspaper took a courageous stand in demonstrating that news organizations must not betray their sources.
"I'd be very loath to be critical of what Judith did," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who visited Miller in jail. She said the public should have "a renewed confidence that when a reporter makes an agreement with a source, the reporter will do whatever possible to keep that confidence unless there was an agreement with the source" to release the journalist.
Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said yesterday: "We have a tradition here that when our reporters stand up for principle, we stand behind them. I'm proud that the tradition is intact."
But Lucie Morillon, Washington representative for Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, said she is disappointed by the agreement Miller struck with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, to testify about their 2003 conversations on Plame.
"We understand Judith Miller didn't want to stay in jail, but the problem is the prosecutor put so much pressure on her that she was forced to reveal her source," Morillon said. She said she does not regard Libby's waiver as voluntary and that the deal is a "setback" for journalism. "The federal courts are getting bolder and bolder in forcing reporters to testify. With this case, it's going to get worse."
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzerald's investigation of whether administration officials knowingly revealed Plame's undercover role in the CIA prompted testimony under waivers of confidentiality by journalists for NBC and The Washington Post, as well as Cooper. But it has not generated widespread public support for the media. One of the most criticized journalists has been columnist Robert D. Novak, who was the first to publish Plame's name and has refused to say whether he has testified.
Even some Miller supporters concede that the journalists involved are seen as protecting presidential aides who may have been retaliating against Plame's husband, a White House critic on the weapons controversy, rather than shielding whistle-blowers who were exposing corruption.
Miller said yesterday that she would have remained behind bars if her source -- Libby -- had not provided a "personal" waiver, as opposed to a blanket offer to reporters, and if Fitzgerald had not agreed to limit the scope of her testimony. "I am hopeful that my long stay in jail will serve to strengthen the bond between reporters and their sources," she said.
A hard-charging Pulitzer Prize winner and co-author of a best-selling book on bioterrorism, Miller was embedded with a U.S. military unit searching for illegal weapons in Iraq in 2003 and dealt extensively with Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who had close ties to the Bush administration at the time.
A Times ombudsman criticized one of Miller's stories from that period for its "apparent flimsiness." Her aggressive brand of reporting has won her devoted fans as well as fierce detractors.
Arianna Huffington, the liberal commentator and blogger, accused Miller yesterday of "grandstanding" by going to jail. She said Miller was "effectively discredited" because of the weapons stories and that jail was "an opportunity to cleanse herself." Huffington also said Miller "has no obligation any more to remain silent" and should provide a full accounting in the Times, as Cooper did in Time after testifying.
Dalglish said she is struck by how "hostile" and "vicious" some journalists are toward Miller, which she attributes to both the weapons controversy and Miller's style.
"She's not exactly a warm and fuzzy person," Dalglish said. "She's reserved. She's not going to go out of her way to make lots of friends."
The case has galvanized support for a federal shield law, which has bipartisan sponsorship, that would limit the circumstances under which reporters could be prosecuted for refusing to reveal confidential sources.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), one of the bill's sponsors, yesterday hailed Miller's release, saying "no reporter should be thrown in jail for doing their job." He added in a statement that the primary purpose of the measure, which the administration opposes, is not to protect journalists but "the public's right to information."
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By Howard Kurtz
In the end, what did Judith Miller accomplish by spending 85 days in an Alexandria jail?
Not much, say her detractors, noting that the deal the New York Times reporter ultimately made to testify about her confidential source in the Valerie Plame leak investigation was similar to agreements reached by Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and other journalists in the murky case.
Some of Miller's colleagues at the Times, who declined to be identified because they are challenging their bosses' stance, say much of the staff is frustrated and confused.
"People are angry," one staffer said. "Was this a charade on her part for martyrdom, or a real principle? She wanted to resurrect herself from the WMD thing," the staffer said, a reference to Miller stories about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction that turned out to be wrong.
"I am truly depressed," another staffer said. "It absolutely makes no sense. Basically she did the same thing Matt Cooper did, with the intervening weeks in jail. But I just don't buy that she's doing it for her own image enhancement."
Other journalists and media advocates say Miller and her newspaper took a courageous stand in demonstrating that news organizations must not betray their sources.
"I'd be very loath to be critical of what Judith did," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, who visited Miller in jail. She said the public should have "a renewed confidence that when a reporter makes an agreement with a source, the reporter will do whatever possible to keep that confidence unless there was an agreement with the source" to release the journalist.
Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said yesterday: "We have a tradition here that when our reporters stand up for principle, we stand behind them. I'm proud that the tradition is intact."
But Lucie Morillon, Washington representative for Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, said she is disappointed by the agreement Miller struck with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, to testify about their 2003 conversations on Plame.
"We understand Judith Miller didn't want to stay in jail, but the problem is the prosecutor put so much pressure on her that she was forced to reveal her source," Morillon said. She said she does not regard Libby's waiver as voluntary and that the deal is a "setback" for journalism. "The federal courts are getting bolder and bolder in forcing reporters to testify. With this case, it's going to get worse."
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzerald's investigation of whether administration officials knowingly revealed Plame's undercover role in the CIA prompted testimony under waivers of confidentiality by journalists for NBC and The Washington Post, as well as Cooper. But it has not generated widespread public support for the media. One of the most criticized journalists has been columnist Robert D. Novak, who was the first to publish Plame's name and has refused to say whether he has testified.
Even some Miller supporters concede that the journalists involved are seen as protecting presidential aides who may have been retaliating against Plame's husband, a White House critic on the weapons controversy, rather than shielding whistle-blowers who were exposing corruption.
Miller said yesterday that she would have remained behind bars if her source -- Libby -- had not provided a "personal" waiver, as opposed to a blanket offer to reporters, and if Fitzgerald had not agreed to limit the scope of her testimony. "I am hopeful that my long stay in jail will serve to strengthen the bond between reporters and their sources," she said.
A hard-charging Pulitzer Prize winner and co-author of a best-selling book on bioterrorism, Miller was embedded with a U.S. military unit searching for illegal weapons in Iraq in 2003 and dealt extensively with Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who had close ties to the Bush administration at the time.
A Times ombudsman criticized one of Miller's stories from that period for its "apparent flimsiness." Her aggressive brand of reporting has won her devoted fans as well as fierce detractors.
Arianna Huffington, the liberal commentator and blogger, accused Miller yesterday of "grandstanding" by going to jail. She said Miller was "effectively discredited" because of the weapons stories and that jail was "an opportunity to cleanse herself." Huffington also said Miller "has no obligation any more to remain silent" and should provide a full accounting in the Times, as Cooper did in Time after testifying.
Dalglish said she is struck by how "hostile" and "vicious" some journalists are toward Miller, which she attributes to both the weapons controversy and Miller's style.
"She's not exactly a warm and fuzzy person," Dalglish said. "She's reserved. She's not going to go out of her way to make lots of friends."
The case has galvanized support for a federal shield law, which has bipartisan sponsorship, that would limit the circumstances under which reporters could be prosecuted for refusing to reveal confidential sources.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), one of the bill's sponsors, yesterday hailed Miller's release, saying "no reporter should be thrown in jail for doing their job." He added in a statement that the primary purpose of the measure, which the administration opposes, is not to protect journalists but "the public's right to information."
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Libby Is to Cheney What Cheney Is to Bush
By NEDRA PICKLER
WASHINGTON -- President Bush has Dick Cheney as his behind-the-scenes adviser and problem solver. The vice president has his own man who fits that description: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
His job as Cheney's chief of staff gives Libby extraordinary influence and access in all corners of White House policy-making, particularly national security. But, just as Cheney doesn't talk about his conversations with Bush, Libby does not promote what he does for the vice president.
Unlike many senior White House officials, Libby avoids the Sunday talk shows and rarely is quoted by name.
However, his quiet contacts with reporters have pushed Libby into the spotlight as a grand jury investigates whether White House officials leaked the name of a covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame.
Libby has been identified as a source in the matter for two reporters, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and the New York Times' Judith Miller. Miller spent more than 12 weeks in jail before agreeing to testify before a federal grand jury on Friday, though she did not write a story on Plame. Bush aide Karl Rove has been identified as another source.
Libby, Rove and other White House officials refuse to comment on grounds that the Plame case is the subject of a criminal investigation.
Libby had another accomplishment before entering the White House, as author of a novel that won praise from literary critics: a story of romance and intrigue that takes place a century ago in a Japanese mountain village.
Libby moved from the Ivy League to a successful career as an attorney to the upper echelons of the U.S. government.
Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Libby's friend and now World Bank president, said Libby's skill with the pen are what made him first hire Libby to work in the Reagan State Department and later at the Pentagon. The two got to know each other when Wolfowitz was Libby's professor at Yale University.
Libby was working on "The Apprentice" during his time at the State Department. He had started the book for a creative writing course in college in 1972 and didn't complete it until 1996. He would put it aside during busy times and work on improving it between federal jobs.
"He is a kind of perfectionist," Wolfowitz said, adding that Libby's attention to detail makes him a careful lawyer, too. "I find him extremely valuable. If everybody else is running off to a conclusion, he'll say, 'Wait a minute, have you thought of this?' He's conscientious to the point of being slightly worrywart."
"He's very inventive about problem solving," said Mary Matalin, who also worked on Cheney's staff in the first Bush term. "He has the infinite and unwavering trust of Dick Cheney, which is no small thing."
Libby and the vice president got to know each other at the Pentagon when Cheney was defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush. By 2000, Libby was working as a top adviser to Cheney in the presidential campaign and then followed him to the White House.
He was at Cheney's side when the vice president was in secure locations after the terrorist attacks in 2001. And, along with Cheney, Libby became a driving force in the administration's national security policy and march to war in Iraq.
"He was strategic in thinking that the way to respond to this problem was to take out the reasons and what sustained the enemy," Matalin said.
Libby was swayed by intelligence on Saddam's alleged weapons program, and prepared a thick document that argued the case for going to war. He presented the information to others on the White House national security team and it reportedly became the basis for Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations.
http://www.whitehouse.gov
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/e...er=emailarticle
By NEDRA PICKLER
WASHINGTON -- President Bush has Dick Cheney as his behind-the-scenes adviser and problem solver. The vice president has his own man who fits that description: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
His job as Cheney's chief of staff gives Libby extraordinary influence and access in all corners of White House policy-making, particularly national security. But, just as Cheney doesn't talk about his conversations with Bush, Libby does not promote what he does for the vice president.
Unlike many senior White House officials, Libby avoids the Sunday talk shows and rarely is quoted by name.
However, his quiet contacts with reporters have pushed Libby into the spotlight as a grand jury investigates whether White House officials leaked the name of a covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame.
Libby has been identified as a source in the matter for two reporters, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and the New York Times' Judith Miller. Miller spent more than 12 weeks in jail before agreeing to testify before a federal grand jury on Friday, though she did not write a story on Plame. Bush aide Karl Rove has been identified as another source.
Libby, Rove and other White House officials refuse to comment on grounds that the Plame case is the subject of a criminal investigation.
Libby had another accomplishment before entering the White House, as author of a novel that won praise from literary critics: a story of romance and intrigue that takes place a century ago in a Japanese mountain village.
Libby moved from the Ivy League to a successful career as an attorney to the upper echelons of the U.S. government.
Former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Libby's friend and now World Bank president, said Libby's skill with the pen are what made him first hire Libby to work in the Reagan State Department and later at the Pentagon. The two got to know each other when Wolfowitz was Libby's professor at Yale University.
Libby was working on "The Apprentice" during his time at the State Department. He had started the book for a creative writing course in college in 1972 and didn't complete it until 1996. He would put it aside during busy times and work on improving it between federal jobs.
"He is a kind of perfectionist," Wolfowitz said, adding that Libby's attention to detail makes him a careful lawyer, too. "I find him extremely valuable. If everybody else is running off to a conclusion, he'll say, 'Wait a minute, have you thought of this?' He's conscientious to the point of being slightly worrywart."
"He's very inventive about problem solving," said Mary Matalin, who also worked on Cheney's staff in the first Bush term. "He has the infinite and unwavering trust of Dick Cheney, which is no small thing."
Libby and the vice president got to know each other at the Pentagon when Cheney was defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush. By 2000, Libby was working as a top adviser to Cheney in the presidential campaign and then followed him to the White House.
He was at Cheney's side when the vice president was in secure locations after the terrorist attacks in 2001. And, along with Cheney, Libby became a driving force in the administration's national security policy and march to war in Iraq.
"He was strategic in thinking that the way to respond to this problem was to take out the reasons and what sustained the enemy," Matalin said.
Libby was swayed by intelligence on Saddam's alleged weapons program, and prepared a thick document that argued the case for going to war. He presented the information to others on the White House national security team and it reportedly became the basis for Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations.
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Chronology: Judith Miller and the C.I.A. Leak Inquiry
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 30, 2005
Judith Miller, the reporter for The New York Times who was released from jail on Thursday, testified today before a grand jury investigating whether or not the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Wilson, was illegally disclosed.
FEBRUARY 2002
Having read a Defense Intelligence Agency report suggesting that Niger had agreed to sell yellowcake uranium to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney asks for the C.I.A.'s analysis. In response to Mr. Cheney's query - and to questions from State and Defense Departments - the C.I.A. convenes a meeting of experts, including Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador to Gabon. Mr. Wilson's wife, a C.I.A. operative, introduces him at the meeting before stepping out.
FEBRUARY 2002
Mr. Wilson travels to Niger.
MARCH 5, 2002
Mr. Wilson is interviewed about his trip. He later tells Senate Intelligence Committee investigators that there is nothing to the story of the uranium sales.
JANUARY 28, 2003
President Bush, in the State of the Union speech, declares: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
JUNE 10, 2003
A State Department memorandum, dated June 10, refers to Valerie Wilson as Mr. Wilson's wife. The memorandum explains how Mr. Wilson came to be dispatched on the mission to Niger and his wife's role.
JULY 6, 2003
An Op-Ed article by Mr. Wilson in The New York Times, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," casts doubt on the uranium reference and claims that the administration "twisted" the intelligence on Iraq.
WEEK OF JULY 6, 2003
Stephen J. Hadley, deputy national security adviser, communicates with George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence, discussing how to handle questions about the State of the Union uranium claim. The same week, Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, discuss what Mr. Tenet should say about the uranium claim.
JULY 6, 2003
State Department officials send a copy of the State Department memorandum to the White House for transmission to Colin L. Powell, secretary of state, who is preparing to leave for Africa with Mr. Bush.
JULY 7, 2003
Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman, addresses the Op-Ed article, saying, "there is zero, nada, nothing new here." He goes on to say that Mr. Cheney's office didn't request the mission to Niger, nor had they been informed of it. Mr. Fleischer also acknowledges that the uranium reference was incorrect.
JULY 7, 2003
The president, Mr. Powell and Mr. Fleischer depart for Africa. The State Department memorandum on the Wilson matter is faxed in-flight to Mr. Powell.
JULY 7, 2003
Phone logs belonging to Mr. Fleischer indicate that he received a call from Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist.
JULY 8, 2003
Ms. Miller, meets with Mr. Libby, and she speaks with him on the telephone later in the week. According to someone who has been briefed on the matter, Ms. Miller asks Mr. Libby whether he knows Mr. Wilson. Mr. Libby says that he does not but that he has heard from the C.I.A. that the former ambassador's wife might have had a role in arranging his trip to Africa.
JULY 9, 2003
Mr. Rove talks with Mr. Novak. According to a person briefed on the case, Mr. Rove said the columnist informed him that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A. and had a role in arranging the trip to Niger.
JULY 11, 2003
Mr. Tenet accepts responsibility for letting the president make the uranium reference, which turned out to be unsubstantiated.
JULY 11, 2003
Mr. Rove discusses the Wilsons with Matthew Cooper, a journalist for Time magazine. Mr. Cooper would later say that Mr. Rove alluded to Mr. Wilson's wife as a C.I.A. employee, though, in Mr. Cooper's account, Mr. Rove did not use her name or mention her status as a covert agent.
JULY 12, 2003
Mr. Cooper speaks with Mr. Libby, who confirms Ms. Wilson's involvement in her husband's mission to Niger, but Mr. Libby does not refer to her name or her covert status.
JULY 14, 2003
A column by Mr. Novak reveals that Mr. Wilson's wife, referred to as Valerie Plame, works for the C.I.A. as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction," citing "two senior administration officials."
JULY 15, 2003
Scott McClellan replaces Mr. Fleischer as White House press secretary.
JULY 17, 2003
Mr. Cooper and other Time reporters publish an article, questioning the administration's motives for disclosing Ms. Wilson's (Ms. Plame's) identity and saying that the magazine had received similar information.
SEPTEMBER 29, 2003
Mr. McClellan says it is "simply not true" that Mr. Rove is involved in the leak and that any official who leaked classified information "would no longer be in this administration."
SEPTEMBER 30, 2003
Mr. Bush says: "And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of."
DECEMBER 2003
The Justice Department brings in special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, to investigate whether officials illegally leaked the identity of a C.I.A. officer.
MAY 21, 2004
Mr. Cooper of Time magazine is subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to testify about his sources in the matter.
AUGUST 9, 2004
Judge Thomas F. Hogan, of United States District Court in Washington holds Mr. Cooper in contempt of court and orders him jailed for refusing to name his sources.
AUGUST 12, 2004
Ms. Miller is subpoenaed by the grand jury.
AUG. 23, 2004
After negotiating an agreement with the special counsel, Mr. Cooper testifies about his conversations with Mr. Libby. He says that Mr. Libby had authorized him to testify.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2004
Judge Hogan orders Ms. Miller to testify about her sources before the grand jury.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2004
Mr. Cooper receives a second subpoena for information about other White House officials.
OCTOBER 7, 2004
Judge Hogan holds Ms. Miller in contempt of court for refusing to name her sources. He orders her jailed, though the sanction is suspended until an appeal concludes.
OCTOBER 15, 2004
Mr. Rove testifies before the grand jury.
FEBRUARY 15, 2005
A federal appeals court rules that Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller should be jailed for contempt after refusing to disclose their sources. The case is appealed.
JUNE 27, 2005
The United States Supreme Court declines to hear the cases of two reporters. The case returns to Federal District Court where Judge Hogan hears arguments about jail time.
JUNE 30, 2005
Time magazine says it will provide documents concerning Matthew Cooper's confidential sources.
JULY 5, 2005
The special counsel, Mr. Fitzgerald, files papers calling for Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper to be jailed. Even though Time magazine provided Mr. Cooper's notes, Mr. Fitzgerald says Mr. Cooper's testimony remains necessary.
JULY 6, 2005
Ms. Miller is sent to jail. Mr. Cooper announces a last-minute deal with a confidential source that allows him to testify.
JULY 13, 2005
Mr. Bush says he has instructed his staff to fully cooperate in the investigation. He also says he "will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports."
JULY 18, 2005
Mr. Bush says, "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."
SEPT. 29, 2005
Ms. Miller is released from jail after she agrees to testify before the grand jury. She makes her decision after obtaining a waiver from her source.
TODAY
Ms. Miller testifies.
Chronology: Judith Miller and the C.I.A. Leak Inquiry
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: September 30, 2005
Judith Miller, the reporter for The New York Times who was released from jail on Thursday, testified today before a grand jury investigating whether or not the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Wilson, was illegally disclosed.
FEBRUARY 2002
Having read a Defense Intelligence Agency report suggesting that Niger had agreed to sell yellowcake uranium to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney asks for the C.I.A.'s analysis. In response to Mr. Cheney's query - and to questions from State and Defense Departments - the C.I.A. convenes a meeting of experts, including Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador to Gabon. Mr. Wilson's wife, a C.I.A. operative, introduces him at the meeting before stepping out.
FEBRUARY 2002
Mr. Wilson travels to Niger.
MARCH 5, 2002
Mr. Wilson is interviewed about his trip. He later tells Senate Intelligence Committee investigators that there is nothing to the story of the uranium sales.
JANUARY 28, 2003
President Bush, in the State of the Union speech, declares: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
JUNE 10, 2003
A State Department memorandum, dated June 10, refers to Valerie Wilson as Mr. Wilson's wife. The memorandum explains how Mr. Wilson came to be dispatched on the mission to Niger and his wife's role.
JULY 6, 2003
An Op-Ed article by Mr. Wilson in The New York Times, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," casts doubt on the uranium reference and claims that the administration "twisted" the intelligence on Iraq.
WEEK OF JULY 6, 2003
Stephen J. Hadley, deputy national security adviser, communicates with George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence, discussing how to handle questions about the State of the Union uranium claim. The same week, Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, discuss what Mr. Tenet should say about the uranium claim.
JULY 6, 2003
State Department officials send a copy of the State Department memorandum to the White House for transmission to Colin L. Powell, secretary of state, who is preparing to leave for Africa with Mr. Bush.
JULY 7, 2003
Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman, addresses the Op-Ed article, saying, "there is zero, nada, nothing new here." He goes on to say that Mr. Cheney's office didn't request the mission to Niger, nor had they been informed of it. Mr. Fleischer also acknowledges that the uranium reference was incorrect.
JULY 7, 2003
The president, Mr. Powell and Mr. Fleischer depart for Africa. The State Department memorandum on the Wilson matter is faxed in-flight to Mr. Powell.
JULY 7, 2003
Phone logs belonging to Mr. Fleischer indicate that he received a call from Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist.
JULY 8, 2003
Ms. Miller, meets with Mr. Libby, and she speaks with him on the telephone later in the week. According to someone who has been briefed on the matter, Ms. Miller asks Mr. Libby whether he knows Mr. Wilson. Mr. Libby says that he does not but that he has heard from the C.I.A. that the former ambassador's wife might have had a role in arranging his trip to Africa.
JULY 9, 2003
Mr. Rove talks with Mr. Novak. According to a person briefed on the case, Mr. Rove said the columnist informed him that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A. and had a role in arranging the trip to Niger.
JULY 11, 2003
Mr. Tenet accepts responsibility for letting the president make the uranium reference, which turned out to be unsubstantiated.
JULY 11, 2003
Mr. Rove discusses the Wilsons with Matthew Cooper, a journalist for Time magazine. Mr. Cooper would later say that Mr. Rove alluded to Mr. Wilson's wife as a C.I.A. employee, though, in Mr. Cooper's account, Mr. Rove did not use her name or mention her status as a covert agent.
JULY 12, 2003
Mr. Cooper speaks with Mr. Libby, who confirms Ms. Wilson's involvement in her husband's mission to Niger, but Mr. Libby does not refer to her name or her covert status.
JULY 14, 2003
A column by Mr. Novak reveals that Mr. Wilson's wife, referred to as Valerie Plame, works for the C.I.A. as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction," citing "two senior administration officials."
JULY 15, 2003
Scott McClellan replaces Mr. Fleischer as White House press secretary.
JULY 17, 2003
Mr. Cooper and other Time reporters publish an article, questioning the administration's motives for disclosing Ms. Wilson's (Ms. Plame's) identity and saying that the magazine had received similar information.
SEPTEMBER 29, 2003
Mr. McClellan says it is "simply not true" that Mr. Rove is involved in the leak and that any official who leaked classified information "would no longer be in this administration."
SEPTEMBER 30, 2003
Mr. Bush says: "And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of."
DECEMBER 2003
The Justice Department brings in special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, to investigate whether officials illegally leaked the identity of a C.I.A. officer.
MAY 21, 2004
Mr. Cooper of Time magazine is subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to testify about his sources in the matter.
AUGUST 9, 2004
Judge Thomas F. Hogan, of United States District Court in Washington holds Mr. Cooper in contempt of court and orders him jailed for refusing to name his sources.
AUGUST 12, 2004
Ms. Miller is subpoenaed by the grand jury.
AUG. 23, 2004
After negotiating an agreement with the special counsel, Mr. Cooper testifies about his conversations with Mr. Libby. He says that Mr. Libby had authorized him to testify.
SEPTEMBER 9, 2004
Judge Hogan orders Ms. Miller to testify about her sources before the grand jury.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2004
Mr. Cooper receives a second subpoena for information about other White House officials.
OCTOBER 7, 2004
Judge Hogan holds Ms. Miller in contempt of court for refusing to name her sources. He orders her jailed, though the sanction is suspended until an appeal concludes.
OCTOBER 15, 2004
Mr. Rove testifies before the grand jury.
FEBRUARY 15, 2005
A federal appeals court rules that Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller should be jailed for contempt after refusing to disclose their sources. The case is appealed.
JUNE 27, 2005
The United States Supreme Court declines to hear the cases of two reporters. The case returns to Federal District Court where Judge Hogan hears arguments about jail time.
JUNE 30, 2005
Time magazine says it will provide documents concerning Matthew Cooper's confidential sources.
JULY 5, 2005
The special counsel, Mr. Fitzgerald, files papers calling for Ms. Miller and Mr. Cooper to be jailed. Even though Time magazine provided Mr. Cooper's notes, Mr. Fitzgerald says Mr. Cooper's testimony remains necessary.
JULY 6, 2005
Ms. Miller is sent to jail. Mr. Cooper announces a last-minute deal with a confidential source that allows him to testify.
JULY 13, 2005
Mr. Bush says he has instructed his staff to fully cooperate in the investigation. He also says he "will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports."
JULY 18, 2005
Mr. Bush says, "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."
SEPT. 29, 2005
Ms. Miller is released from jail after she agrees to testify before the grand jury. She makes her decision after obtaining a waiver from her source.
TODAY
Ms. Miller testifies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/politics...i=5070&emc=eta1
Phone Call With Source and Deal Led Reporter to Testify
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: October 1, 2005
Two developments drove the decision of Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter jailed for refusing to testify about conversations with a confidential source, to appear before a grand jury in Washington yesterday in exchange for her freedom, she and her lawyers said yesterday.
Skip to next paragraph
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Judith Miller leaving court today with Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., publisher of The New York Times.
Times Reporter Testifies to Jury in C.I.A. Leak Case (October 1, 2005)
Journalists Fear Impact on Protecting Sources (October 1, 2005)
Lawyers' Correspondence in the Miller Case (PDF)
Chronology: Miller and the Leak Inquiry
Text: Miller's Remarks Outside Court
Thursday: Statements on Judith Miller's Release
Timeline
One was a long phone call with the source. The other was a deal with the special prosecutor in the case.
But three recent letters from people involved in the case debate whether a similar deal may have been available for some time and raise questions about why Ms. Miller decided to testify now.
In essence, the dueling letters give sharply divergent accounts of what was said a year ago when lawyers for Ms. Miller and her source, I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, discussed the possibility of Ms. Miller's testimony before a grand jury investigating the possibly unlawful disclosure of the identity of a C.I.A. officer.
Mr. Libby's side says he gave Ms. Miller unequivocal permission to testify about her conversations with Mr. Libby concerning his role, if any, in the disclosure of the identify of the officer, Valerie Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame.
In a letter from Mr. Libby to Ms. Miller this month, he expressed surprise that her lawyers had asked him to "repeat for you the waiver of confidentiality that I specifically gave to your counsel over a year ago." He added that he expected her testimony to help him.
One of Ms. Miller's lawyers, Floyd Abrams, wrote a letter to Mr. Libby's lawyer on Thursday in what he said was an effort "to set the record straight." Mr. Abrams acknowledged that the lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, had told him in the summer of 2004 that Mr. Libby had no objection to Ms. Miller's testifying about a meeting with him a year earlier. But Mr. Abrams also said Mr. Libby's lawyer had said that a blanket form waiver Mr. Libby signed at the request of investigators in January 2004 had been "coerced and had been required as a condition for Mr. Libby's continued employment at the White House."
"The message you sent to me was viewed by Ms. Miller as inherently 'mixed,' " Mr. Abrams wrote.
He said Mr. Libby's failure to contact Ms. Miller as the case proceeded had also led her to conclude that he did not want her to testify.
In a third letter, Mr. Tate wrote to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the leak, about his conversations with Mr. Abrams. "Over a year ago, I assured him that Mr. Libby's waiver was voluntary and not coerced and she should accept it for what it was."
He added that he understood from his conversations with Mr. Abrams that Ms. Miller's "position was not based on a reluctance to testify about her communications with Mr. Libby" but on journalistic principle and an effort to protect "others with whom she may have spoken."
At least four other reporters have testified in the investigation, which has repeatedly reached into the White House. They all testified wholly or partly about conversations with Mr. Libby, and one, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, testified about a conversation with Karl Rove, the president's chief strategist. Only Ms. Miller, who never wrote an article about the C.I.A. operative, was jailed in an effort to force her to testify.
The second factor in Ms. Miller's decision to go before the grand jury was a change in the position of the special prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald, concerning the scope of the questions she would be asked, according to Mr. Abrams. Mr. Fitzgerald only recently agreed to confine his questions to Ms. Miller's conversations with Mr. Libby concerning the identification of Ms. Wilson, Mr. Abrams said.
But other reporters struck deals with Mr. Fitzgerald last year that also limited the questions they would be asked. For instance, Glenn Kessler, a reporter for The Washington Post, testified in June 2004 on ground rules essentially identical to those Ms. Miller obtained, according to an article in The Post at the time.
Mr. Kessler, The Post said, testified that the subject of Ms. Wilson had not come up in his conversations with Mr. Libby.
A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, Randall Samborn, declined to comment yesterday.
Ms. Miller expanded her legal team as the prospect of jail loomed, and it was a new lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, who initiated the recent negotiations in late August.
Bill Keller, The Times's executive editor, said that it was Ms. Miller's decision to resist the subpoena from Mr. Fitzgerald and to testify after the latest developments.
"It wasn't the paper's decision," he said. "It was hers. We supported her in her decisions. If we thought her decision in either case was frivolous, she wouldn't have had the kind of support she had."
One of her lawyers, George Freeman, an assistant general counsel of The New York Times Company, said the phone call between Ms. Miller and her source had been crucial.
"This was a call," he said, "that lasted about 15 minutes, and Judy could measure the timbre and tone of the source's response and real feelings regarding whether or not he was being coerced and whether or not he really wanted her to testify."
Ms. Miller said nothing about the substance of her testimony after court yesterday and has not publicly named her source. Ms. Miller declined to discuss her grand jury testimony on the advice of her lawyers.
Mr. Abrams said that she provided the grand jury with an edited version of her notes.
"The notes were redacted to omit everything but the notes taken concerning discussions with Libby about Plame," Mr. Abrams said.
"At its core," Mr. Abrams said, "a time had come when it was possible to resolve this. Judy had no desire to continue to endure life in the detention center."
Phone Call With Source and Deal Led Reporter to Testify
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: October 1, 2005
Two developments drove the decision of Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter jailed for refusing to testify about conversations with a confidential source, to appear before a grand jury in Washington yesterday in exchange for her freedom, she and her lawyers said yesterday.
Skip to next paragraph
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Judith Miller leaving court today with Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., publisher of The New York Times.
Times Reporter Testifies to Jury in C.I.A. Leak Case (October 1, 2005)
Journalists Fear Impact on Protecting Sources (October 1, 2005)
Lawyers' Correspondence in the Miller Case (PDF)
Chronology: Miller and the Leak Inquiry
Text: Miller's Remarks Outside Court
Thursday: Statements on Judith Miller's Release
Timeline
One was a long phone call with the source. The other was a deal with the special prosecutor in the case.
But three recent letters from people involved in the case debate whether a similar deal may have been available for some time and raise questions about why Ms. Miller decided to testify now.
In essence, the dueling letters give sharply divergent accounts of what was said a year ago when lawyers for Ms. Miller and her source, I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, discussed the possibility of Ms. Miller's testimony before a grand jury investigating the possibly unlawful disclosure of the identity of a C.I.A. officer.
Mr. Libby's side says he gave Ms. Miller unequivocal permission to testify about her conversations with Mr. Libby concerning his role, if any, in the disclosure of the identify of the officer, Valerie Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame.
In a letter from Mr. Libby to Ms. Miller this month, he expressed surprise that her lawyers had asked him to "repeat for you the waiver of confidentiality that I specifically gave to your counsel over a year ago." He added that he expected her testimony to help him.
One of Ms. Miller's lawyers, Floyd Abrams, wrote a letter to Mr. Libby's lawyer on Thursday in what he said was an effort "to set the record straight." Mr. Abrams acknowledged that the lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, had told him in the summer of 2004 that Mr. Libby had no objection to Ms. Miller's testifying about a meeting with him a year earlier. But Mr. Abrams also said Mr. Libby's lawyer had said that a blanket form waiver Mr. Libby signed at the request of investigators in January 2004 had been "coerced and had been required as a condition for Mr. Libby's continued employment at the White House."
"The message you sent to me was viewed by Ms. Miller as inherently 'mixed,' " Mr. Abrams wrote.
He said Mr. Libby's failure to contact Ms. Miller as the case proceeded had also led her to conclude that he did not want her to testify.
In a third letter, Mr. Tate wrote to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor investigating the leak, about his conversations with Mr. Abrams. "Over a year ago, I assured him that Mr. Libby's waiver was voluntary and not coerced and she should accept it for what it was."
He added that he understood from his conversations with Mr. Abrams that Ms. Miller's "position was not based on a reluctance to testify about her communications with Mr. Libby" but on journalistic principle and an effort to protect "others with whom she may have spoken."
At least four other reporters have testified in the investigation, which has repeatedly reached into the White House. They all testified wholly or partly about conversations with Mr. Libby, and one, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, testified about a conversation with Karl Rove, the president's chief strategist. Only Ms. Miller, who never wrote an article about the C.I.A. operative, was jailed in an effort to force her to testify.
The second factor in Ms. Miller's decision to go before the grand jury was a change in the position of the special prosecutor, Mr. Fitzgerald, concerning the scope of the questions she would be asked, according to Mr. Abrams. Mr. Fitzgerald only recently agreed to confine his questions to Ms. Miller's conversations with Mr. Libby concerning the identification of Ms. Wilson, Mr. Abrams said.
But other reporters struck deals with Mr. Fitzgerald last year that also limited the questions they would be asked. For instance, Glenn Kessler, a reporter for The Washington Post, testified in June 2004 on ground rules essentially identical to those Ms. Miller obtained, according to an article in The Post at the time.
Mr. Kessler, The Post said, testified that the subject of Ms. Wilson had not come up in his conversations with Mr. Libby.
A spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, Randall Samborn, declined to comment yesterday.
Ms. Miller expanded her legal team as the prospect of jail loomed, and it was a new lawyer, Robert S. Bennett, who initiated the recent negotiations in late August.
Bill Keller, The Times's executive editor, said that it was Ms. Miller's decision to resist the subpoena from Mr. Fitzgerald and to testify after the latest developments.
"It wasn't the paper's decision," he said. "It was hers. We supported her in her decisions. If we thought her decision in either case was frivolous, she wouldn't have had the kind of support she had."
One of her lawyers, George Freeman, an assistant general counsel of The New York Times Company, said the phone call between Ms. Miller and her source had been crucial.
"This was a call," he said, "that lasted about 15 minutes, and Judy could measure the timbre and tone of the source's response and real feelings regarding whether or not he was being coerced and whether or not he really wanted her to testify."
Ms. Miller said nothing about the substance of her testimony after court yesterday and has not publicly named her source. Ms. Miller declined to discuss her grand jury testimony on the advice of her lawyers.
Mr. Abrams said that she provided the grand jury with an edited version of her notes.
"The notes were redacted to omit everything but the notes taken concerning discussions with Libby about Plame," Mr. Abrams said.
"At its core," Mr. Abrams said, "a time had come when it was possible to resolve this. Judy had no desire to continue to endure life in the detention center."
Reminder to Judy and the Times: the Spin Always Catches Up With You
Arianna Huffington
Now that Judy Miller has finished testifying -- and spinning for the cameras on the court house steps ("I testified as soon as I could... Once I satisfied my principles... personal, explicit, voluntary waiver... I would have stayed even longer...") -- she needs to do what Matt Cooper did and immediately publish a full and truthful account of her involvement in Plamegate. And the New York Times must publish it on Page One. Without fear or favor. All the news that's fit to print.
No ifs, ands, buts. And no more grandstanding statements from Arthur Sulzberger and Bill Keller.
In fact, here is my suggestion: Keller is so up to his eyeballs in legal strategy and protecting the reputation of his newspaper, he should recuse himself from overseeing the Times' coverage of this story and turn it over to Jill Abramson, the managing editor, or Suzanne Daley, the national editor. Of course, they could continue to screw things up if they kept looking over their shoulder to see if the boss approves. But at least there is a chance that the paper will stop spinning and start telling it straight -- stop protecting itself and start reporting on itself.
The New York Times needs to make believe they're not writing about themselves. And Sulzberger, Keller, and company need to remember what politicians are regularly told: The spin always catches up with you. Always.
Send to a friendPost a CommentRead all posts by Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington
Now that Judy Miller has finished testifying -- and spinning for the cameras on the court house steps ("I testified as soon as I could... Once I satisfied my principles... personal, explicit, voluntary waiver... I would have stayed even longer...") -- she needs to do what Matt Cooper did and immediately publish a full and truthful account of her involvement in Plamegate. And the New York Times must publish it on Page One. Without fear or favor. All the news that's fit to print.
No ifs, ands, buts. And no more grandstanding statements from Arthur Sulzberger and Bill Keller.
In fact, here is my suggestion: Keller is so up to his eyeballs in legal strategy and protecting the reputation of his newspaper, he should recuse himself from overseeing the Times' coverage of this story and turn it over to Jill Abramson, the managing editor, or Suzanne Daley, the national editor. Of course, they could continue to screw things up if they kept looking over their shoulder to see if the boss approves. But at least there is a chance that the paper will stop spinning and start telling it straight -- stop protecting itself and start reporting on itself.
The New York Times needs to make believe they're not writing about themselves. And Sulzberger, Keller, and company need to remember what politicians are regularly told: The spin always catches up with you. Always.
Send to a friendPost a CommentRead all posts by Arianna Huffington
Wavering on Waivers
I bet Judy Miller and her supporters at the Times wish they’d never discussed waivers in public before. But unfortunately for them they have. And just about everything they’ve said contradicts what they are saying today.
Here is Bill Safire, an unabashed Miller supporter, testifying in front of a Senate hearing on a federal shield law for reporters, on the subject of waivers:
I don't have to pussyfoot about this, because it's a matter of principle. I think waivers of confidentiality are a sham, a snare and a delusion. When you put somebody's head to a gun or a gun to a head and say, "Would you sign this waiver of confidentiality so we can force a reporter to talk about what you said?" you are coercing him in the most forceful way. You are saying, "You'll lose your job or you'll become a target of grand jury investigation unless you sign this waiver."
I think, from the reporter's point of view, from the journalist's point of view, when presented with a waiver, even with my name on it, saying, "OK, Safire, you can tell them what I said," my reaction should be, "You tell them what you said. Get up and say, 'I met with this man and I told him this.'" I then can say, "Yes, that's true," or, "Nope, he's got that one wrong."
But the notion of putting the onus on the reporter, that he must reveal what happened because a source has been coerced, forced into asking him to talk, I think is a perversion of justice.
So what is Mr. Safire thinking now that Judy has gone along with the sham, the snare and the delusion? Can somebody ask him please?
Next up is Arthur Sulzberger, talking to Matt Lauer on the Today show on October 8, 2004:
At the heart of this… we believe that waiver was coercive. They were told ‘Sign it or lose your job.’ To me, and to Judy and, I think, to most of us, that’s not legitimate.
Judy was on that same Today show and rode in on her high horse to join her boss in dismissing waivers of confidentiality. Here’s what she told Lauer:
I think the waiver presents a real problem to us. I mean, supposing your boss says, `You know, Matt, as--as a condition of working here, you will never be able to have a private conversation with a journalist. And if you want to work here, or you don't want to lose your job, you have to sign that agreement.' I mean, I think that that would make our job, as journalists, very, very difficult.
They all seem awfully concerned about the coercive nature of waivers. So what happened to make it less of a concern? If they were so worried that Libby had signed waivers to save his job, what led them to believe that the “personal, explicit, voluntary waiver” he gave over the phone was done for any other reason? After all, according to Safire, Sulzberger, and Miller, the question isn’t whether the waiver is “voluntary”. It’s who is compelling the source to give the “voluntary” waiver?
If the gun was at Libby’s head when he signed the original waiver over a year ago, why were Miller and the Times so willing to accept that the gun was no longer loaded? He still wants to keep his job, doesn’t he?
Proclamations of principle are like unwanted pets. Even after you dump them on the side of the road, they have a way of finding their way back home and biting you on the butt.
I bet Judy Miller and her supporters at the Times wish they’d never discussed waivers in public before. But unfortunately for them they have. And just about everything they’ve said contradicts what they are saying today.
Here is Bill Safire, an unabashed Miller supporter, testifying in front of a Senate hearing on a federal shield law for reporters, on the subject of waivers:
I don't have to pussyfoot about this, because it's a matter of principle. I think waivers of confidentiality are a sham, a snare and a delusion. When you put somebody's head to a gun or a gun to a head and say, "Would you sign this waiver of confidentiality so we can force a reporter to talk about what you said?" you are coercing him in the most forceful way. You are saying, "You'll lose your job or you'll become a target of grand jury investigation unless you sign this waiver."
I think, from the reporter's point of view, from the journalist's point of view, when presented with a waiver, even with my name on it, saying, "OK, Safire, you can tell them what I said," my reaction should be, "You tell them what you said. Get up and say, 'I met with this man and I told him this.'" I then can say, "Yes, that's true," or, "Nope, he's got that one wrong."
But the notion of putting the onus on the reporter, that he must reveal what happened because a source has been coerced, forced into asking him to talk, I think is a perversion of justice.
So what is Mr. Safire thinking now that Judy has gone along with the sham, the snare and the delusion? Can somebody ask him please?
Next up is Arthur Sulzberger, talking to Matt Lauer on the Today show on October 8, 2004:
At the heart of this… we believe that waiver was coercive. They were told ‘Sign it or lose your job.’ To me, and to Judy and, I think, to most of us, that’s not legitimate.
Judy was on that same Today show and rode in on her high horse to join her boss in dismissing waivers of confidentiality. Here’s what she told Lauer:
I think the waiver presents a real problem to us. I mean, supposing your boss says, `You know, Matt, as--as a condition of working here, you will never be able to have a private conversation with a journalist. And if you want to work here, or you don't want to lose your job, you have to sign that agreement.' I mean, I think that that would make our job, as journalists, very, very difficult.
They all seem awfully concerned about the coercive nature of waivers. So what happened to make it less of a concern? If they were so worried that Libby had signed waivers to save his job, what led them to believe that the “personal, explicit, voluntary waiver” he gave over the phone was done for any other reason? After all, according to Safire, Sulzberger, and Miller, the question isn’t whether the waiver is “voluntary”. It’s who is compelling the source to give the “voluntary” waiver?
If the gun was at Libby’s head when he signed the original waiver over a year ago, why were Miller and the Times so willing to accept that the gun was no longer loaded? He still wants to keep his job, doesn’t he?
Proclamations of principle are like unwanted pets. Even after you dump them on the side of the road, they have a way of finding their way back home and biting you on the butt.
Miller Spins The Press After Testifying...
CNN | Posted September 30, 2005 07:26 PM
JUDITH MILLER, "NEW YORK TIMES": I'm happy to be free and finally able to talk to all of you.
Recently I heard directly from my source that I should testify before the grand jury. This was in the form of a personal letter and most important, a telephone conversation, a telephone call to me at the jail. I concluded from this that my source genuinely wanted me to testify.
These were not form waivers. They were not discussions among lawyers. They were given after the special council assured us that such communication would not be regarded as obstruction of justice.
Once I got a personal voluntary waiver, my lawyer, Mr. Bennett, approached the special counsel to see if my grand jury testimony could be limited to the communications with the source from whom I had received that personal and voluntary waiver. The special counsel agreed to this, and that was very important to me.
I served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources. Believe me, I did not want to be in jail. But I would have stayed even longer if I had not achieved these two things: the personal waiver and the narrow testify -- and the narrow testimony. I could not have testified without both of them.
I said to the court before I was jailed that I did not believe I was above the law. And that I would therefore have to go to jail because of my principals. But once I satisfied those principals, I was prepared to testify.
I am hopeful that my very long stay in jail will serve to strengthen the bond between reporters and their sources. I hope that blanket waivers are a thing of the past. They do not count. They are not voluntary, and they should not be accepted by journalists. I am also hopeful that my time in jail will help pass a federal shield law so that the public's right to know can be protected.
And finally, I want to thank everyone, particularly Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and "The New York Times," my family, my husband, my friends, my colleagues, the citizens of this country who wrote to me and from all over the world who said they understood the position of principle that I was taking and supported me. They've supported me through a very difficult time. I will take a few questions. But bear with me, I am really tired. I have a meal that I want my husband to prepare, a dog I want to hug, and I'd like to go home to Sag Harbor. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you describe your role in this case since you didn't file a story but did go to jail? How would you characterize your role in this whole investigation?
MILLER: I was a journalist doing my job. Protecting my source until my source freed me to perform my civic duty to testify.
FRANKEN: Question, Scooter Libby's lawyer, your source's lawyer, I suspect you're not going to tell us if that's correct.
MILLER: I am not going to tell you if that's correct.
FRANKEN: Scooter's lawyer has said that, had you asked, you wouldn't have had to spend any time in jail. He would have been more than willing to give you the explicit waiver you say you now accepted.
MILLER: I was not a party to those discussions. I'm going to let you refer those questions to my lawyer. I can only tell you that as soon as I received a personal assurance from the source that I was able to talk to him and talk to the source about my testimony, it was only then and as a result of the special prosecutors' agreement to narrow the focus of the inquiry, to focus on that source, that I was able to testify.
I testified as soon as I could. And I will ask you to please address the questions to which I was not a party to my lawyers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But Judy, a conversation you were a party to, on the steps of this courthouse, when you and Matt faced contemptive court charges, you said out here when Matt was asked the same question, your answer was different. You said no waiver would be acceptable.
MILLER: No, I said I had not received a personal explicit voluntary waiver from my source, what I considered that. That was my position, and I said it many times. I said it before I went to jail. I said it when I was in jail.
FRANKEN: What about -- what about the perception that you spent 85 days dancing on the head of a pin?
MILLER: I will let people draw their own conclusions. I know what my conscience would allow. And I was -- I stood fast to that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Journalist principles involved. What is this really all about? Why was your testimony so important to Mr. Fitzgerald?
MILLER: You'll have to ask Mr. Fitzgerald why it's important.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, I think we're done here, folks. Thanks -- thank you very much. MILLER: Thank you very much. Thank you.
CNN | Posted September 30, 2005 07:26 PM
JUDITH MILLER, "NEW YORK TIMES": I'm happy to be free and finally able to talk to all of you.
Recently I heard directly from my source that I should testify before the grand jury. This was in the form of a personal letter and most important, a telephone conversation, a telephone call to me at the jail. I concluded from this that my source genuinely wanted me to testify.
These were not form waivers. They were not discussions among lawyers. They were given after the special council assured us that such communication would not be regarded as obstruction of justice.
Once I got a personal voluntary waiver, my lawyer, Mr. Bennett, approached the special counsel to see if my grand jury testimony could be limited to the communications with the source from whom I had received that personal and voluntary waiver. The special counsel agreed to this, and that was very important to me.
I served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources. Believe me, I did not want to be in jail. But I would have stayed even longer if I had not achieved these two things: the personal waiver and the narrow testify -- and the narrow testimony. I could not have testified without both of them.
I said to the court before I was jailed that I did not believe I was above the law. And that I would therefore have to go to jail because of my principals. But once I satisfied those principals, I was prepared to testify.
I am hopeful that my very long stay in jail will serve to strengthen the bond between reporters and their sources. I hope that blanket waivers are a thing of the past. They do not count. They are not voluntary, and they should not be accepted by journalists. I am also hopeful that my time in jail will help pass a federal shield law so that the public's right to know can be protected.
And finally, I want to thank everyone, particularly Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and "The New York Times," my family, my husband, my friends, my colleagues, the citizens of this country who wrote to me and from all over the world who said they understood the position of principle that I was taking and supported me. They've supported me through a very difficult time. I will take a few questions. But bear with me, I am really tired. I have a meal that I want my husband to prepare, a dog I want to hug, and I'd like to go home to Sag Harbor. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you describe your role in this case since you didn't file a story but did go to jail? How would you characterize your role in this whole investigation?
MILLER: I was a journalist doing my job. Protecting my source until my source freed me to perform my civic duty to testify.
FRANKEN: Question, Scooter Libby's lawyer, your source's lawyer, I suspect you're not going to tell us if that's correct.
MILLER: I am not going to tell you if that's correct.
FRANKEN: Scooter's lawyer has said that, had you asked, you wouldn't have had to spend any time in jail. He would have been more than willing to give you the explicit waiver you say you now accepted.
MILLER: I was not a party to those discussions. I'm going to let you refer those questions to my lawyer. I can only tell you that as soon as I received a personal assurance from the source that I was able to talk to him and talk to the source about my testimony, it was only then and as a result of the special prosecutors' agreement to narrow the focus of the inquiry, to focus on that source, that I was able to testify.
I testified as soon as I could. And I will ask you to please address the questions to which I was not a party to my lawyers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But Judy, a conversation you were a party to, on the steps of this courthouse, when you and Matt faced contemptive court charges, you said out here when Matt was asked the same question, your answer was different. You said no waiver would be acceptable.
MILLER: No, I said I had not received a personal explicit voluntary waiver from my source, what I considered that. That was my position, and I said it many times. I said it before I went to jail. I said it when I was in jail.
FRANKEN: What about -- what about the perception that you spent 85 days dancing on the head of a pin?
MILLER: I will let people draw their own conclusions. I know what my conscience would allow. And I was -- I stood fast to that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Journalist principles involved. What is this really all about? Why was your testimony so important to Mr. Fitzgerald?
MILLER: You'll have to ask Mr. Fitzgerald why it's important.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, I think we're done here, folks. Thanks -- thank you very much. MILLER: Thank you very much. Thank you.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/10/01/judy/index.html
What's the story with Judy?
The New York Times has a lot of explaining to do about Judith Miller, now that she's been released from jail. So what's the hang-up?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Farhad Manjoo
Oct. 1, 2005 | When New York Times reporter Judith Miller was suddenly released from jail late on Thursday afternoon, it was the Philadelphia Inquirer, whose intrepid court reporter John Shiffman had received a tip-off, that broke the news on its Web site. According to an account in Editor and Publisher, editors at the Inquirer then began checking the Times' Web site for the paper's own story of its star reporter's release -- but it took hours for the Times to catch up and say what had happened in a case that critics say the Paper of Record should have been all over.
The Times' nighttime silence on the story served as a good indicator of the paper's general mood on the Miller case Friday. Management at the paper is saying nothing -- even, to judge from the paper's coverage of itself, to the reporters who work there. The Times has clammed up. Indeed, the day's most thorough account of what happened with Miller -- of why, after holding herself up as a martyr to press freedoms for months she suddenly decided to testify about her sources -- can be found in the Washington Post; as David Corn writes, the Times' account, which covers basically the same ground as the Post, is so convoluted it makes your head hurt.
Doesn't the New York Times owe its readers more than that? At this moment, the main story of Miller's release from jail is that we don't know the story -- every published account sparks more questions than answers. Yet there is one obvious way for one of the main players involved to clear some of the air: The Times could publish an editor's note or some other account documenting all it knows, and all it doesn't know, about the Plame case and its reporter's involvement in the matter, in much the same way Time magazine did after its reporter, Matthew Cooper, testified to the grand jury.
"Their audience would appreciate it if the paper was in position to say what its position was and why it took the position it did at the time," says Thomas Kunkel, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. "In general readers appreciate when there's a controversial story if a paper tries to explain itself."
And all across the Web Friday -- from Salon's War Room to Dan Froomkin to Arianna Huffington -- commentators asked Times to explain itself. The questions generally boil down to this: If Miller has decided to recognize the validity of a waiver she received during a phone call last week with Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, why didn't she recognize a similar waiver Libby's lawyer says he offered Miller last year? Was she hiding something then? Is she hiding something now? What is the real story here -- for Miller, for the Times, and for the inquiry into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity?
As Huffington put it: Miller should "publish a full and truthful account of her involvement in Plamegate. And the New York Times must publish it on Page One. Without fear or favor. All the news that's fit to print. No ifs, ands, buts. And no more grandstanding statements from Arthur Sulzberger and Bill Keller."
Representatives for the Times declined Salon's interview requests, so it was impossible to say whether the paper was considering such a step. When reporters attempted to grill Miller on these details as she left court on Friday, she mostly sidestepped the questions.
If the Times doesn't want to publish an editor's account of what happened, there's another way it could elucidate its readers on the mysterious Miller saga -- by doing what it does best, unleashing a team of reporters to investigate the case. But so far, the Times own reporting on itself, says Jay Rosen, the New York University journalism professor and proprietor of the blog PressThink, has been inadequate, and instead of giving us answers, it "has created a real question mark." Douglas Jehl, the paper's main reporter on the case, seems to be on the right reportorial track, but in several stories he's written on the case it's evident that Jehl's access has been constrained by management at the paper, Rosen points out.
Reporting on your own company -- your own bosses -- is a difficult thing, Kunkel notes. But after the Jayson Blair scandal broke at the paper, the Times did an admirable job of digging it up by handing the investigation to a team of veteran reporters who were given inside access to the paper's operations. The Judy Miller story is certainly different from the Blair story; Miller didn't fabricate articles. But the mysterious circumstances surrounding her jailing and then her release cast a similar cloud over the paper's reputation and would seem to beg for some kind of internal inquiry, if only to satisfy the public's curiosity.
As it stands, though, the Times' actions don't seem leading down that path. Indeed, at the moment, the whole story "doesn't look explicable on its surface," Rosen says.
For instance, in reacting to the news of Miller's release, Rosen says he keeps thinking of a statement that Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, made around the time Miller first went to jail -- Miller was prepared to be incarcerated as an act of "civil disobedience," Keller had said. Civil disobedience, Rosen points out, applies when you know what you're doing is illegal. While Miller may have acknowledged that the law compelled her to reveal her sources, by choosing jail she was saying that she wouldn't respect it. From the start, in other words, Miller and the Times saw this case as a way to make a statement about press freedoms; they took an absolutist view, one that held that any intrusion by the government into the relationship between a reporter and her source should be verboten.
So what's the paper's position now? Has it relented on its absolutist view about press freedoms? Is it more interested in keeping its reporters out of jail or getting to the bottom of the Plame case? "Some critical facts are missing," Rosen says. That's another way of saying we just don't know what in the world folks at the Times could be thinking right now.
What's the story with Judy?
The New York Times has a lot of explaining to do about Judith Miller, now that she's been released from jail. So what's the hang-up?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Farhad Manjoo
Oct. 1, 2005 | When New York Times reporter Judith Miller was suddenly released from jail late on Thursday afternoon, it was the Philadelphia Inquirer, whose intrepid court reporter John Shiffman had received a tip-off, that broke the news on its Web site. According to an account in Editor and Publisher, editors at the Inquirer then began checking the Times' Web site for the paper's own story of its star reporter's release -- but it took hours for the Times to catch up and say what had happened in a case that critics say the Paper of Record should have been all over.
The Times' nighttime silence on the story served as a good indicator of the paper's general mood on the Miller case Friday. Management at the paper is saying nothing -- even, to judge from the paper's coverage of itself, to the reporters who work there. The Times has clammed up. Indeed, the day's most thorough account of what happened with Miller -- of why, after holding herself up as a martyr to press freedoms for months she suddenly decided to testify about her sources -- can be found in the Washington Post; as David Corn writes, the Times' account, which covers basically the same ground as the Post, is so convoluted it makes your head hurt.
Doesn't the New York Times owe its readers more than that? At this moment, the main story of Miller's release from jail is that we don't know the story -- every published account sparks more questions than answers. Yet there is one obvious way for one of the main players involved to clear some of the air: The Times could publish an editor's note or some other account documenting all it knows, and all it doesn't know, about the Plame case and its reporter's involvement in the matter, in much the same way Time magazine did after its reporter, Matthew Cooper, testified to the grand jury.
"Their audience would appreciate it if the paper was in position to say what its position was and why it took the position it did at the time," says Thomas Kunkel, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. "In general readers appreciate when there's a controversial story if a paper tries to explain itself."
And all across the Web Friday -- from Salon's War Room to Dan Froomkin to Arianna Huffington -- commentators asked Times to explain itself. The questions generally boil down to this: If Miller has decided to recognize the validity of a waiver she received during a phone call last week with Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, why didn't she recognize a similar waiver Libby's lawyer says he offered Miller last year? Was she hiding something then? Is she hiding something now? What is the real story here -- for Miller, for the Times, and for the inquiry into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity?
As Huffington put it: Miller should "publish a full and truthful account of her involvement in Plamegate. And the New York Times must publish it on Page One. Without fear or favor. All the news that's fit to print. No ifs, ands, buts. And no more grandstanding statements from Arthur Sulzberger and Bill Keller."
Representatives for the Times declined Salon's interview requests, so it was impossible to say whether the paper was considering such a step. When reporters attempted to grill Miller on these details as she left court on Friday, she mostly sidestepped the questions.
If the Times doesn't want to publish an editor's account of what happened, there's another way it could elucidate its readers on the mysterious Miller saga -- by doing what it does best, unleashing a team of reporters to investigate the case. But so far, the Times own reporting on itself, says Jay Rosen, the New York University journalism professor and proprietor of the blog PressThink, has been inadequate, and instead of giving us answers, it "has created a real question mark." Douglas Jehl, the paper's main reporter on the case, seems to be on the right reportorial track, but in several stories he's written on the case it's evident that Jehl's access has been constrained by management at the paper, Rosen points out.
Reporting on your own company -- your own bosses -- is a difficult thing, Kunkel notes. But after the Jayson Blair scandal broke at the paper, the Times did an admirable job of digging it up by handing the investigation to a team of veteran reporters who were given inside access to the paper's operations. The Judy Miller story is certainly different from the Blair story; Miller didn't fabricate articles. But the mysterious circumstances surrounding her jailing and then her release cast a similar cloud over the paper's reputation and would seem to beg for some kind of internal inquiry, if only to satisfy the public's curiosity.
As it stands, though, the Times' actions don't seem leading down that path. Indeed, at the moment, the whole story "doesn't look explicable on its surface," Rosen says.
For instance, in reacting to the news of Miller's release, Rosen says he keeps thinking of a statement that Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, made around the time Miller first went to jail -- Miller was prepared to be incarcerated as an act of "civil disobedience," Keller had said. Civil disobedience, Rosen points out, applies when you know what you're doing is illegal. While Miller may have acknowledged that the law compelled her to reveal her sources, by choosing jail she was saying that she wouldn't respect it. From the start, in other words, Miller and the Times saw this case as a way to make a statement about press freedoms; they took an absolutist view, one that held that any intrusion by the government into the relationship between a reporter and her source should be verboten.
So what's the paper's position now? Has it relented on its absolutist view about press freedoms? Is it more interested in keeping its reporters out of jail or getting to the bottom of the Plame case? "Some critical facts are missing," Rosen says. That's another way of saying we just don't know what in the world folks at the Times could be thinking right now.
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War Room
Judy Miller meets the press
Judy Miller just finished testifying before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury and walked, beaming, into the plaza in front of Washington's federal courthouse. If she was expecting some kind of hero's welcome from colleagues gathered there, she must have been disappointed. Although Miller took only a few questions from reporters, her exchange with them was tense. It ended rather abruptly when Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., cut off the questions by saying,"OK, I think we're done here, folks."
Miller was asked to confirm that Scooter Libby was the source she'd been protecting. She declined to answer. Didn't Libby's lawyer tell Miller's lawyer a year ago that he was releasing her from her pledge of confidentiality? Miller said to ask her lawyer. Why was her testimony important? Miller said to ask Fitzgerald. Couldn't Miller have testified long ago? Miller said no, insisting that she didn't get a waiver she considered sufficiently personal and voluntary until this month.
If anything substantive came out of Miller's brief appearance before the press, it was this: She emphasized, at least twice, that there had been not one but two prerequisites to her testifying before the grand jury. First, Miller said, she needed a personal and voluntary waiver from the source she was protecting -- a source the New York Times and the Washington Post have both identified as Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Second, Miller said, she needed an assurance from Fitzgerald that her testimony to the grand jury would be limited to her conversations with Libby -- which is to say that it would not require her to give up the identity of any other sources she might be protecting.
Miller said Fitzgerald's agreement to limit her testimony was "very important to me," and that she would have stayed in jail "even longer" if she hadn't gotten both her source's waiver and Fitzgerald's agreement not ask about other sources. "I could not have testified without both of them," she said.
So one question has been answered today: Libby, it seems clear, was the source Miller was protecting. But who is the source she's protecting now? Add that to the list of questions that journalists -- among them, Miller's editors -- might want to start asking now.
War Room
Judy Miller meets the press
Judy Miller just finished testifying before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury and walked, beaming, into the plaza in front of Washington's federal courthouse. If she was expecting some kind of hero's welcome from colleagues gathered there, she must have been disappointed. Although Miller took only a few questions from reporters, her exchange with them was tense. It ended rather abruptly when Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., cut off the questions by saying,"OK, I think we're done here, folks."
Miller was asked to confirm that Scooter Libby was the source she'd been protecting. She declined to answer. Didn't Libby's lawyer tell Miller's lawyer a year ago that he was releasing her from her pledge of confidentiality? Miller said to ask her lawyer. Why was her testimony important? Miller said to ask Fitzgerald. Couldn't Miller have testified long ago? Miller said no, insisting that she didn't get a waiver she considered sufficiently personal and voluntary until this month.
If anything substantive came out of Miller's brief appearance before the press, it was this: She emphasized, at least twice, that there had been not one but two prerequisites to her testifying before the grand jury. First, Miller said, she needed a personal and voluntary waiver from the source she was protecting -- a source the New York Times and the Washington Post have both identified as Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Second, Miller said, she needed an assurance from Fitzgerald that her testimony to the grand jury would be limited to her conversations with Libby -- which is to say that it would not require her to give up the identity of any other sources she might be protecting.
Miller said Fitzgerald's agreement to limit her testimony was "very important to me," and that she would have stayed in jail "even longer" if she hadn't gotten both her source's waiver and Fitzgerald's agreement not ask about other sources. "I could not have testified without both of them," she said.
So one question has been answered today: Libby, it seems clear, was the source Miller was protecting. But who is the source she's protecting now? Add that to the list of questions that journalists -- among them, Miller's editors -- might want to start asking now.
Freed Writer Testifies in CIA Leak Probe
By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei
New York Times reporter Judith Miller told a grand jury yesterday about her conversations with Vice President Cheney's top aide in the summer of 2003, moving the two-year investigation into whether senior Bush administration officials illegally leaked covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity a step closer to its end.
Sources familiar with Miller's testimony say her account of two discussions with Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, that July are similar to the account Libby reportedly gave the grand jury last year. Both said they spoke about Plame's husband, administration critic and former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, on July 8 and again on July 12 or 13. On at least one of those occasions, Libby told Miller that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, the sources said.
Miller also turned over redacted copies of handwritten notes she made after one of the conversations with Libby, a condition set by special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
"I served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources," Miller said after emerging from the courthouse after three hours of testimony. "Believe me, I did not want to be in jail."
Miller was the last person Fitzgerald sought to question in his investigation. The grand jury hearing the case is to conclude its work by Oct. 28. Barring some new development, legal experts predicted, Fitzgerald will soon wrap up his investigation.
Fitzgerald's probe has focused on contacts between administration officials and reporters in the days after July 6, 2003, when Wilson published an opinion piece undercutting the administration's justification for going to war with Iraq. Wilson alleged the government had "twisted intelligence" that he said he knew firsthand was dubious.
On July 14, Plame's name appeared in a column by Robert D. Novak, who reported that two confidential government sources had told him Wilson's wife helped arrange the trip he took to investigate claims that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium in the African nation of Niger for use in its nuclear weapons program.
Miller's testimony, which came after she served 85 days in jail trying to avoid such questions, focused the spotlight again on Libby. He is one of the administration's key policymakers, particularly in the area of foreign policy, and influenced internal administration debates over the decision to invade Iraq, the course of the Middle East peace process and negotiations over nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.
Libby's conversations with reporters that July have consumed much of Fitzgerald's time. The top Cheney aide spoke with at least five reporters in the days after Wilson's public criticism, and several of them, including two at The Washington Post, have answered Fitzgerald's questions after working out agreements with their sources that allowed them to testify.
A sourceclose to Miller said yesterday that her testimony does not implicate Libby as intentionally and knowingly identifying Plame.
According to a source familiar with Libby's account of his July 2003 conversations with Miller, the two first met for breakfast on July 8, when Miller interviewed Libby about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. At that time, she asked him why Wilson had been chosen to investigate questions that Cheney had posed about whether Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger. Libby, the source familiar with his account said, told her that the White House was working with the CIA to learn more about Wilson's trip and how he was selected.
Libby had a second conversation with Miller, a telephone call on July 12 or July 13, the source said. In it, Libby said he had learned that Wilson's wife had a role in sending him on the trip and that she worked for the CIA. Libby never knew Plame's name or that she was a covert operative, the source said.
Miller never wrote an article on the matter.
As she stood on the courthouse steps yesterday, Miller, 57, refused to answer questions about her testimony but said she hoped her days in the Alexandria Detention Center would build support for laws to help reporters protect their confidential sources. She stressed that she was willing to testify only after Libby personally wrote her and telephoned her in jail to make it clear she was free to talk, and after Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questions to her conversations with Libby.
"I am hopeful that my very long stay in jail will serve to strengthen the bond between reporters and their sources."
Miller declined to answer questions on why she chose to accept Libby's waiver of confidentiality now. Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, said he made it clear to Miller's lawyers a year ago that Libby was freely agreeing to allow her to testify about their conversations.
"Bear with me, I'm really tired," Miller said before her attorney Robert S. Bennett urged her to cut off questions from reporters. "I have a meal I want my husband to prepare, a dog I want to hug, and I'd like to go home to Sag Harbor."
Miller was released just before 4 p.m. Thursday after she complied with a judge's order to be interviewed by Fitzgerald and an FBI agent at the jail. Sources said the subject was similar to the questions she was asked before the grand jury. Fitzgerald's purpose was to be sure that Miller did not later contradict herself under oath.
Miller said her first "meal" outside jail was a "one-third of a martini in a gorgeous glass, along with a fruit tray," brought to her by New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.
Miller was ordered to jail by U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan on July 6 after she refused to testify. In court, Hogan told Miller that her source had already relieved her of her confidentiality pledge.
Friends of Miller's said Bennett, who joined her legal team earlier this year, urged giving up an absolutist position on whether to testify. Another lawyer, Floyd Abrams, had previously encouraged Miller's objections to cooperating. Bennett warned that Fitzgerald was a dogged prosecutor who was not likely to give up on Miller, the friends said, and had a good chance of convincing a judge to jail Miller for at least six more months.
But Abrams said in an interview yesterday that Fitzgerald made a recent and important compromise. The prosecutor would narrow his questions to Libby, which he had not been willing to do when Abrams approached him about the idea last year. Sources close to Miller said she had numerous government sources she wanted to protect, but Libby was the only one relevant to the Plame investigation.
In June 2004, Glenn Kessler, a Washington Post reporter, reached a similar agreement with the prosecutor to provide limited testimony that kept the substance of his conversations with Libby confidential, The Post reported at the time.
Fitzgerald declined to comment yesterday as he left the courthouse.
Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper avoided joining Miller in jail when he sought -- and received -- a personal waiver from his source on the story: White House adviser Karl Rove. Rove's attorney has said his client did nothing illegal when he told Cooper that Wilson's wife, without using her name, was in the CIA and authorized the mission to Niger. Rove also discussed the matter with Novak, according to a source familiar with Rove's account.
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By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei
New York Times reporter Judith Miller told a grand jury yesterday about her conversations with Vice President Cheney's top aide in the summer of 2003, moving the two-year investigation into whether senior Bush administration officials illegally leaked covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity a step closer to its end.
Sources familiar with Miller's testimony say her account of two discussions with Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, that July are similar to the account Libby reportedly gave the grand jury last year. Both said they spoke about Plame's husband, administration critic and former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, on July 8 and again on July 12 or 13. On at least one of those occasions, Libby told Miller that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, the sources said.
Miller also turned over redacted copies of handwritten notes she made after one of the conversations with Libby, a condition set by special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
"I served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources," Miller said after emerging from the courthouse after three hours of testimony. "Believe me, I did not want to be in jail."
Miller was the last person Fitzgerald sought to question in his investigation. The grand jury hearing the case is to conclude its work by Oct. 28. Barring some new development, legal experts predicted, Fitzgerald will soon wrap up his investigation.
Fitzgerald's probe has focused on contacts between administration officials and reporters in the days after July 6, 2003, when Wilson published an opinion piece undercutting the administration's justification for going to war with Iraq. Wilson alleged the government had "twisted intelligence" that he said he knew firsthand was dubious.
On July 14, Plame's name appeared in a column by Robert D. Novak, who reported that two confidential government sources had told him Wilson's wife helped arrange the trip he took to investigate claims that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium in the African nation of Niger for use in its nuclear weapons program.
Miller's testimony, which came after she served 85 days in jail trying to avoid such questions, focused the spotlight again on Libby. He is one of the administration's key policymakers, particularly in the area of foreign policy, and influenced internal administration debates over the decision to invade Iraq, the course of the Middle East peace process and negotiations over nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.
Libby's conversations with reporters that July have consumed much of Fitzgerald's time. The top Cheney aide spoke with at least five reporters in the days after Wilson's public criticism, and several of them, including two at The Washington Post, have answered Fitzgerald's questions after working out agreements with their sources that allowed them to testify.
A sourceclose to Miller said yesterday that her testimony does not implicate Libby as intentionally and knowingly identifying Plame.
According to a source familiar with Libby's account of his July 2003 conversations with Miller, the two first met for breakfast on July 8, when Miller interviewed Libby about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. At that time, she asked him why Wilson had been chosen to investigate questions that Cheney had posed about whether Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger. Libby, the source familiar with his account said, told her that the White House was working with the CIA to learn more about Wilson's trip and how he was selected.
Libby had a second conversation with Miller, a telephone call on July 12 or July 13, the source said. In it, Libby said he had learned that Wilson's wife had a role in sending him on the trip and that she worked for the CIA. Libby never knew Plame's name or that she was a covert operative, the source said.
Miller never wrote an article on the matter.
As she stood on the courthouse steps yesterday, Miller, 57, refused to answer questions about her testimony but said she hoped her days in the Alexandria Detention Center would build support for laws to help reporters protect their confidential sources. She stressed that she was willing to testify only after Libby personally wrote her and telephoned her in jail to make it clear she was free to talk, and after Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questions to her conversations with Libby.
"I am hopeful that my very long stay in jail will serve to strengthen the bond between reporters and their sources."
Miller declined to answer questions on why she chose to accept Libby's waiver of confidentiality now. Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, said he made it clear to Miller's lawyers a year ago that Libby was freely agreeing to allow her to testify about their conversations.
"Bear with me, I'm really tired," Miller said before her attorney Robert S. Bennett urged her to cut off questions from reporters. "I have a meal I want my husband to prepare, a dog I want to hug, and I'd like to go home to Sag Harbor."
Miller was released just before 4 p.m. Thursday after she complied with a judge's order to be interviewed by Fitzgerald and an FBI agent at the jail. Sources said the subject was similar to the questions she was asked before the grand jury. Fitzgerald's purpose was to be sure that Miller did not later contradict herself under oath.
Miller said her first "meal" outside jail was a "one-third of a martini in a gorgeous glass, along with a fruit tray," brought to her by New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.
Miller was ordered to jail by U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan on July 6 after she refused to testify. In court, Hogan told Miller that her source had already relieved her of her confidentiality pledge.
Friends of Miller's said Bennett, who joined her legal team earlier this year, urged giving up an absolutist position on whether to testify. Another lawyer, Floyd Abrams, had previously encouraged Miller's objections to cooperating. Bennett warned that Fitzgerald was a dogged prosecutor who was not likely to give up on Miller, the friends said, and had a good chance of convincing a judge to jail Miller for at least six more months.
But Abrams said in an interview yesterday that Fitzgerald made a recent and important compromise. The prosecutor would narrow his questions to Libby, which he had not been willing to do when Abrams approached him about the idea last year. Sources close to Miller said she had numerous government sources she wanted to protect, but Libby was the only one relevant to the Plame investigation.
In June 2004, Glenn Kessler, a Washington Post reporter, reached a similar agreement with the prosecutor to provide limited testimony that kept the substance of his conversations with Libby confidential, The Post reported at the time.
Fitzgerald declined to comment yesterday as he left the courthouse.
Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper avoided joining Miller in jail when he sought -- and received -- a personal waiver from his source on the story: White House adviser Karl Rove. Rove's attorney has said his client did nothing illegal when he told Cooper that Wilson's wife, without using her name, was in the CIA and authorized the mission to Niger. Rove also discussed the matter with Novak, according to a source familiar with Rove's account.
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Prosecutor Quiet After Miller's Testimony
By PETE YOST
WASHINGTON -- It has been two years since a grand jury began looking into the Valerie Plame CIA identity case, a criminal investigation that could close up shop shortly or cause more pain for the Bush White House.
Following Friday's grand jury testimony by New York Times reporter Judith Miller, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald gave no indication of his plans, and his spokesman refused to comment.
"I'm leaving," was all Fitzgerald offered to reporters as the prosecutor left the federal courthouse where he had just won the latest round in his investigation. He had finally persuaded Miller to cooperate after she spent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify.
Miller was the final holdout witness whose testimony Fitzgerald said he needed before concluding the probe into who unlawfully exposed Plame as a covert CIA officer. The grand jury expires Oct. 28.
Before Miller agreed to talk to the grand jury, her source, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, gave assurances that she could reveal the contents of their conversations. For his part, Fitzgerald promised to limit his questioning of Miller to the Libby contacts regarding Plame.
"I know what my conscience would allow and ... I stood fast to that," the reporter said as she emerged from the federal courthouse where she spent more than four hours, most of it behind closed doors testifying.
Miller's path from jail cell to grand jury room took place after a phone call with her source.
Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, says he and his client released Miller to testify more than a year ago. Tate said he was surprised when her attorneys again asked for a release in the last few weeks.
Miller's lawyers said there was "a misunderstanding and Judy wanted to hear it straight from the horse's mouth" that Libby was releasing her to talk to the grand jury about their conversation, Tate said.
If Fitzgerald seeks indictments against anyone, the ensuing prosecution would have as its backdrop one of the Bush administration's biggest political problems _ its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main justification used by the president for going to war.
Plame's husband was former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who went on the attack against the White House on July 6, 2003, suggesting publicly that the Bush administration had twisted intelligence to exaggerate an Iraqi nuclear weapons threat in the run-up to war.
In the days after Wilson started causing problems for the White House, his wife became important to the administration as a way to undermine her husband's credibility. It turned out that she had had a hand in sending him on a trip to Africa that provided Wilson with the ammunition he later used to accuse the White House of hyping intelligence on Iraq.
All of this was underscored Friday with Miller's grand jury appearance. The narrow focus of her testimony was her conversations with Libby about the Wilson-Plame matter. The talks occurred in the crucial week following Wilson's opening salvo against an administration starting to reel from its miscalculations about Iraq.
Miller's own work has become part of that controversy.
Starting in 2002, her stories for the Times on purported weapons of mass destruction in Iraq strengthened the administration's hand in going to war. The failure to find the weapons prompted heavy criticism of Miller and the Times as well as of the administration.
Until a few months ago, the White House maintained that Libby and presidential aide Karl Rove were not involved in leaking Plame's identity. Both now appear to have had a role, based on revelations that began in July with the grand jury testimony of Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
In October 2003, with the criminal investigation of the Plame leak gaining speed, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said of Rove and Libby: "Those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."
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By PETE YOST
WASHINGTON -- It has been two years since a grand jury began looking into the Valerie Plame CIA identity case, a criminal investigation that could close up shop shortly or cause more pain for the Bush White House.
Following Friday's grand jury testimony by New York Times reporter Judith Miller, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald gave no indication of his plans, and his spokesman refused to comment.
"I'm leaving," was all Fitzgerald offered to reporters as the prosecutor left the federal courthouse where he had just won the latest round in his investigation. He had finally persuaded Miller to cooperate after she spent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify.
Miller was the final holdout witness whose testimony Fitzgerald said he needed before concluding the probe into who unlawfully exposed Plame as a covert CIA officer. The grand jury expires Oct. 28.
Before Miller agreed to talk to the grand jury, her source, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, gave assurances that she could reveal the contents of their conversations. For his part, Fitzgerald promised to limit his questioning of Miller to the Libby contacts regarding Plame.
"I know what my conscience would allow and ... I stood fast to that," the reporter said as she emerged from the federal courthouse where she spent more than four hours, most of it behind closed doors testifying.
Miller's path from jail cell to grand jury room took place after a phone call with her source.
Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, says he and his client released Miller to testify more than a year ago. Tate said he was surprised when her attorneys again asked for a release in the last few weeks.
Miller's lawyers said there was "a misunderstanding and Judy wanted to hear it straight from the horse's mouth" that Libby was releasing her to talk to the grand jury about their conversation, Tate said.
If Fitzgerald seeks indictments against anyone, the ensuing prosecution would have as its backdrop one of the Bush administration's biggest political problems _ its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main justification used by the president for going to war.
Plame's husband was former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who went on the attack against the White House on July 6, 2003, suggesting publicly that the Bush administration had twisted intelligence to exaggerate an Iraqi nuclear weapons threat in the run-up to war.
In the days after Wilson started causing problems for the White House, his wife became important to the administration as a way to undermine her husband's credibility. It turned out that she had had a hand in sending him on a trip to Africa that provided Wilson with the ammunition he later used to accuse the White House of hyping intelligence on Iraq.
All of this was underscored Friday with Miller's grand jury appearance. The narrow focus of her testimony was her conversations with Libby about the Wilson-Plame matter. The talks occurred in the crucial week following Wilson's opening salvo against an administration starting to reel from its miscalculations about Iraq.
Miller's own work has become part of that controversy.
Starting in 2002, her stories for the Times on purported weapons of mass destruction in Iraq strengthened the administration's hand in going to war. The failure to find the weapons prompted heavy criticism of Miller and the Times as well as of the administration.
Until a few months ago, the White House maintained that Libby and presidential aide Karl Rove were not involved in leaking Plame's identity. Both now appear to have had a role, based on revelations that began in July with the grand jury testimony of Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
In October 2003, with the criminal investigation of the Plame leak gaining speed, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said of Rove and Libby: "Those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."
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AP New York
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Journalists concerned, puzzled over Miller case
By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press Writer
October 1, 2005, 10:48 AM EDT
NEW YORK -- New York Times reporter Judith Miller's decision to escape jail by testifying about her conversations with a confidential source surprised some of her supporters and left journalists wondering what her choice will mean for press freedoms.
Miller spent 85 days in jail for initially refusing to tell a grand jury whom she spoke with about Valerie Plame, a covert CIA official whose identity was leaked to several reporters in 2003.
But on Thursday she was abruptly released from prison, and a day later gave a grand jury the testimony long sought by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.
The reason for the abrupt change: Miller said that her source, identified by The Times as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, had called her in prison and urged her to break her silence.
"This was the first time where he was saying, do it. I want you to testify," said Miller's attorney, Floyd Abrams.
News of her release from jail was greeted with joy by some of the organizations that had supported her, but also some dismay.
"Miller's release is obviously good news in itself," said the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, "but she recovered her freedom in exchange for naming her source, albeit with the source's agreement, which means that the principle of the confidentiality of sources, one of the pillars of journalism, has been flouted."
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, praised Miller for her conduct in the case, but predicted its outcome would embolden other prosecutors to investigate press leaks, jailing reporters if necessary.
"This is very dangerous territory," she said.
In deciding to testify, Miller followed a path set by Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper, who also was threatened with jail for refusing to say who told him about Plame's identity.
Shortly before he was to report to prison, Cooper said he had received permission to break his silence from his confidential source: presidential adviser Karl Rove.
The idea of confronting a source who was initially promised confidentiality, and subsequently asking for permission to go public, discomfited Myron Farber, a New York Times reporter who was jailed for 40 days in 1978 for refusing to reveal confidential sources.
"I think this whole area of going back to a source is a very sticky one, and I would not be inclined myself to do that," Farber said Friday in a phone interview.
He said such requests might be seen as coercive.
"It may be inoffensive in this case," he said, given Libby's position of power and savvy in dealing with the press. "But smaller people might tremble more when the reporter calls back and says, 'can you release me?'
He quickly added, though, that he had no cause to criticize Miller, whom he said he supported completely.
"I'm in no position, or you, to tell someone who is not a criminal, who has been locked up, 'You stick it out,"' he said.
Bob Steele, a journalism faculty member at the Poynter Institute, said going back to a source to seek a waiver is probably ethical, but should be avoided if possible.
He said reporters should ideally talk to their informants about how they might respond to a future subpoena before confidentiality is granted in the first place.
"Then, going back to the source (if a problem comes up later) doesn't come out of left field," he said.
AP New York
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Journalists concerned, puzzled over Miller case
By DAVID B. CARUSO
Associated Press Writer
October 1, 2005, 10:48 AM EDT
NEW YORK -- New York Times reporter Judith Miller's decision to escape jail by testifying about her conversations with a confidential source surprised some of her supporters and left journalists wondering what her choice will mean for press freedoms.
Miller spent 85 days in jail for initially refusing to tell a grand jury whom she spoke with about Valerie Plame, a covert CIA official whose identity was leaked to several reporters in 2003.
But on Thursday she was abruptly released from prison, and a day later gave a grand jury the testimony long sought by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.
The reason for the abrupt change: Miller said that her source, identified by The Times as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, had called her in prison and urged her to break her silence.
"This was the first time where he was saying, do it. I want you to testify," said Miller's attorney, Floyd Abrams.
News of her release from jail was greeted with joy by some of the organizations that had supported her, but also some dismay.
"Miller's release is obviously good news in itself," said the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, "but she recovered her freedom in exchange for naming her source, albeit with the source's agreement, which means that the principle of the confidentiality of sources, one of the pillars of journalism, has been flouted."
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, praised Miller for her conduct in the case, but predicted its outcome would embolden other prosecutors to investigate press leaks, jailing reporters if necessary.
"This is very dangerous territory," she said.
In deciding to testify, Miller followed a path set by Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper, who also was threatened with jail for refusing to say who told him about Plame's identity.
Shortly before he was to report to prison, Cooper said he had received permission to break his silence from his confidential source: presidential adviser Karl Rove.
The idea of confronting a source who was initially promised confidentiality, and subsequently asking for permission to go public, discomfited Myron Farber, a New York Times reporter who was jailed for 40 days in 1978 for refusing to reveal confidential sources.
"I think this whole area of going back to a source is a very sticky one, and I would not be inclined myself to do that," Farber said Friday in a phone interview.
He said such requests might be seen as coercive.
"It may be inoffensive in this case," he said, given Libby's position of power and savvy in dealing with the press. "But smaller people might tremble more when the reporter calls back and says, 'can you release me?'
He quickly added, though, that he had no cause to criticize Miller, whom he said he supported completely.
"I'm in no position, or you, to tell someone who is not a criminal, who has been locked up, 'You stick it out,"' he said.
Bob Steele, a journalism faculty member at the Poynter Institute, said going back to a source to seek a waiver is probably ethical, but should be avoided if possible.
He said reporters should ideally talk to their informants about how they might respond to a future subpoena before confidentiality is granted in the first place.
"Then, going back to the source (if a problem comes up later) doesn't come out of left field," he said.
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MILLER'S NO MARTYR Sat Oct 1, 6:00 AM ET
After 85 days in jail for refusing to identify a source before a grand jury and to turn over her notes to a federal prosecutor investigating the Valerie Plame case, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was set free — and did exactly that on Friday.
There were conditions, of course: Her source, identified as Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, personally assured her she was no longer bound by their agreement of confidentiality.
Moreover, the notes she handed over were "edited." And the prosecutor agreed to limit the scope of his questioning.
But the end of this affair raises more questions than it answers.
Was all the hoopla really necessary?
The case involved an investigation into the publication, by columnist Robert Novak, of Plame's name.
She's the former CIA employee married to ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson — who publicly blasted the Bush administration, claiming his trip to Africa had disproven the White House claim that Saddam Hussein tried to buy nuclear raw materials in Africa.
Administration sources questioned Wilson's veracity, suggesting that his wife may have played a role in getting him assigned by the CIA to undertake the Africa mission. Disclosing the name of a covert operative is a federal crime.
Libby's lawyer insists he gave Miller's attorneys a waiver of confidentiality more than a year ago, and repeatedly assured them — and her — that it was voluntarily made.
Yet not until Libby and Miller spoke on the phone recently did Miller accept his assurances that it wasn't coerced.
Why didn't that happen months ago — or at least before Miller was ordered imprisoned for contempt of court? By the Times' accounts, things didn't start moving until mid-August, when Miller's lawyer called Libby's and asked for an explicit waiver of confidentiality.
Indeed, Matthew Cooper, of Time magazine, did just that — and got one. Which is why he testified last July, while Miller was setting herself up as a martyr to journalistic integrity.
Nor does this end-run answer the lingering question: Who leaked Plame's name? According to published reports, Libby told Miller that he thought Wilson's wife had arranged his trip, but he didn't know her name or where in the CIA she worked.
As for Karl Rove, President Bush's political adviser, both Cooper and Novak reportedly approached him and asked about Plame — not the other way around.
In other words, the whole notion of the White House reaching out to reporters in an effort to discredit Wilson by going after his wife has completely vaporized.
We've made clear our belief that journalists should not enjoy a unique right of absolute confidentiality — one denied to doctors, lawyers and clergy — and especially so in a criminal investigation.
In this particular case, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene; yet The Nw York Times decided it was above the law.
In the end, we're not sure what the paper gained besides the support of the Bush-bashers. It's hard to see how journalism has scored any kind of victory — moral or otherwise.
MILLER'S NO MARTYR Sat Oct 1, 6:00 AM ET
After 85 days in jail for refusing to identify a source before a grand jury and to turn over her notes to a federal prosecutor investigating the Valerie Plame case, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was set free — and did exactly that on Friday.
There were conditions, of course: Her source, identified as Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, personally assured her she was no longer bound by their agreement of confidentiality.
Moreover, the notes she handed over were "edited." And the prosecutor agreed to limit the scope of his questioning.
But the end of this affair raises more questions than it answers.
Was all the hoopla really necessary?
The case involved an investigation into the publication, by columnist Robert Novak, of Plame's name.
She's the former CIA employee married to ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson — who publicly blasted the Bush administration, claiming his trip to Africa had disproven the White House claim that Saddam Hussein tried to buy nuclear raw materials in Africa.
Administration sources questioned Wilson's veracity, suggesting that his wife may have played a role in getting him assigned by the CIA to undertake the Africa mission. Disclosing the name of a covert operative is a federal crime.
Libby's lawyer insists he gave Miller's attorneys a waiver of confidentiality more than a year ago, and repeatedly assured them — and her — that it was voluntarily made.
Yet not until Libby and Miller spoke on the phone recently did Miller accept his assurances that it wasn't coerced.
Why didn't that happen months ago — or at least before Miller was ordered imprisoned for contempt of court? By the Times' accounts, things didn't start moving until mid-August, when Miller's lawyer called Libby's and asked for an explicit waiver of confidentiality.
Indeed, Matthew Cooper, of Time magazine, did just that — and got one. Which is why he testified last July, while Miller was setting herself up as a martyr to journalistic integrity.
Nor does this end-run answer the lingering question: Who leaked Plame's name? According to published reports, Libby told Miller that he thought Wilson's wife had arranged his trip, but he didn't know her name or where in the CIA she worked.
As for Karl Rove, President Bush's political adviser, both Cooper and Novak reportedly approached him and asked about Plame — not the other way around.
In other words, the whole notion of the White House reaching out to reporters in an effort to discredit Wilson by going after his wife has completely vaporized.
We've made clear our belief that journalists should not enjoy a unique right of absolute confidentiality — one denied to doctors, lawyers and clergy — and especially so in a criminal investigation.
In this particular case, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene; yet The Nw York Times decided it was above the law.
In the end, we're not sure what the paper gained besides the support of the Bush-bashers. It's hard to see how journalism has scored any kind of victory — moral or otherwise.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1128087...e_whats_news_us
Miller Testifies in Leak Inquiry
After Receiving Waiver From Source
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO, JOE HAGAN and LAURIE P. COHEN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 1, 2005; Page A2
After spending 85 days in jail, New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified before a grand jury investigating the exposure of a covert agent.
But her reasons for waiting so long to do so remained murky, especially since lawyers said she may have had earlier chances to obtain a waiver from her source. Her appearance also raised questions about the course of the two-year inquiry into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an undercover officer of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Ms. Miller previously had refused to testify in the matter. She relented only after getting a personal call from I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, waiving her journalist's obligation to protect his identity as a source, said Mr. Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate.
Her decision sparked debate about whether the government or the media won the standoff. Some experts said her actions will convince judges that her long imprisonment helped the government gather the evidence it needed without hurting Ms. Miller unduly.
"Had she been in jail longer, had there been exposure about awful jail conditions or if something had happened to her in jail that was awful, then you might have had a change in atmosphere and federal judges less hostile to the media," said First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus.
"Given the anti-media feeling that exists in the country," he added, "people will now feel that the result that should have been obtained was obtained."
Speaking outside the courthouse after nearly three hours of testimony, Ms. Miller said she had acted in accord with her principles. "I know what my conscience would allow and...I stood fast to that," she said. (See full text of remarks.)
Ms. Miller said nothing about the substance of her testimony, and didn't identify her source directly. She said she appeared only after the source called her directly at the federal Alexandria Detention Center in northern Virginia to waive confidentiality, and after she reached an agreement with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to limit her testimony to questions about that single source.
Ms. Miller said her source "genuinely wanted me to testify." But she declined to discuss why she hadn't obtained a personal waiver earlier. Mr. Libby previously had granted a similar waiver to Time reporter Matthew Cooper, who also had been subpoenaed in the case and testified in August 2004 about Mr. Libby and again in July about White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. (See bios of key players in the leak case.)
"I testified as soon as I thought I could," Ms. Miller said.
Ms. Miller's testimony may help push the two-year leak inquiry toward a close. But her appearance did little to clarify who is being targeted in the investigation -- or what roles may have been played by Mr. Libby or Mr. Rove.
Both men have appeared before the grand jury, fueling media speculation that Mr. Fitzgerald is exploring whether either or both was the source of the leaked name. Mr. Fitzgerald has been tight-lipped about his inquiry.
Mr. Tate previously has said that Mr. Libby hasn't been told he is a target of the investigation. Mr. Libby testified to the grand jury about his conversation with Ms. Miller, and hasn't heard from prosecutors in over a year, said Mr. Tate.
Similarly, an attorney for Mr. Rove, Robert Luskin, has said his client, who has testified three times before the grand jury but not in the past year, has not been told he is a target of the investigation.
"Karl has cooperated fully with the investigation and welcomes the fact that it is likely the special counsel will have access to all relevant information," Mr. Luskin said.
A political motive is suspected in the leak, since Ms. Plame's name surfaced shortly after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said he had investigated, and discounted, administration claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy material to make a nuclear bomb from Africa. Her name first appeared in a column by Robert Novak in the Chicago Sun-Times, and later in an article written by Mr. Cooper, but not in any written by Ms. Miller.
Early in the investigation, in January 2004, Mr. Libby had signed a general waiver of confidentiality at the request of prosecutors. Technically, such a waiver could have released Ms. Miller from a pledge of confidentiality.
But Ms. Miller had said she doesn't consider such general waivers acceptable because they might be coerced by prosecutors.
Even so, Richard Sauber, a Washington lawyer who represented Time's Mr. Cooper, said his client had "obtained what was clearly a voluntary and complete waiver from Lewis Libby in 2004." He added: "I presume Judy could have had it then."
She did not, for reasons that aren't fully clear. Asked about the difference between the waivers obtained by Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller, Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer who has represented both, said, "Each journalist has his or her own relationship with the source and each has his or her own view of what's needed...to allow them to go ahead."
Mr. Abrams said he did have conversations with Mr. Libby's lawyer a year ago about whether Ms. Miller could testify with Mr. Libby's permission, but Ms. Miller sought a voluntary waiver and hoped Mr. Libby would call of his own volition and release her from any agreement and allow her to testify.
The situation began to change around Labor Day, according to an account by Mr. Tate. He said he was called by Robert Bennett, the attorney now representing Ms. Miller, asking whether Mr. Libby's blanket waiver had been entirely voluntary. Assured that it had been, Mr. Bennett conveyed the message to Ms. Miller. He soon called back to say she wanted to hear it directly from Mr. Libby and suggested a telephone conference call.
At Mr. Bennett's request, Mr. Fitzgerald agreed that he wouldn't consider it obstruction of justice if Ms. Miller and Mr. Libby talked on the phone. On the call, Ms. Miller told Mr. Libby, "I wanted you to tell me personally" that the waiver had been voluntary.
Mr. Abrams said statements by Mr. Fitzgerald indicated he was willing to extend the grand jury, which is set to expire on Oct. 28, and possibly pursue criminal-contempt charges if Ms. Miller continued to decline to testify.
But Mr. Abrams also said that possibility did not play into the decision by Mr. Bennett to contact Mr. Libby's camp. "I don't believe that that was a precipitating factor in the decision to contact him," he said, "and I know it was not a factor in Judy's decision to testify."
POLITICS AND POLICY
Biographies of Key Figures
In CIA Leak Investigation
September 30, 2005 3:53 p.m.
The following are brief biographical sketches of some of the key figures in the CIA leak case, looking into the disclosure of operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois by President Bush in 2001, and the Justice Department named him special prosecutor for the Plame case in December 2003. Mr. Fitzgerald has insisted that the reporters have no right to unconditionally protect their sources. Mr. Fitzgerald has prosecuted several notable cases during his career, including U.S. v. Osama Bin Laden for the attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and U.S. v. Omar Abdel Rahman involving the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was appointed in August 1982 by President Ronald Reagan. He held reporters Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper in contempt in October 2004 for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Judith Miller conducted reporting on the Plame story for the New York Times but never published an article. Despite Time magazine's decision to turn over Mr. Cooper's notes to the special prosecutor, Ms. Miller refused to divulge her source. Ms. Miller is also well-known for her reporting on the lead-up to the Iraq war. She has worked at the Times since 1977. She was sent to jail on July 6, and has been confined to the Alexandria Detention Center in Alexandria, Va. She was expected to remain there until either she agreed to testify to the grand jury, or was released when the grand jury dissolves as scheduled in October. On Sept. 30, 2005, she agreed to testify after hearing "directly from my source" by telephone and in a letter that she should cooperate with the Fitzgerald investigation. On Sept. 31, she testified. (See full Miller timeline.)
Matthew Cooper, Time magazine's White House correspondent, wrote a piece for Time's online edition in July 2003 that attempted to put Mr. Novak's original column about Valerie Plame in context and that quoted unnamed government officials. He agreed to testify before a grand jury, avoiding being jailed for contempt, after receiving what he said was last-minute permission from a source to reveal the source's identity. That source has been identified as White House aide Karl Rove. After he testified before the grand jury, Mr. Cooper wrote an article for Time in mid-July describing his testimony. In the article, he wrote: "So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes."
Robert Novak is a conservative columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and a contributor to CNN. A column he wrote in July 2003 revealed the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame days after her husband, Joseph Wilson, publicly impugned President Bush's justification for invading Iraq. Novak's publication of Plame's name sparked the special prosecutor's investigation. Mr. Novak hasn't said if he has cooperated with the grand jury investigation but held that he will "reveal all" after the matter is resolved. He also said that it is wrong for the government to jail journalists.
Joseph Wilson is the husband of Valerie Plame. He specializes in African affairs and was the acting ambassador to Iraq at the time of the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s and worked at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. Under the administration of President George H. W. Bush, he was an ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome. In July 2003, he wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times that said he was sent to Niger in 2002 to determine if Iraq had been seeking to purchase uranium ore, a key claim made by President Bush in the 2003 State of the Union address. He concluded there was no credible evidence for this claim. Mr. Novak revealed Ms. Plame's identity in a column several days later.
Valerie Plame worked as a CIA operative for nearly 20 years. An expert in weapons of mass destruction, she was a member of the CIA's clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues. Before her cover was blown, Ms. Plame claimed to be an energy analyst. The CIA hasn't released much information on her career history but it is known that she traveled overseas on covert assignments and worked on weapons-of-mass destruction and terror-related cases. She remains employed by the CIA.
Karl Rove is the White House deputy chief of staff, a position he has held since February. A lifelong political aide, he was the chief architect of President Bush's election victories. He has been identified as a key confidential source used by Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper for his July 2003 article on the Plame-Wilson case. Mr. Rove hasn't denied speaking to Mr. Cooper but has said all along that he never named Ms. Plame. It now appears that while Mr. Rove identified Mr. Wilson's wife as a CIA agent, he never actually gave her name.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby is Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. In fall 2004, Matthew Cooper gave limited testimony about a conversation he had with Mr. Libby after Mr. Libby released him from a promise of confidentiality. Mr. Cooper said in July that Mr. Libby was, along with Karl Rove, among the sources for his story about the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. The New York Times reported that Mr. Libby was also Ms. Miller's source. During the administration of President George H. W. Bush, Mr. Libby worked in the Defense Department. Before joining Mr. Cheney's staff, Mr. Libby worked as a managing partner in the Washington office of the law firm Dechert, Price & Rhoads.
Norman Pearlstine, the editor in chief of Time Inc., the publishing unit of Time Warner, agreed to turn over all of Time's records, notes and email traffic over the company's system concerning the Plame case. He said that while he didn't agree with the court's ruling, the magazine had to comply because it was not above the law. The decision broke ranks with the New York Times, which has continued to support Miller's decision to not reveal the identity of her source. He has been Time's editor-in-chief since 1995. Prior to joining Time Inc., Mr. Pearlstine worked at The Wall Street Journal as a reporter and editor from 1968 to 1992, except for a two-year period, 1978 to 1980, when he was an executive editor at Forbes magazine.
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of the New York Times since 1992, steadfastly supported reporter Judith Miller's decision to refuse revealing the source from her reporting on the Plame case. He has expressed disappointment in Time magazine's decision to provide the special prosecutor with reporter Matthew Cooper's notes relating to the case. Mr. Sulzberger began working at the New York Times in 1978 as a Washington correspondent before moving to New York in 1981 to work as a metro reporter. Since 1997, Mr. Sulzberger has been chairman of New York Times Co.
--Source: WSJ research, Associated Press
POLITICS AND POLICY
Miller Case Timeline
September 30, 2005 3:37 p.m.
A timeline in the case of Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter jailed for 85 days after refusing to divulge her sources to a prosecutor investigating the Bush administration's role in leaking a CIA officer's identity:
February 2002: Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson is asked by the Bush administration to travel to Niger to check out an intelligence report that Niger sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq in the late 1990s for use in nuclear weapons.
Jan. 28, 2003: In the State of the Union address, President Bush states that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" but does not mention that U.S. agencies had questioned the validity of the British intelligence.
July 6: In a New York Times op-ed piece, Wilson writes that he could not verify that Niger sold uranium yellowcake to Iraq.
July 14: Columnist Robert Novak identifies Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as "a (CIA) operative on weapons of mass destruction." Novak cites "two senior administration officials" as his sources.
July 17: Matthew Cooper writes on Time.com that government officials have told him Wilson's wife is a CIA official monitoring WMD. Another article appears in the magazine's July 21 print issue.
Sept 29-30: The Justice Department informs then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales that it has opened an investigation into possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee. Gonzales informs the president the next day. Bush tells reporters: "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."
Dec. 30: Chicago U.S. attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald is named special counsel to investigate whether a crime was committed.
May 21, 2004: A grand jury subpoenas Cooper and Time Inc., seeking testimony and documents. Time says it will fight subpoena.
Aug 9: U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan's rejects claims that the First Amendment protects Cooper from testifying and finds them in contempt of court. Time magazine appeals the ruling.
Aug 12 and 14: The grand jury subpoenas New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who gathered material for a story but never wrote one. The New York Times says it will fight subpoena.
Aug 24: Cooper agrees to give a deposition after Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, personally releases Cooper from a promise of confidentiality.
Sept 13: According to court documents, the grand jury issues a further subpoena to Cooper seeking additional information relating to the case. Cooper and Time move to quash the subpoena.
Oct 7: Miller held in contempt.
Oct. 13: Cooper and Time held in contempt.
Feb. 15, 2005: Appeals court rules against Miller and Cooper. Both Time magazine and The New York Times appeal to the Supreme Court.
June 27: The Supreme Court refuses to intervene.
July 1: Time magazine agrees to comply with a court order to turn over Cooper's notes, e-mail and other documents. Cooper and Miller continue to refuse to divulge sources.
July 6: U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan sends Miller to jail for refusing to divulge her source. Cooper agrees to name his source after receiving permission from the source to do so.
Sept. 29: After 85 days behind bars, Miller is released from the city jail in Alexandria, Va., after agreeing to testify before a grand jury. She says in a statement that her source has "voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality."
Sept. 30: Miller testifies at the federal courthouse in downtown Washington, ending her silence in the investigation.
Source: Associated Press
Miller Testifies in Leak Inquiry
After Receiving Waiver From Source
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO, JOE HAGAN and LAURIE P. COHEN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
October 1, 2005; Page A2
After spending 85 days in jail, New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified before a grand jury investigating the exposure of a covert agent.
But her reasons for waiting so long to do so remained murky, especially since lawyers said she may have had earlier chances to obtain a waiver from her source. Her appearance also raised questions about the course of the two-year inquiry into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an undercover officer of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Ms. Miller previously had refused to testify in the matter. She relented only after getting a personal call from I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, waiving her journalist's obligation to protect his identity as a source, said Mr. Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate.
Her decision sparked debate about whether the government or the media won the standoff. Some experts said her actions will convince judges that her long imprisonment helped the government gather the evidence it needed without hurting Ms. Miller unduly.
"Had she been in jail longer, had there been exposure about awful jail conditions or if something had happened to her in jail that was awful, then you might have had a change in atmosphere and federal judges less hostile to the media," said First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus.
"Given the anti-media feeling that exists in the country," he added, "people will now feel that the result that should have been obtained was obtained."
Speaking outside the courthouse after nearly three hours of testimony, Ms. Miller said she had acted in accord with her principles. "I know what my conscience would allow and...I stood fast to that," she said. (See full text of remarks.)
Ms. Miller said nothing about the substance of her testimony, and didn't identify her source directly. She said she appeared only after the source called her directly at the federal Alexandria Detention Center in northern Virginia to waive confidentiality, and after she reached an agreement with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to limit her testimony to questions about that single source.
Ms. Miller said her source "genuinely wanted me to testify." But she declined to discuss why she hadn't obtained a personal waiver earlier. Mr. Libby previously had granted a similar waiver to Time reporter Matthew Cooper, who also had been subpoenaed in the case and testified in August 2004 about Mr. Libby and again in July about White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. (See bios of key players in the leak case.)
"I testified as soon as I thought I could," Ms. Miller said.
Ms. Miller's testimony may help push the two-year leak inquiry toward a close. But her appearance did little to clarify who is being targeted in the investigation -- or what roles may have been played by Mr. Libby or Mr. Rove.
Both men have appeared before the grand jury, fueling media speculation that Mr. Fitzgerald is exploring whether either or both was the source of the leaked name. Mr. Fitzgerald has been tight-lipped about his inquiry.
Mr. Tate previously has said that Mr. Libby hasn't been told he is a target of the investigation. Mr. Libby testified to the grand jury about his conversation with Ms. Miller, and hasn't heard from prosecutors in over a year, said Mr. Tate.
Similarly, an attorney for Mr. Rove, Robert Luskin, has said his client, who has testified three times before the grand jury but not in the past year, has not been told he is a target of the investigation.
"Karl has cooperated fully with the investigation and welcomes the fact that it is likely the special counsel will have access to all relevant information," Mr. Luskin said.
A political motive is suspected in the leak, since Ms. Plame's name surfaced shortly after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said he had investigated, and discounted, administration claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy material to make a nuclear bomb from Africa. Her name first appeared in a column by Robert Novak in the Chicago Sun-Times, and later in an article written by Mr. Cooper, but not in any written by Ms. Miller.
Early in the investigation, in January 2004, Mr. Libby had signed a general waiver of confidentiality at the request of prosecutors. Technically, such a waiver could have released Ms. Miller from a pledge of confidentiality.
But Ms. Miller had said she doesn't consider such general waivers acceptable because they might be coerced by prosecutors.
Even so, Richard Sauber, a Washington lawyer who represented Time's Mr. Cooper, said his client had "obtained what was clearly a voluntary and complete waiver from Lewis Libby in 2004." He added: "I presume Judy could have had it then."
She did not, for reasons that aren't fully clear. Asked about the difference between the waivers obtained by Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller, Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer who has represented both, said, "Each journalist has his or her own relationship with the source and each has his or her own view of what's needed...to allow them to go ahead."
Mr. Abrams said he did have conversations with Mr. Libby's lawyer a year ago about whether Ms. Miller could testify with Mr. Libby's permission, but Ms. Miller sought a voluntary waiver and hoped Mr. Libby would call of his own volition and release her from any agreement and allow her to testify.
The situation began to change around Labor Day, according to an account by Mr. Tate. He said he was called by Robert Bennett, the attorney now representing Ms. Miller, asking whether Mr. Libby's blanket waiver had been entirely voluntary. Assured that it had been, Mr. Bennett conveyed the message to Ms. Miller. He soon called back to say she wanted to hear it directly from Mr. Libby and suggested a telephone conference call.
At Mr. Bennett's request, Mr. Fitzgerald agreed that he wouldn't consider it obstruction of justice if Ms. Miller and Mr. Libby talked on the phone. On the call, Ms. Miller told Mr. Libby, "I wanted you to tell me personally" that the waiver had been voluntary.
Mr. Abrams said statements by Mr. Fitzgerald indicated he was willing to extend the grand jury, which is set to expire on Oct. 28, and possibly pursue criminal-contempt charges if Ms. Miller continued to decline to testify.
But Mr. Abrams also said that possibility did not play into the decision by Mr. Bennett to contact Mr. Libby's camp. "I don't believe that that was a precipitating factor in the decision to contact him," he said, "and I know it was not a factor in Judy's decision to testify."
POLITICS AND POLICY
Biographies of Key Figures
In CIA Leak Investigation
September 30, 2005 3:53 p.m.
The following are brief biographical sketches of some of the key figures in the CIA leak case, looking into the disclosure of operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois by President Bush in 2001, and the Justice Department named him special prosecutor for the Plame case in December 2003. Mr. Fitzgerald has insisted that the reporters have no right to unconditionally protect their sources. Mr. Fitzgerald has prosecuted several notable cases during his career, including U.S. v. Osama Bin Laden for the attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and U.S. v. Omar Abdel Rahman involving the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was appointed in August 1982 by President Ronald Reagan. He held reporters Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper in contempt in October 2004 for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Judith Miller conducted reporting on the Plame story for the New York Times but never published an article. Despite Time magazine's decision to turn over Mr. Cooper's notes to the special prosecutor, Ms. Miller refused to divulge her source. Ms. Miller is also well-known for her reporting on the lead-up to the Iraq war. She has worked at the Times since 1977. She was sent to jail on July 6, and has been confined to the Alexandria Detention Center in Alexandria, Va. She was expected to remain there until either she agreed to testify to the grand jury, or was released when the grand jury dissolves as scheduled in October. On Sept. 30, 2005, she agreed to testify after hearing "directly from my source" by telephone and in a letter that she should cooperate with the Fitzgerald investigation. On Sept. 31, she testified. (See full Miller timeline.)
Matthew Cooper, Time magazine's White House correspondent, wrote a piece for Time's online edition in July 2003 that attempted to put Mr. Novak's original column about Valerie Plame in context and that quoted unnamed government officials. He agreed to testify before a grand jury, avoiding being jailed for contempt, after receiving what he said was last-minute permission from a source to reveal the source's identity. That source has been identified as White House aide Karl Rove. After he testified before the grand jury, Mr. Cooper wrote an article for Time in mid-July describing his testimony. In the article, he wrote: "So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes."
Robert Novak is a conservative columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and a contributor to CNN. A column he wrote in July 2003 revealed the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame days after her husband, Joseph Wilson, publicly impugned President Bush's justification for invading Iraq. Novak's publication of Plame's name sparked the special prosecutor's investigation. Mr. Novak hasn't said if he has cooperated with the grand jury investigation but held that he will "reveal all" after the matter is resolved. He also said that it is wrong for the government to jail journalists.
Joseph Wilson is the husband of Valerie Plame. He specializes in African affairs and was the acting ambassador to Iraq at the time of the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s and worked at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. Under the administration of President George H. W. Bush, he was an ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome. In July 2003, he wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times that said he was sent to Niger in 2002 to determine if Iraq had been seeking to purchase uranium ore, a key claim made by President Bush in the 2003 State of the Union address. He concluded there was no credible evidence for this claim. Mr. Novak revealed Ms. Plame's identity in a column several days later.
Valerie Plame worked as a CIA operative for nearly 20 years. An expert in weapons of mass destruction, she was a member of the CIA's clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues. Before her cover was blown, Ms. Plame claimed to be an energy analyst. The CIA hasn't released much information on her career history but it is known that she traveled overseas on covert assignments and worked on weapons-of-mass destruction and terror-related cases. She remains employed by the CIA.
Karl Rove is the White House deputy chief of staff, a position he has held since February. A lifelong political aide, he was the chief architect of President Bush's election victories. He has been identified as a key confidential source used by Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper for his July 2003 article on the Plame-Wilson case. Mr. Rove hasn't denied speaking to Mr. Cooper but has said all along that he never named Ms. Plame. It now appears that while Mr. Rove identified Mr. Wilson's wife as a CIA agent, he never actually gave her name.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby is Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. In fall 2004, Matthew Cooper gave limited testimony about a conversation he had with Mr. Libby after Mr. Libby released him from a promise of confidentiality. Mr. Cooper said in July that Mr. Libby was, along with Karl Rove, among the sources for his story about the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. The New York Times reported that Mr. Libby was also Ms. Miller's source. During the administration of President George H. W. Bush, Mr. Libby worked in the Defense Department. Before joining Mr. Cheney's staff, Mr. Libby worked as a managing partner in the Washington office of the law firm Dechert, Price & Rhoads.
Norman Pearlstine, the editor in chief of Time Inc., the publishing unit of Time Warner, agreed to turn over all of Time's records, notes and email traffic over the company's system concerning the Plame case. He said that while he didn't agree with the court's ruling, the magazine had to comply because it was not above the law. The decision broke ranks with the New York Times, which has continued to support Miller's decision to not reveal the identity of her source. He has been Time's editor-in-chief since 1995. Prior to joining Time Inc., Mr. Pearlstine worked at The Wall Street Journal as a reporter and editor from 1968 to 1992, except for a two-year period, 1978 to 1980, when he was an executive editor at Forbes magazine.
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher of the New York Times since 1992, steadfastly supported reporter Judith Miller's decision to refuse revealing the source from her reporting on the Plame case. He has expressed disappointment in Time magazine's decision to provide the special prosecutor with reporter Matthew Cooper's notes relating to the case. Mr. Sulzberger began working at the New York Times in 1978 as a Washington correspondent before moving to New York in 1981 to work as a metro reporter. Since 1997, Mr. Sulzberger has been chairman of New York Times Co.
--Source: WSJ research, Associated Press
POLITICS AND POLICY
Miller Case Timeline
September 30, 2005 3:37 p.m.
A timeline in the case of Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter jailed for 85 days after refusing to divulge her sources to a prosecutor investigating the Bush administration's role in leaking a CIA officer's identity:
February 2002: Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson is asked by the Bush administration to travel to Niger to check out an intelligence report that Niger sold yellowcake uranium to Iraq in the late 1990s for use in nuclear weapons.
Jan. 28, 2003: In the State of the Union address, President Bush states that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" but does not mention that U.S. agencies had questioned the validity of the British intelligence.
July 6: In a New York Times op-ed piece, Wilson writes that he could not verify that Niger sold uranium yellowcake to Iraq.
July 14: Columnist Robert Novak identifies Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as "a (CIA) operative on weapons of mass destruction." Novak cites "two senior administration officials" as his sources.
July 17: Matthew Cooper writes on Time.com that government officials have told him Wilson's wife is a CIA official monitoring WMD. Another article appears in the magazine's July 21 print issue.
Sept 29-30: The Justice Department informs then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales that it has opened an investigation into possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee. Gonzales informs the president the next day. Bush tells reporters: "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."
Dec. 30: Chicago U.S. attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald is named special counsel to investigate whether a crime was committed.
May 21, 2004: A grand jury subpoenas Cooper and Time Inc., seeking testimony and documents. Time says it will fight subpoena.
Aug 9: U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan's rejects claims that the First Amendment protects Cooper from testifying and finds them in contempt of court. Time magazine appeals the ruling.
Aug 12 and 14: The grand jury subpoenas New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who gathered material for a story but never wrote one. The New York Times says it will fight subpoena.
Aug 24: Cooper agrees to give a deposition after Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, personally releases Cooper from a promise of confidentiality.
Sept 13: According to court documents, the grand jury issues a further subpoena to Cooper seeking additional information relating to the case. Cooper and Time move to quash the subpoena.
Oct 7: Miller held in contempt.
Oct. 13: Cooper and Time held in contempt.
Feb. 15, 2005: Appeals court rules against Miller and Cooper. Both Time magazine and The New York Times appeal to the Supreme Court.
June 27: The Supreme Court refuses to intervene.
July 1: Time magazine agrees to comply with a court order to turn over Cooper's notes, e-mail and other documents. Cooper and Miller continue to refuse to divulge sources.
July 6: U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan sends Miller to jail for refusing to divulge her source. Cooper agrees to name his source after receiving permission from the source to do so.
Sept. 29: After 85 days behind bars, Miller is released from the city jail in Alexandria, Va., after agreeing to testify before a grand jury. She says in a statement that her source has "voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality."
Sept. 30: Miller testifies at the federal courthouse in downtown Washington, ending her silence in the investigation.
Source: Associated Press
Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer
By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus
As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally indicated.
With New York Times reporter Judith Miller's release from jail Thursday and testimony Friday before a federal grand jury, the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, came into clearer focus. Libby, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the vice president's main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case.
His story is similar to that of Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. Rove, who was not an initial focus of the investigation, testified that he, too, talked with two reporters about Plame but never supplied her name or CIA role.
Their testimony seems to contradict what the White House was saying a few months after Plame's CIA job became public.
In October 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that he personally asked Libby and Rove whether they were involved, "so I could come back to you and say they were not involved." Asked if that was a categorical denial of their involvement, he said, "That is correct."
What remains a central mystery in the case is whether special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has accumulated evidence during his two-year investigation that any crime was committed. His investigation has White House aides and congressional Republicans on edge as they await Fitzgerald's announcement of an indictment or the conclusion of the probe with no charges. The grand jury is scheduled to expire Oct. 28, and lawyers in the case expect Fitzgerald to signal his intentions as early as this week.
Fitzgerald is investigating whether anyone illegally disclosed Plame's name or undercover CIA job in retaliation against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. In the summer of 2003, Wilson, a former diplomat, accused the White House of using "twisted" intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
He claimed firsthand evidence: At the behest of the CIA, he had flown to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the administration's assertion that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium in the African nation for use in its nuclear weapons program. Wilson returned unconvinced the assertion was true. However, Bush himself made the charge in his 2003 State of the Union address, prompting Wilson to spread word throughout the government and eventually make public his rebuttal.
Many lawyers in the case have been skeptical that Fitzgerald has the evidence to prove a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which is the complicated crime he first set out to investigate, and which requires showing that government officials knew an operative had covert status and intentionally leaked the operative's identity.
But a new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.
Lawyers involved in the case interviewed for this report agreed to talk only if their names were not used, citing Fitzgerald's request for secrecy.
One source briefed on Miller's account of conversations with Libby said it is doubtful her testimony would on its own lead to charges against any government officials. But, the source said, her account could establish a piece of a web of actions taken by officials that had an underlying criminal purpose.
Conspiracy cases are viewed by criminal prosecutors as simpler to bring than more straightforward criminal charges, but also trickier to sell to juries. "That would arguably be a close call for a prosecutor, but it could be tried," a veteran Washington criminal attorney with longtime experience in national security cases said yesterday.
Other lawyers in the case surmise Fitzgerald does not have evidence of any crime at all and put Miller in jail simply to get her testimony and finalize the investigation. "Even assuming . . . that somebody decided to answer back a critic, that is politics, not criminal behavior," said one lawyer in the case. This lawyer said the most benign outcome would be Fitzgerald announcing that he completed a thorough investigation, concluded no crime was committed and would not issue a report.
The campaign to discredit Wilson's accusations came at a critical moment in the Bush presidency. It occurred a few months after the United States invaded Iraq and at a time when Bush, Cheney and the entire administration were under extraordinary pressure to back up their prewar allegations that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and was working on a nuclear weapons program.
The Niger claim was central to the White House's rationale for war, and Wilson was on a one-man crusade to disprove it. Early on, his actions caught the eye of the vice president's office, which was often the emotional and intellectual force pushing the United States to war based on fears of potential weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Cheney and Libby were intimately involved in building the case for the war, which included warnings that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
Cheney's staff was looking into Wilson as early as May 2003, nearly two months before columnist Robert D. Novak identified Wilson's wife as a CIA operative, according to administration sources familiar with the effort. What stirred the interest of the vice president's office was a May 6 New York Times column by Nicholas D. Kristof in which the mission to Niger was described without using Wilson's name. Kristof's column said Cheney had authorized the trip.
According to former senior CIA officials, the vice president's office pressed the CIA to find out how the trip was arranged, because Cheney did not know that a query he made much earlier to a CIA briefer about a report alleging Iraq was seeking Niger uranium had triggered Wilson's trip. "They were very uptight about the vice president being tagged that way," a former senior CIA official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. "They asked questions that set [off] a chain of inquiries."
By early June, several weeks before Libby is said to have known Plame's name, the State Department had prepared a memo on the Niger case that contained information on Plame in a section marked "(S)" for secret. Around that time, Libby knew about the trip's origins, though in an interview with The Washington Post at the time, he did not mention any role played by Wilson's wife.
By July 12, however, both Rove and Libby and perhaps other senior White House officials knew about Wilson's wife's position at the CIA and, according to lawyers familiar with testimony in the probe, used that information with reporters to undermine the significance of Wilson's trip.
Staff writer Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.
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By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus
As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally indicated.
With New York Times reporter Judith Miller's release from jail Thursday and testimony Friday before a federal grand jury, the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, came into clearer focus. Libby, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the vice president's main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case.
His story is similar to that of Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser. Rove, who was not an initial focus of the investigation, testified that he, too, talked with two reporters about Plame but never supplied her name or CIA role.
Their testimony seems to contradict what the White House was saying a few months after Plame's CIA job became public.
In October 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters that he personally asked Libby and Rove whether they were involved, "so I could come back to you and say they were not involved." Asked if that was a categorical denial of their involvement, he said, "That is correct."
What remains a central mystery in the case is whether special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has accumulated evidence during his two-year investigation that any crime was committed. His investigation has White House aides and congressional Republicans on edge as they await Fitzgerald's announcement of an indictment or the conclusion of the probe with no charges. The grand jury is scheduled to expire Oct. 28, and lawyers in the case expect Fitzgerald to signal his intentions as early as this week.
Fitzgerald is investigating whether anyone illegally disclosed Plame's name or undercover CIA job in retaliation against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. In the summer of 2003, Wilson, a former diplomat, accused the White House of using "twisted" intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
He claimed firsthand evidence: At the behest of the CIA, he had flown to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the administration's assertion that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium in the African nation for use in its nuclear weapons program. Wilson returned unconvinced the assertion was true. However, Bush himself made the charge in his 2003 State of the Union address, prompting Wilson to spread word throughout the government and eventually make public his rebuttal.
Many lawyers in the case have been skeptical that Fitzgerald has the evidence to prove a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which is the complicated crime he first set out to investigate, and which requires showing that government officials knew an operative had covert status and intentionally leaked the operative's identity.
But a new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.
Lawyers involved in the case interviewed for this report agreed to talk only if their names were not used, citing Fitzgerald's request for secrecy.
One source briefed on Miller's account of conversations with Libby said it is doubtful her testimony would on its own lead to charges against any government officials. But, the source said, her account could establish a piece of a web of actions taken by officials that had an underlying criminal purpose.
Conspiracy cases are viewed by criminal prosecutors as simpler to bring than more straightforward criminal charges, but also trickier to sell to juries. "That would arguably be a close call for a prosecutor, but it could be tried," a veteran Washington criminal attorney with longtime experience in national security cases said yesterday.
Other lawyers in the case surmise Fitzgerald does not have evidence of any crime at all and put Miller in jail simply to get her testimony and finalize the investigation. "Even assuming . . . that somebody decided to answer back a critic, that is politics, not criminal behavior," said one lawyer in the case. This lawyer said the most benign outcome would be Fitzgerald announcing that he completed a thorough investigation, concluded no crime was committed and would not issue a report.
The campaign to discredit Wilson's accusations came at a critical moment in the Bush presidency. It occurred a few months after the United States invaded Iraq and at a time when Bush, Cheney and the entire administration were under extraordinary pressure to back up their prewar allegations that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and was working on a nuclear weapons program.
The Niger claim was central to the White House's rationale for war, and Wilson was on a one-man crusade to disprove it. Early on, his actions caught the eye of the vice president's office, which was often the emotional and intellectual force pushing the United States to war based on fears of potential weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Cheney and Libby were intimately involved in building the case for the war, which included warnings that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
Cheney's staff was looking into Wilson as early as May 2003, nearly two months before columnist Robert D. Novak identified Wilson's wife as a CIA operative, according to administration sources familiar with the effort. What stirred the interest of the vice president's office was a May 6 New York Times column by Nicholas D. Kristof in which the mission to Niger was described without using Wilson's name. Kristof's column said Cheney had authorized the trip.
According to former senior CIA officials, the vice president's office pressed the CIA to find out how the trip was arranged, because Cheney did not know that a query he made much earlier to a CIA briefer about a report alleging Iraq was seeking Niger uranium had triggered Wilson's trip. "They were very uptight about the vice president being tagged that way," a former senior CIA official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. "They asked questions that set [off] a chain of inquiries."
By early June, several weeks before Libby is said to have known Plame's name, the State Department had prepared a memo on the Niger case that contained information on Plame in a section marked "(S)" for secret. Around that time, Libby knew about the trip's origins, though in an interview with The Washington Post at the time, he did not mention any role played by Wilson's wife.
By July 12, however, both Rove and Libby and perhaps other senior White House officials knew about Wilson's wife's position at the CIA and, according to lawyers familiar with testimony in the probe, used that information with reporters to undermine the significance of Wilson's trip.
Staff writer Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.
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http://slate.msn.com/id/2126899/
A summary of what's in the major U.S. newspapers.
All the Judy Details
By Telis Demos
Posted Saturday, Oct. 1, 2005, at 2:28 AM PT
Judith Miller's morning of testimony leads the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal's top box. Lawyers say she testified, as expected, that Scooter Libby was her source on Joseph Wilson's connection to the CIA. The Washington Post fronts post-Katrina economic news: lower personal income and weakened consumer confidence. An efficient and well-coordinated response to forest fires may have prevented nearly 2000 homes from being destroyed, leads the Los Angeles Times.
Keep in mind that the papers don't know exactly what Miller told the grand jury, and Libby's lawyers don't know if her account of two conversations with Libby differs from his own. So the NYT looks at events leading up to Miller's testimony: a phone call with Libby saying it's OK to talk and a deal with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, notably that he would ask her about only Libby and that she would hand over portions of her notes. The NYT also talks to journos who worry that future prosecutors will be quicker to toss reporters in jail. The WP's Howard Kurtz says some NYT insiders wonder why Miller didn't just talk in the first place.
In the other papers' stories, a couple things should stand out. First, Libby probably isn't going to be nailed as the leak. According to the WP, sources say Miller's testimony was that Libby initially said the White House was looking into Wilson's connection to the CIA, then later that he'd learned Wilson's wife worked for the CIA—but that Libby didn't know her name or that she was a covert operative. It's unclear whether her testimony added anything to what Fitzgerald already knew. Second, Miller's lawyer Floyd Abrams explains to the LAT why she didn't testify when Libby's lawyer said it was OK more than a year ago. She wanted direct permission from Libby.
The WP's Page One economic outlook is convincingly bleak, but does it deserve the Katrina headline? Despite dropping income, Americans' spending increased, making it the third month in a row that personal savings were negative—the first time that's happened since such numbers were collected. But how's that need to spend linked to the storm? The Journal's analysis is clearer, linking Katrina to faster inflation and reporting that the high price of gas is slowing necessary spending in other areas.
The WP also fronts news that Katrina caused $1 billion in damages to three historically black colleges that lack the resources to rebound as quickly as the region's other schools. The three colleges are especially worried that other schools will try to recruit black faculty who have temporarily relocated. Inside, the WP details Mayor Ray Nagin's plans to get the city back on its feet but also talks to New Orleanians who don't plan to return. And the NYT finds cynical Louisianans who fear the state's history of corrupt politics will divert needed relief money.
Despite yesterday's pessimism about Iraq forces, the LAT finds U.S. generals who say American troops might be hurting more than helping, arguing that a draw-down should happen sooner rather than later. A heart-wrenching NYT front-pager follows a U.S. battalion assigned to collect wounded and dead comrades.
Off-lead in the NYT, the GAO says the Department of Education's sketchy efforts to get positive media coverage—like paying columnist Armstrong Williams and hiring a PR agency—were an illegal use of public money for partisan purposes. Is this connected to other Bush administration media shenanigans? A DOE-produced TV bit used the same "reporter," Karen Ryan, who appeared in spots praising the Medicare drug benefit. There's more bad news for Bush when complaints about an allegedly underqualified State Department appointee get Page One airing in the LAT.
Below the fold, the WP says Republicans abandoned an agreement with Democrats to stop paying a Clinton-era independent council to investigate illegal payments to a mistress by then-housing secretary Henry Cisneros—to which he plead guilty six years ago. Republicans think the investigation might be finding new dirt from the Clinton years.
Happy Daze. A sharp Journal analysis says Republicans are heading into defense and homeland security budget sessions with deficit reduction on the brain. But they can't really say no to the troops or the storm victims, and they don't have leader Tom DeLay right now. Can the majority party make it work? At least one House GOP insider isn't optimistic: "If we offset $20 billion, we'll go home happy."
Telis Demos is a reporter at Fortune.
A summary of what's in the major U.S. newspapers.
All the Judy Details
By Telis Demos
Posted Saturday, Oct. 1, 2005, at 2:28 AM PT
Judith Miller's morning of testimony leads the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal's top box. Lawyers say she testified, as expected, that Scooter Libby was her source on Joseph Wilson's connection to the CIA. The Washington Post fronts post-Katrina economic news: lower personal income and weakened consumer confidence. An efficient and well-coordinated response to forest fires may have prevented nearly 2000 homes from being destroyed, leads the Los Angeles Times.
Keep in mind that the papers don't know exactly what Miller told the grand jury, and Libby's lawyers don't know if her account of two conversations with Libby differs from his own. So the NYT looks at events leading up to Miller's testimony: a phone call with Libby saying it's OK to talk and a deal with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, notably that he would ask her about only Libby and that she would hand over portions of her notes. The NYT also talks to journos who worry that future prosecutors will be quicker to toss reporters in jail. The WP's Howard Kurtz says some NYT insiders wonder why Miller didn't just talk in the first place.
In the other papers' stories, a couple things should stand out. First, Libby probably isn't going to be nailed as the leak. According to the WP, sources say Miller's testimony was that Libby initially said the White House was looking into Wilson's connection to the CIA, then later that he'd learned Wilson's wife worked for the CIA—but that Libby didn't know her name or that she was a covert operative. It's unclear whether her testimony added anything to what Fitzgerald already knew. Second, Miller's lawyer Floyd Abrams explains to the LAT why she didn't testify when Libby's lawyer said it was OK more than a year ago. She wanted direct permission from Libby.
The WP's Page One economic outlook is convincingly bleak, but does it deserve the Katrina headline? Despite dropping income, Americans' spending increased, making it the third month in a row that personal savings were negative—the first time that's happened since such numbers were collected. But how's that need to spend linked to the storm? The Journal's analysis is clearer, linking Katrina to faster inflation and reporting that the high price of gas is slowing necessary spending in other areas.
The WP also fronts news that Katrina caused $1 billion in damages to three historically black colleges that lack the resources to rebound as quickly as the region's other schools. The three colleges are especially worried that other schools will try to recruit black faculty who have temporarily relocated. Inside, the WP details Mayor Ray Nagin's plans to get the city back on its feet but also talks to New Orleanians who don't plan to return. And the NYT finds cynical Louisianans who fear the state's history of corrupt politics will divert needed relief money.
Despite yesterday's pessimism about Iraq forces, the LAT finds U.S. generals who say American troops might be hurting more than helping, arguing that a draw-down should happen sooner rather than later. A heart-wrenching NYT front-pager follows a U.S. battalion assigned to collect wounded and dead comrades.
Off-lead in the NYT, the GAO says the Department of Education's sketchy efforts to get positive media coverage—like paying columnist Armstrong Williams and hiring a PR agency—were an illegal use of public money for partisan purposes. Is this connected to other Bush administration media shenanigans? A DOE-produced TV bit used the same "reporter," Karen Ryan, who appeared in spots praising the Medicare drug benefit. There's more bad news for Bush when complaints about an allegedly underqualified State Department appointee get Page One airing in the LAT.
Below the fold, the WP says Republicans abandoned an agreement with Democrats to stop paying a Clinton-era independent council to investigate illegal payments to a mistress by then-housing secretary Henry Cisneros—to which he plead guilty six years ago. Republicans think the investigation might be finding new dirt from the Clinton years.
Happy Daze. A sharp Journal analysis says Republicans are heading into defense and homeland security budget sessions with deficit reduction on the brain. But they can't really say no to the troops or the storm victims, and they don't have leader Tom DeLay right now. Can the majority party make it work? At least one House GOP insider isn't optimistic: "If we offset $20 billion, we'll go home happy."
Telis Demos is a reporter at Fortune.
Who is Judy Miller kidding?
The New York Times reporter needs to write the truth about her involvment in Plamegate.
By ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
NOW THAT Judy Miller has finished testifying, finished spinning for the cameras on the courthouse steps, finished hugging her dog and finished eating that special meal she wanted her husband to prepare, she needs to do what Time reporter Matt Cooper did and immediately publish a full and truthful account of her involvement in Plamegate.
Because what she — and the New York Times' publisher and editor — have said so far just doesn't add up.
ADVERTISEMENT
The story being pitched to the public — that Miller was a heroic, principled martyr who sacrificed her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity, then fulfilled her "civic duty" after she "finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver" from her source — is laughable.
Indeed, it's already been greeted skeptically by 1) my increasingly frustrated sources at the Times; 2) a chorus of voices in the blogosphere, and 3) (and much more significantly) Joseph Tate, Scooter Libby's lawyer, who told the Washington Post that he informed Miller's attorney, Floyd Abrams, a year ago that Libby's waiver "was voluntary and that Miller was free to testify."
It defies credulity for Miller and the Times to keep insisting that Libby's earlier waiver was coerced when Libby says that it wasn't. I don't have much good to say about the vice president's chief of staff, but I don't doubt that he knows the difference between being coerced and acting on his own free will. How deep is the Times' contempt for its readers that it really thinks they'll buy the "Oh, Judy finally has the right waiver" line?
After appearing in front of the grand jury Friday, Miller was asked to describe her role in the case. "I was a journalist doing my job," she said.
But her role is actually much, much more complicated than that. Any discussion of Miller's actions in Plamegate cannot leave out the key part she played in cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq and in hyping the WMD threat. Re-reading some of her prewar reporting today, it's hard not to be stunned by just how inaccurate and pumped up it turned out to be.
During her incarceration, a Times spokesperson described Miller as "an intrepid, principled and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has provided our readers with thorough and comprehensive reporting throughout her career." But a "thorough and comprehensive" look at Miller's career reveals repeated examples of egregious reporting, a startling lack of objectivity, too-close-for-comfort relationships with dubious sources … and a penchant for far-from-thorough and far-from-comprehensive coverage.
Cut through the haze of revisionist portraiture and you might remember that Miller's byline appeared on four of the six articles that the Times apologized for in its unprecedented May 2004 mea culpa over its prewar news coverage.
What's more, Miller's involvement in Plamegate was a direct result of her WMD reporting. Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's now famous Op-Ed piece, which raised the idea that the Bush administration had manipulated and twisted intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat, went straight to the heart of Miller's reporting — and her credibility.
The Plame scandal took shape not only when the White House was under attack but when Miller herself was increasingly being attacked by critics for her deeply flawed dispatches. When she met with her anti-Plame source — or sources — she was not only still on the WMD beat but still a true believer promoting the administration's lies about Iraq's nonexistent WMD threat despite an avalanche of contrary information.
The inescapable fact is that Miller — intentionally or unintentionally — worked hand in glove in helping the White House propaganda machine sell the war in Iraq. And that includes Libby and his boss, Dick Cheney.
Before her transformation into a journalistic Joan of Arc, Miller was in a tailspin, her work discredited, removed from the WMD beat and forced to deal with colleagues who refused to share a byline with her. She desperately needed to change the subject and cleanse herself of the stench left by her misleading coverage leading up to the war — coverage that makes the Jayson Blair scandal, by comparison, seem ludicrously insignificant. And there are few more effective acts of purification for a reporter than going to jail to (in PR theory) protect the 1st Amendment.
Miller went from pariah to icon, and the Times went from apologizing for her work to comparing her in a series of over-the-top editorials to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Talk about an Extreme Makeover.
There is no way that the Times' repeated claims that Miller was in jail as a matter of principle can be squared with her hair-splitting explanations for why she suddenly changed her mind.
And there is no way to accept at face value Miller's ongoing grandstanding about "fighting for the cause of the free flow of information."
Who is she still trying to convince? Herself?
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/o...eadlines-sports
The New York Times reporter needs to write the truth about her involvment in Plamegate.
By ARIANNA HUFFINGTON
NOW THAT Judy Miller has finished testifying, finished spinning for the cameras on the courthouse steps, finished hugging her dog and finished eating that special meal she wanted her husband to prepare, she needs to do what Time reporter Matt Cooper did and immediately publish a full and truthful account of her involvement in Plamegate.
Because what she — and the New York Times' publisher and editor — have said so far just doesn't add up.
ADVERTISEMENT
The story being pitched to the public — that Miller was a heroic, principled martyr who sacrificed her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity, then fulfilled her "civic duty" after she "finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver" from her source — is laughable.
Indeed, it's already been greeted skeptically by 1) my increasingly frustrated sources at the Times; 2) a chorus of voices in the blogosphere, and 3) (and much more significantly) Joseph Tate, Scooter Libby's lawyer, who told the Washington Post that he informed Miller's attorney, Floyd Abrams, a year ago that Libby's waiver "was voluntary and that Miller was free to testify."
It defies credulity for Miller and the Times to keep insisting that Libby's earlier waiver was coerced when Libby says that it wasn't. I don't have much good to say about the vice president's chief of staff, but I don't doubt that he knows the difference between being coerced and acting on his own free will. How deep is the Times' contempt for its readers that it really thinks they'll buy the "Oh, Judy finally has the right waiver" line?
After appearing in front of the grand jury Friday, Miller was asked to describe her role in the case. "I was a journalist doing my job," she said.
But her role is actually much, much more complicated than that. Any discussion of Miller's actions in Plamegate cannot leave out the key part she played in cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq and in hyping the WMD threat. Re-reading some of her prewar reporting today, it's hard not to be stunned by just how inaccurate and pumped up it turned out to be.
During her incarceration, a Times spokesperson described Miller as "an intrepid, principled and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has provided our readers with thorough and comprehensive reporting throughout her career." But a "thorough and comprehensive" look at Miller's career reveals repeated examples of egregious reporting, a startling lack of objectivity, too-close-for-comfort relationships with dubious sources … and a penchant for far-from-thorough and far-from-comprehensive coverage.
Cut through the haze of revisionist portraiture and you might remember that Miller's byline appeared on four of the six articles that the Times apologized for in its unprecedented May 2004 mea culpa over its prewar news coverage.
What's more, Miller's involvement in Plamegate was a direct result of her WMD reporting. Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's now famous Op-Ed piece, which raised the idea that the Bush administration had manipulated and twisted intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat, went straight to the heart of Miller's reporting — and her credibility.
The Plame scandal took shape not only when the White House was under attack but when Miller herself was increasingly being attacked by critics for her deeply flawed dispatches. When she met with her anti-Plame source — or sources — she was not only still on the WMD beat but still a true believer promoting the administration's lies about Iraq's nonexistent WMD threat despite an avalanche of contrary information.
The inescapable fact is that Miller — intentionally or unintentionally — worked hand in glove in helping the White House propaganda machine sell the war in Iraq. And that includes Libby and his boss, Dick Cheney.
Before her transformation into a journalistic Joan of Arc, Miller was in a tailspin, her work discredited, removed from the WMD beat and forced to deal with colleagues who refused to share a byline with her. She desperately needed to change the subject and cleanse herself of the stench left by her misleading coverage leading up to the war — coverage that makes the Jayson Blair scandal, by comparison, seem ludicrously insignificant. And there are few more effective acts of purification for a reporter than going to jail to (in PR theory) protect the 1st Amendment.
Miller went from pariah to icon, and the Times went from apologizing for her work to comparing her in a series of over-the-top editorials to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Talk about an Extreme Makeover.
There is no way that the Times' repeated claims that Miller was in jail as a matter of principle can be squared with her hair-splitting explanations for why she suddenly changed her mind.
And there is no way to accept at face value Miller's ongoing grandstanding about "fighting for the cause of the free flow of information."
Who is she still trying to convince? Herself?
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/o...eadlines-sports
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/articl...t_id=1001220134
A 'Dear Judy' Letter from 'Scooter'
By E&P Staff
Published: October 01, 2005 10:55 AM ET
NEW YORK In a New York Times article today on the latest turn involving Judith Miller, who made a deal with the prosecutor for her release from jail on Thursday, Adam Liptak observes that a series of just-released letters hint that “a similar deal may have been available for some time and raise questions about why Ms. Miller decided to testify now.”
One of the letters, from the key source, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, to Miller on September 15, expressed surprise that her lawyers had asked him to "repeat for you the waiver of confidentiality that I specifically gave to your counsel over a year ago." Surprisingly, he stated that he expected her testimony to help him.
This “Dear Judy” letter repeatedly expressed his admiration for her and cited everything she was losing in jail, from missing out on covering new biological threats to enjoying the aspens turning out West. He noted that the aspens "turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."
But maybe the personal tone is not so surprising. The letter suggests that the two, who saw eye to eye on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which never materialized, are either very close-—or Libby was just pretending, to make her go easy on him if she did testify.
The text of the entire letter, which was mailed to Miller's attorney, Robert Bennett, has not been printed in the Times or elsewhere. It is available as a PDF file at the Times site today.
It begins with “Dear Judy, Your reporting, and you are missed. Like many Americans, I admire your principled stand. But, like many friends and readers, I would welcome you back among the rest of us, doing what you do best—reporting.”
Then, several paragraphs expressed his surprise that she has not acted on his voluntary offer of a year earlier to waive his rights to confidentiality, since it “served my best interests…this is the rare case where this ‘source’ will be better off if you testified.” He dubbed this the “Miller corollary.”
He closed the letter on this personal note (although he wasn’t quite right on when autumn begins): “You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover—Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work—-and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers.”
“With admiration, Scooter Libby.”
A 'Dear Judy' Letter from 'Scooter'
By E&P Staff
Published: October 01, 2005 10:55 AM ET
NEW YORK In a New York Times article today on the latest turn involving Judith Miller, who made a deal with the prosecutor for her release from jail on Thursday, Adam Liptak observes that a series of just-released letters hint that “a similar deal may have been available for some time and raise questions about why Ms. Miller decided to testify now.”
One of the letters, from the key source, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, to Miller on September 15, expressed surprise that her lawyers had asked him to "repeat for you the waiver of confidentiality that I specifically gave to your counsel over a year ago." Surprisingly, he stated that he expected her testimony to help him.
This “Dear Judy” letter repeatedly expressed his admiration for her and cited everything she was losing in jail, from missing out on covering new biological threats to enjoying the aspens turning out West. He noted that the aspens "turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."
But maybe the personal tone is not so surprising. The letter suggests that the two, who saw eye to eye on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which never materialized, are either very close-—or Libby was just pretending, to make her go easy on him if she did testify.
The text of the entire letter, which was mailed to Miller's attorney, Robert Bennett, has not been printed in the Times or elsewhere. It is available as a PDF file at the Times site today.
It begins with “Dear Judy, Your reporting, and you are missed. Like many Americans, I admire your principled stand. But, like many friends and readers, I would welcome you back among the rest of us, doing what you do best—reporting.”
Then, several paragraphs expressed his surprise that she has not acted on his voluntary offer of a year earlier to waive his rights to confidentiality, since it “served my best interests…this is the rare case where this ‘source’ will be better off if you testified.” He dubbed this the “Miller corollary.”
He closed the letter on this personal note (although he wasn’t quite right on when autumn begins): “You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover—Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work—-and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers.”
“With admiration, Scooter Libby.”
All I can say is 'Karl Rove'. 
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7490
October 3, 2005
Scooter-gate
A criminal conspiracy
by Justin Raimondo
It isn't generally known that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff – now revealed as New York Times reporter Judith Miller's source in the Plame affair – is a novelist, as well as a policymaker. Aside from being a co-author of the Bush administration's narrative of "weapons of mass destruction" and Iraq's alleged links to al-Qaeda – a story that turned out to be a fable – he is also the author of The Apprentice, published in 1996, a novel set against the backdrop of the Russo-Japanese war. Unlike Lynne Cheney and Richard Perle, whose literary efforts in this vein have garnered less than stellar reviews, Libby appears to have some genuine talent as a fabulist. "As a work of prose, The Apprentice is easily the best of all neoconservative novels ever written," writes the journalist Jeet Heer, adding: "A dismal compliment, you could say, given the competition. Still, Libby has written a strong first novel that convincingly re-creates an exotic world." Since becoming the vice president's chief adviser and confidante, however, Libby has had little time to indulge his artistic imagination. In a profile of Libby published in the National Journal at the beginning of Bush's first term, he said:
"I try to stay up somewhat with fiction. I am looking forward to writing again some day. But the job is pretty demanding, and I haven't been progressing very far on the next novel."
It could be that Libby will have plenty of time to work on his next novel in the very near future – that is, if federal prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has anything to say about it. A stretch in prison could very well give Libby the space to hone his literary talent and fulfill his promise as the foremost neocon novelist – a possibility that seems increasingly likely.
Now that Libby has been identified as Ms. Miller's source, the focus in the investigation into who "outed" CIA agent Valerie Plame has shifted from Miller and Bush adviser Karl Rove to one of the most powerful men in Washington: "Libby Is to Cheney What Cheney Is to Bush," as a recent Washington Post headline put it. "Plame-gate" – always a bit of an awkward phrase, and not that descriptive, in any case – has now become Scooter-gate, which, you'll have to agree, is a much more mellifluous and catchy all-purpose rubric for Fitzgerald's ever widening investigation, which now seems to be reaching its dramatic climax.
In a denouement worthy of a good novel, prosecutor Fitzgerald is getting ready to wind up his probe and either decline to press any charges – unlikely, but within the realm of the remotely possible – or start issuing indictments. If the latter, then the indictments are likely to fly fast and furious, as this widely discussed clip from a Washington Post story would indicate:
"A new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose."
"A criminal conspiracy" – but what was its purpose? Aside from sliming former U.S. diplomat Joseph C. Wilson, who had the temerity to debunk the most egregious of the administration's tall tales of Iraqi WMD, and outing his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent, that is.
The characters in this Washington drama share a single characteristic, and it isn't just that they all appear to be inveterate liars: the major players in this case were part of the campaign of deception that lured us into Iraq and dropped us into the middle of a maelstrom from which there seems to be no escape. Ms. Miller's "reporting" on Iraq's alleged WMD required a retraction and apology from the editors of the New York Times: it appears she was using the front page of that venerable paper to broadcast the same sort of propaganda one might expect in the pages of the New York Post or the Weekly Standard.
Scooter was at the epicenter of this threatening storm of misinformation, which eventually reached Katrina-esque proportions in its intensity: he and his boss were pushing hard on the CIA to come up with the evidence of Saddam's WMD in order to justify an invasion. They both personally visited CIA analysts at Langley and berated them for not coming up with the goods; when the spooks demurred, they did an end-run around the intelligence community, setting up what Mother Jones magazine has called "the lie factory."
This is the criminal conspiracy Fitzgerald has set about uncovering. It isn't about Karl Rove, as I said months ago; it isn't about a possible violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, as I maintained from the beginning. It's about how a small group of government officials, in tandem with their overseas allies, engaged in a criminal conspiracy to falsify "intelligence" – and, in the process, lie the nation into war.
The event that ostensibly precipitated Fitzgerald's probe – the publication of Valerie Plame's name in a column by Robert Novak published in the Chicago Sun-Times – has garnered the lion's share of media attention, but Fitzgerald's concerns appear to have extended way beyond this starting point. As the Washington Post reported back in July:
"Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed."
From the possible violation of a law that had only been successfully prosecuted on a single occasion, and for which the penalty is a few years in the hoosegow and a hefty but payable fine, the investigation morphed into a probe of one of the most baffling mysteries of recent times: how did the White House fall for the Niger uranium forgeries, crude fabrications of documents that purported to show Saddam's Iraq was trying to procure fissionable uranium – yellowcake – from the African nation of Niger? It only took the International Atomic Energy Agency a few hours with Google to debunk this "evidence" of Iraq's efforts to build nukes, yet somehow the infamous 16 words pinpointing "Africa" as the site of Iraq's supposed violation made it into the president's 2003 State of the Union address. Who snookered the White House?
The idea that a special prosecutor was appointed, and an 18-month investigation launched, solely because Joe Wilson's wife was out of a job never made much sense. The outing of a CIA agent was only the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, the latest in a series of incidents that underscored a gaping hole in our national security defenses. The outing of Plame – an act of utter disdain for the country, and provocative in itself – provided investigators, already hot on the trail of possible treason in high places, with an opening to make their inquiry public. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald had a bone to pick with the neocons, and once he got his teeth into it he wasn't going to let go.
Many are wondering why Miller went to jail rather than utilize the waiver Libby's lawyer now says was given her months ago. The reason is because Floyd Abrams, her lawyer, insisted on gaining a key concession from Fitzgerald: that he would limit his questioning to Miller's conversations with Libby.
This narrowing condition was essential if Miller was going to continue to protect her other friends. Miller was at the center of the propaganda campaign that suckered us into war. As the War Party's major megaphone in the American media, retailing the tall tales spun by the INC and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, Miller is a fitting martyr for the neocon cause: self-promoting, shameless, and an accomplished liar on a grand scale, she masquerades as the upholder of freedom – the "freedom" of journalists to protect government insiders engaged in criminal actions that can only be described as treasonous.
Even more self-consciously grandiose than Miller, however, we have Libby's letter to her, in which he says how much he "misses" her reporting – yeah, I'll bet! – and reiterates what we all know by now: that the waiver to testify was given to her long ago, and she simply chose not to cooperate unless certain other conditions were met. Libby concludes his missive on a distinctly odd note:
"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover – Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work – and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers."
If we think of the criminal conspiracy targeted by Fitzgerald as a grove of aspens, then, yes, the neocons turn in clusters, all right, because their roots connect them: the neocon network in Washington is deeply rooted in the national security bureaucracy. Libby was brought to Washington in 1981 by former deputy secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, now head of the World Bank, then working at the State Department; Libby had been one of his students at Yale. During the Clinton interregnum, Libby had his hands full being Marc Rich's lawyer and writing The Apprentice. In 1989, Wolfowitz brought him back to government service, this time at the Pentagon. He became a central figure in the neoconservative Project for a New American Century, and co-authored, with Wolfowitz, a policy memo charting a post-Cold War foreign policy and defense stance positing American hegemony on every continent and broaching, for the first time, the policy of preemptive aggression that is today enshrined in the Bush Doctrine.
While Libby is a towering aspen, whose fall will make a rather loud noise, others in the same stand have already met a similar fate, and what we have here is a sort of domino effect. John Hannah, Cheney's special assistant for Middle East affairs, was fingered early on in this investigation. Last year, Richard Sale of UPI reported a rare leak from the investigators:
"'We believe that Hannah was the major player in this,' one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah 'that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time' as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said."
Hannah has an interesting background. In the early 1990s, he served as head of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a think tank associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). As Middle East scholar Juan Cole pointed out, Hannah was a key figure in the intelligence-manipulation effort that legitimized phony "evidence" of Iraq's WMD cooked up by the fraudster Ahmed Chalabi. Hannah, like the other aspens in the grove, turned with the rest of the cluster when it came to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East:
"The WINEP pro-Likud network, which includes Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith in the Pentagon as well as Libby and Hannah at Cheney's office, has virtually dictated Bush administration Middle East policy. Wilson's debunking of one of its central claims might well have led Cheney to fire Hannah or to disregard his opinion. The WINEP crowd takes no prisoners and is very determined, over decades, to get its way. (Josh Marshall notes that they are already trying to protect Hannah with denials he could possibly have been involved, presumably meaning that they would be willing to throw Libby to the dogs.) Wilson had to be punished, from their point of view, and if possible marginalized, to protect Hannah's position."
Hannah may have thrown Libby to the dogs, just to save his own skin. This wouldn't be any more surprising than the actions of former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who will plead guilty to spying for Israel in return for leniency in sentencing – and for testifying against his handlers, Steve Rosen, who for 20 years served as AIPAC's foreign policy director, and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's top Iran specialist. Rosen and Weissman pumped Franklin for classified information and handed it over to Israeli "diplomats" stationed in Washington. The trial is scheduled for January.
While Hannah, the former director of AIPAC's think tank, was deeply involved in exposing a vitally important U.S. intelligence asset – Plame worked undercover in the CIA's WMD-nonproliferation unit – AIPAC officials Rosen and Weissman were sneaking around Washington, meeting Franklin in train stations and handing over U.S. secrets to Israeli spies. If we put Franklin's shenanigans [.pdf] with the AIPAC duo and the Israelis on a timeline, we see that this breach in our security occurred during roughly the same period as those involving the Niger uranium deception and the Plame matter:
Jan. 28, 2003 - The president utters those fateful 16 words.
Feb. 12 - Franklin met with Rosen and Weissman and revealed classified information relating to a certain "Middle Eastern country." (The Franklin-AIPAC-Mossad relationship, although first broached in 2002, only culminated in a personal meeting early in the next year.)
March 7 - Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, announces that the Niger uranium documents are forgeries.
March 10 - The treasonous trio met again, this time outside Union Station in Washington, and then proceeded to several restaurants, changing their venue frequently to avoid detection and ending their meeting in an empty restaurant.
March 13 - Franklin met with an Israeli official, when he revealed yet more classified information about internal U.S. government deliberations concerning a certain Middle Eastern country. Throughout the month, Franklin fed his AIPAC handlers classified documents, faxing them in some instances, while Rosen and Weissman relayed the information to the Israelis, and to certain favored members of the media.
June 26 - Franklin met with Rosen and Weissman and communicated classified information on possible attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by pro-Iranian elements.
June 30 - The bonding rituals of spies: Weissman and Franklin attended a baseball game. On that day, also, Franklin was finally confronted by the FBI with his treason: the indictment states that "on or about" that date he "possessed" classified – "Top Secret and Secret" – materials in his Kearneysville, W.V., residence. Franklin was, in short, caught red-handed, and was "turned" – that is, he agreed to cooperate with the investigation and provide evidence against his AIPAC handlers.
July 6 - Wilson's New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find In Africa," is published.
July 9 - Franklin, no doubt wearing a wire, met with Weissman, and more national defense information was turned over.
July 9 - Judith Miller discusses the Plame affair with Libby.
July 12 or 13 - Miller again discusses Plame with Libby.
July 14 - Novak outs Valerie Plame in his Sun-Times column.
July 21 - Franklin again met with Weissman, and turned over information that he said was "highly classified" concerning a foreign government's covert actions in Iraq, warning Weissman not to use it because he could "get into trouble." That same day, Weissman related the information to Rosen, and the two of them went to their Israeli bosses with the goods.
Aug. 3 - The FBI finally moved in on Franklin and Rosen, who denied everything – and continued to leak U.S. secrets to the media on at least one occasion.
Aug. 27 - The FBI interviewed Rosen again, and he still denied everything, whereupon AIPAC's chief Washington lobbyist contacted his Israeli handler and told him that he had "a very serious matter" he needed to discuss, but couldn't do it over the phone.
As the FBI reviewed Franklin's conversations with Rosen, Weissman, and the Israelis, the totality of what had happened to U.S. national security, in light of the Plame affair, had to have dawned on them. Many of the key individuals involved, in the vice president's office and the Defense Department's policy section (where Franklin worked), had intimate links with Israel, specifically the radical Likud Party policies favored by the neoconservatives. Outing Plame was only a measure of the ruthlessness of this cabal: Franklin's betrayal showed that they were not above espionage. The U.S. government, after years of tolerating a fifth column in Washington, was finally moved to crack down.
Now that our attention is focused on Libby, the real outlines of the scandal that will envelop this administration are becoming clearer by the day. Scooter-gate isn't about revenge, although that's part of it; it isn't about intra-bureaucratic infighting, although that certainly played a role; and it sure isn't about Karl Rove, as the chattering classes were convinced only a few weeks ago. It is about how a band of ruthless ideologues lied us into war – and betrayed their country in the process. It's about a criminal conspiracy finally felled by its own hubris. And, unfortunately for the defendants, it's about espionage.
Who knows how many neocons will be caught up in Fitzgerald's net? Scooter, Hannah, maybe even John Bolton – as I predicted a few months ago – and any number of smaller fry will face their moment of truth in the dock.
As I wrote last year, this is the War Party's Waterloo. So get out the popcorn and the chips-and-dip, pull up a chair, and let the show trial begin!
– Justin Raimondo
October 3, 2005
Scooter-gate
A criminal conspiracy
by Justin Raimondo
It isn't generally known that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff – now revealed as New York Times reporter Judith Miller's source in the Plame affair – is a novelist, as well as a policymaker. Aside from being a co-author of the Bush administration's narrative of "weapons of mass destruction" and Iraq's alleged links to al-Qaeda – a story that turned out to be a fable – he is also the author of The Apprentice, published in 1996, a novel set against the backdrop of the Russo-Japanese war. Unlike Lynne Cheney and Richard Perle, whose literary efforts in this vein have garnered less than stellar reviews, Libby appears to have some genuine talent as a fabulist. "As a work of prose, The Apprentice is easily the best of all neoconservative novels ever written," writes the journalist Jeet Heer, adding: "A dismal compliment, you could say, given the competition. Still, Libby has written a strong first novel that convincingly re-creates an exotic world." Since becoming the vice president's chief adviser and confidante, however, Libby has had little time to indulge his artistic imagination. In a profile of Libby published in the National Journal at the beginning of Bush's first term, he said:
"I try to stay up somewhat with fiction. I am looking forward to writing again some day. But the job is pretty demanding, and I haven't been progressing very far on the next novel."
It could be that Libby will have plenty of time to work on his next novel in the very near future – that is, if federal prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has anything to say about it. A stretch in prison could very well give Libby the space to hone his literary talent and fulfill his promise as the foremost neocon novelist – a possibility that seems increasingly likely.
Now that Libby has been identified as Ms. Miller's source, the focus in the investigation into who "outed" CIA agent Valerie Plame has shifted from Miller and Bush adviser Karl Rove to one of the most powerful men in Washington: "Libby Is to Cheney What Cheney Is to Bush," as a recent Washington Post headline put it. "Plame-gate" – always a bit of an awkward phrase, and not that descriptive, in any case – has now become Scooter-gate, which, you'll have to agree, is a much more mellifluous and catchy all-purpose rubric for Fitzgerald's ever widening investigation, which now seems to be reaching its dramatic climax.
In a denouement worthy of a good novel, prosecutor Fitzgerald is getting ready to wind up his probe and either decline to press any charges – unlikely, but within the realm of the remotely possible – or start issuing indictments. If the latter, then the indictments are likely to fly fast and furious, as this widely discussed clip from a Washington Post story would indicate:
"A new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose."
"A criminal conspiracy" – but what was its purpose? Aside from sliming former U.S. diplomat Joseph C. Wilson, who had the temerity to debunk the most egregious of the administration's tall tales of Iraqi WMD, and outing his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent, that is.
The characters in this Washington drama share a single characteristic, and it isn't just that they all appear to be inveterate liars: the major players in this case were part of the campaign of deception that lured us into Iraq and dropped us into the middle of a maelstrom from which there seems to be no escape. Ms. Miller's "reporting" on Iraq's alleged WMD required a retraction and apology from the editors of the New York Times: it appears she was using the front page of that venerable paper to broadcast the same sort of propaganda one might expect in the pages of the New York Post or the Weekly Standard.
Scooter was at the epicenter of this threatening storm of misinformation, which eventually reached Katrina-esque proportions in its intensity: he and his boss were pushing hard on the CIA to come up with the evidence of Saddam's WMD in order to justify an invasion. They both personally visited CIA analysts at Langley and berated them for not coming up with the goods; when the spooks demurred, they did an end-run around the intelligence community, setting up what Mother Jones magazine has called "the lie factory."
This is the criminal conspiracy Fitzgerald has set about uncovering. It isn't about Karl Rove, as I said months ago; it isn't about a possible violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, as I maintained from the beginning. It's about how a small group of government officials, in tandem with their overseas allies, engaged in a criminal conspiracy to falsify "intelligence" – and, in the process, lie the nation into war.
The event that ostensibly precipitated Fitzgerald's probe – the publication of Valerie Plame's name in a column by Robert Novak published in the Chicago Sun-Times – has garnered the lion's share of media attention, but Fitzgerald's concerns appear to have extended way beyond this starting point. As the Washington Post reported back in July:
"Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed."
From the possible violation of a law that had only been successfully prosecuted on a single occasion, and for which the penalty is a few years in the hoosegow and a hefty but payable fine, the investigation morphed into a probe of one of the most baffling mysteries of recent times: how did the White House fall for the Niger uranium forgeries, crude fabrications of documents that purported to show Saddam's Iraq was trying to procure fissionable uranium – yellowcake – from the African nation of Niger? It only took the International Atomic Energy Agency a few hours with Google to debunk this "evidence" of Iraq's efforts to build nukes, yet somehow the infamous 16 words pinpointing "Africa" as the site of Iraq's supposed violation made it into the president's 2003 State of the Union address. Who snookered the White House?
The idea that a special prosecutor was appointed, and an 18-month investigation launched, solely because Joe Wilson's wife was out of a job never made much sense. The outing of a CIA agent was only the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, the latest in a series of incidents that underscored a gaping hole in our national security defenses. The outing of Plame – an act of utter disdain for the country, and provocative in itself – provided investigators, already hot on the trail of possible treason in high places, with an opening to make their inquiry public. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald had a bone to pick with the neocons, and once he got his teeth into it he wasn't going to let go.
Many are wondering why Miller went to jail rather than utilize the waiver Libby's lawyer now says was given her months ago. The reason is because Floyd Abrams, her lawyer, insisted on gaining a key concession from Fitzgerald: that he would limit his questioning to Miller's conversations with Libby.
This narrowing condition was essential if Miller was going to continue to protect her other friends. Miller was at the center of the propaganda campaign that suckered us into war. As the War Party's major megaphone in the American media, retailing the tall tales spun by the INC and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, Miller is a fitting martyr for the neocon cause: self-promoting, shameless, and an accomplished liar on a grand scale, she masquerades as the upholder of freedom – the "freedom" of journalists to protect government insiders engaged in criminal actions that can only be described as treasonous.
Even more self-consciously grandiose than Miller, however, we have Libby's letter to her, in which he says how much he "misses" her reporting – yeah, I'll bet! – and reiterates what we all know by now: that the waiver to testify was given to her long ago, and she simply chose not to cooperate unless certain other conditions were met. Libby concludes his missive on a distinctly odd note:
"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover – Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work – and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers."
If we think of the criminal conspiracy targeted by Fitzgerald as a grove of aspens, then, yes, the neocons turn in clusters, all right, because their roots connect them: the neocon network in Washington is deeply rooted in the national security bureaucracy. Libby was brought to Washington in 1981 by former deputy secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, now head of the World Bank, then working at the State Department; Libby had been one of his students at Yale. During the Clinton interregnum, Libby had his hands full being Marc Rich's lawyer and writing The Apprentice. In 1989, Wolfowitz brought him back to government service, this time at the Pentagon. He became a central figure in the neoconservative Project for a New American Century, and co-authored, with Wolfowitz, a policy memo charting a post-Cold War foreign policy and defense stance positing American hegemony on every continent and broaching, for the first time, the policy of preemptive aggression that is today enshrined in the Bush Doctrine.
While Libby is a towering aspen, whose fall will make a rather loud noise, others in the same stand have already met a similar fate, and what we have here is a sort of domino effect. John Hannah, Cheney's special assistant for Middle East affairs, was fingered early on in this investigation. Last year, Richard Sale of UPI reported a rare leak from the investigators:
"'We believe that Hannah was the major player in this,' one federal law-enforcement officer said. Calls to the vice president's office were not returned, nor did Hannah and Libby return calls. The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah 'that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time' as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law-enforcement official said."
Hannah has an interesting background. In the early 1990s, he served as head of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a think tank associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). As Middle East scholar Juan Cole pointed out, Hannah was a key figure in the intelligence-manipulation effort that legitimized phony "evidence" of Iraq's WMD cooked up by the fraudster Ahmed Chalabi. Hannah, like the other aspens in the grove, turned with the rest of the cluster when it came to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East:
"The WINEP pro-Likud network, which includes Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith in the Pentagon as well as Libby and Hannah at Cheney's office, has virtually dictated Bush administration Middle East policy. Wilson's debunking of one of its central claims might well have led Cheney to fire Hannah or to disregard his opinion. The WINEP crowd takes no prisoners and is very determined, over decades, to get its way. (Josh Marshall notes that they are already trying to protect Hannah with denials he could possibly have been involved, presumably meaning that they would be willing to throw Libby to the dogs.) Wilson had to be punished, from their point of view, and if possible marginalized, to protect Hannah's position."
Hannah may have thrown Libby to the dogs, just to save his own skin. This wouldn't be any more surprising than the actions of former Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin, who will plead guilty to spying for Israel in return for leniency in sentencing – and for testifying against his handlers, Steve Rosen, who for 20 years served as AIPAC's foreign policy director, and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's top Iran specialist. Rosen and Weissman pumped Franklin for classified information and handed it over to Israeli "diplomats" stationed in Washington. The trial is scheduled for January.
While Hannah, the former director of AIPAC's think tank, was deeply involved in exposing a vitally important U.S. intelligence asset – Plame worked undercover in the CIA's WMD-nonproliferation unit – AIPAC officials Rosen and Weissman were sneaking around Washington, meeting Franklin in train stations and handing over U.S. secrets to Israeli spies. If we put Franklin's shenanigans [.pdf] with the AIPAC duo and the Israelis on a timeline, we see that this breach in our security occurred during roughly the same period as those involving the Niger uranium deception and the Plame matter:
Jan. 28, 2003 - The president utters those fateful 16 words.
Feb. 12 - Franklin met with Rosen and Weissman and revealed classified information relating to a certain "Middle Eastern country." (The Franklin-AIPAC-Mossad relationship, although first broached in 2002, only culminated in a personal meeting early in the next year.)
March 7 - Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the IAEA, announces that the Niger uranium documents are forgeries.
March 10 - The treasonous trio met again, this time outside Union Station in Washington, and then proceeded to several restaurants, changing their venue frequently to avoid detection and ending their meeting in an empty restaurant.
March 13 - Franklin met with an Israeli official, when he revealed yet more classified information about internal U.S. government deliberations concerning a certain Middle Eastern country. Throughout the month, Franklin fed his AIPAC handlers classified documents, faxing them in some instances, while Rosen and Weissman relayed the information to the Israelis, and to certain favored members of the media.
June 26 - Franklin met with Rosen and Weissman and communicated classified information on possible attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by pro-Iranian elements.
June 30 - The bonding rituals of spies: Weissman and Franklin attended a baseball game. On that day, also, Franklin was finally confronted by the FBI with his treason: the indictment states that "on or about" that date he "possessed" classified – "Top Secret and Secret" – materials in his Kearneysville, W.V., residence. Franklin was, in short, caught red-handed, and was "turned" – that is, he agreed to cooperate with the investigation and provide evidence against his AIPAC handlers.
July 6 - Wilson's New York Times op-ed piece, "What I Didn't Find In Africa," is published.
July 9 - Franklin, no doubt wearing a wire, met with Weissman, and more national defense information was turned over.
July 9 - Judith Miller discusses the Plame affair with Libby.
July 12 or 13 - Miller again discusses Plame with Libby.
July 14 - Novak outs Valerie Plame in his Sun-Times column.
July 21 - Franklin again met with Weissman, and turned over information that he said was "highly classified" concerning a foreign government's covert actions in Iraq, warning Weissman not to use it because he could "get into trouble." That same day, Weissman related the information to Rosen, and the two of them went to their Israeli bosses with the goods.
Aug. 3 - The FBI finally moved in on Franklin and Rosen, who denied everything – and continued to leak U.S. secrets to the media on at least one occasion.
Aug. 27 - The FBI interviewed Rosen again, and he still denied everything, whereupon AIPAC's chief Washington lobbyist contacted his Israeli handler and told him that he had "a very serious matter" he needed to discuss, but couldn't do it over the phone.
As the FBI reviewed Franklin's conversations with Rosen, Weissman, and the Israelis, the totality of what had happened to U.S. national security, in light of the Plame affair, had to have dawned on them. Many of the key individuals involved, in the vice president's office and the Defense Department's policy section (where Franklin worked), had intimate links with Israel, specifically the radical Likud Party policies favored by the neoconservatives. Outing Plame was only a measure of the ruthlessness of this cabal: Franklin's betrayal showed that they were not above espionage. The U.S. government, after years of tolerating a fifth column in Washington, was finally moved to crack down.
Now that our attention is focused on Libby, the real outlines of the scandal that will envelop this administration are becoming clearer by the day. Scooter-gate isn't about revenge, although that's part of it; it isn't about intra-bureaucratic infighting, although that certainly played a role; and it sure isn't about Karl Rove, as the chattering classes were convinced only a few weeks ago. It is about how a band of ruthless ideologues lied us into war – and betrayed their country in the process. It's about a criminal conspiracy finally felled by its own hubris. And, unfortunately for the defendants, it's about espionage.
Who knows how many neocons will be caught up in Fitzgerald's net? Scooter, Hannah, maybe even John Bolton – as I predicted a few months ago – and any number of smaller fry will face their moment of truth in the dock.
As I wrote last year, this is the War Party's Waterloo. So get out the popcorn and the chips-and-dip, pull up a chair, and let the show trial begin!
– Justin Raimondo
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0200934_pf.html
washingtonpost.com
Times reporter tried to cut earlier CIA leak deal
By Adam Entous
Reuters
Sunday, October 2, 2005; 7:14 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New York Times reporter Judith Miller tried a year ago to make a deal with the prosecutor investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity but the prosecutor would not agree then to limit her testimony to Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, her lawyer said on Sunday.
Some lawyers involved in the case said prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's decision to reject the deal a year ago -- only to agree last week to limit the scope of Miller's testimony to the subject of Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- suggested Libby may have become increasingly important to wrapping up Fitzgerald's case.
After spending 85 days in jail for refusing to name Libby as her source, Miller testified before the grand jury on Friday about two conversations she had with him in July 2003.
Lawyers said her testimony should clear the way for Fitzgerald later this month to conclude his 2-year-old inquiry into who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and whether anyone broke the law in doing so, lawyers say.
Fitzgerald had indicated he could wrap up his investigation once he obtained Miller's cooperation. The grand jury considering the case is scheduled to expire on October 28.
Floyd Abrams, one of Miller's lawyers, told CNN: "I tried to get a deal a year ago."
But Abrams said that when he spoke to Fitzgerald about it at the time, he would not agree to limit his questions "to assure that the only source he would effectively be asking about was Mr. Libby."
Fitzgerald's spokesman was not immediately available to comment on Abrams' account of the offer.
One lawyer involved in the case said Fitzgerald's change of mind "suggests that he doesn't think he needs to hear about anybody else" but Libby.
Fitzgerald could bring indictments in the case or he could conclude no crime was committed and end his investigation. Lawyers involved in the case said he could signal his intentions as early as this week.
In addition to Libby, Fitzgerald's investigation has ensnarled President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove. The White House had long maintained that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the leak but reporters have since named them as sources.
Plame's diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, has said the administration leaked her name, damaging her ability to work undercover, in order to get back at him for criticizing Bush's Iraq policy.
Recriminations have broken out between lawyers over why Miller had not accepted a waiver sooner. She was sent to jail on July 6 although she never wrote an article about the Plame matter.
"While Judy Miller sat in jail for 85 days and Mr. Libby knew that she was doing it to protect him, no call came in from him, no letter arrived from him," Abrams said on CNN.
Abrams said he spoke to Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, before Miller went to jail. "It is true that he said to me it's OK with him (Libby) if she testifies," Abrams said.
But he added: "It's also true that, in the same conversation, he said to me that the waiver (which Tate said gave Miller his consent for her to testify) that he had signed was by its nature coerced. How could it not be, he said. That's a waiver the government forces him to sign in order to stay on in the government. Otherwise he'd be fired."
Tate disputes Abrams' account of that conversation. In a September 16, 2005, letter, Tate said he told Miller's attorney more than a year ago that Libby's waiver of confidentiality was "voluntary and not coerced."
Tate said he believed Miller's goal in refusing to accept that waiver was to protect other sources.
Abrams said: "She has other sources and was very concerned about the possibility of having to reveal those sources or going back to jail because of them."
That appears to conflict with comments by attorney Robert Bennett, who also represents Miller in the case. Bennett said on Friday that "Judy is not protecting anybody else."
Viewed by some as a martyr for press freedom, Miller has faced criticism for some of her prewar news reports on Iraq's alleged weapons programs. Critics say those reports helped boost the administration's case that Iraq posed a threat. No weapons of mass destruction were found.
© 2005 Reuters
washingtonpost.com
Times reporter tried to cut earlier CIA leak deal
By Adam Entous
Reuters
Sunday, October 2, 2005; 7:14 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New York Times reporter Judith Miller tried a year ago to make a deal with the prosecutor investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity but the prosecutor would not agree then to limit her testimony to Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, her lawyer said on Sunday.
Some lawyers involved in the case said prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's decision to reject the deal a year ago -- only to agree last week to limit the scope of Miller's testimony to the subject of Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- suggested Libby may have become increasingly important to wrapping up Fitzgerald's case.
After spending 85 days in jail for refusing to name Libby as her source, Miller testified before the grand jury on Friday about two conversations she had with him in July 2003.
Lawyers said her testimony should clear the way for Fitzgerald later this month to conclude his 2-year-old inquiry into who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and whether anyone broke the law in doing so, lawyers say.
Fitzgerald had indicated he could wrap up his investigation once he obtained Miller's cooperation. The grand jury considering the case is scheduled to expire on October 28.
Floyd Abrams, one of Miller's lawyers, told CNN: "I tried to get a deal a year ago."
But Abrams said that when he spoke to Fitzgerald about it at the time, he would not agree to limit his questions "to assure that the only source he would effectively be asking about was Mr. Libby."
Fitzgerald's spokesman was not immediately available to comment on Abrams' account of the offer.
One lawyer involved in the case said Fitzgerald's change of mind "suggests that he doesn't think he needs to hear about anybody else" but Libby.
Fitzgerald could bring indictments in the case or he could conclude no crime was committed and end his investigation. Lawyers involved in the case said he could signal his intentions as early as this week.
In addition to Libby, Fitzgerald's investigation has ensnarled President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove. The White House had long maintained that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the leak but reporters have since named them as sources.
Plame's diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, has said the administration leaked her name, damaging her ability to work undercover, in order to get back at him for criticizing Bush's Iraq policy.
Recriminations have broken out between lawyers over why Miller had not accepted a waiver sooner. She was sent to jail on July 6 although she never wrote an article about the Plame matter.
"While Judy Miller sat in jail for 85 days and Mr. Libby knew that she was doing it to protect him, no call came in from him, no letter arrived from him," Abrams said on CNN.
Abrams said he spoke to Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, before Miller went to jail. "It is true that he said to me it's OK with him (Libby) if she testifies," Abrams said.
But he added: "It's also true that, in the same conversation, he said to me that the waiver (which Tate said gave Miller his consent for her to testify) that he had signed was by its nature coerced. How could it not be, he said. That's a waiver the government forces him to sign in order to stay on in the government. Otherwise he'd be fired."
Tate disputes Abrams' account of that conversation. In a September 16, 2005, letter, Tate said he told Miller's attorney more than a year ago that Libby's waiver of confidentiality was "voluntary and not coerced."
Tate said he believed Miller's goal in refusing to accept that waiver was to protect other sources.
Abrams said: "She has other sources and was very concerned about the possibility of having to reveal those sources or going back to jail because of them."
That appears to conflict with comments by attorney Robert Bennett, who also represents Miller in the case. Bennett said on Friday that "Judy is not protecting anybody else."
Viewed by some as a martyr for press freedom, Miller has faced criticism for some of her prewar news reports on Iraq's alleged weapons programs. Critics say those reports helped boost the administration's case that Iraq posed a threat. No weapons of mass destruction were found.
© 2005 Reuters
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1001220140
Prosecutor in Plame Case May Seek Conspiracy Charges
By E&P Staff
Published: October 02, 2005 10:20 AM ET
NEW YORK Many observers of the unfolding Plame/CIA case lament the revelations in the federal grand jury probe but suggest it may all be in vain because the level of malfeasance may not produce a specific criminal charge. But that doesn't mean serious charges--including far-ranging ones, connecting the offices of Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney--could not be brought, via the "conspiracy" route.
Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald may announce his intentions as early as this week, now that Judith Miller has testified.
Speculation is rampant in Washington this weekend, with ABC's George Stephanopolous adding fuel to the fire Sunday morning, disclosing on the "This Week" program that "a source close to this told me this week that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions" involving Valerie Plame.
In the Sunday article in The Washington Post, Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus (who has himself testified in this case), sketch out what Fitzgerald may, in fact, be up to:
"Many lawyers in the case have been skeptical that Fitzgerald has the evidence to prove a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which is the complicated crime he first set out to investigate, and which requires showing that government officials knew an operative had covert status and intentionally leaked the operative's identity.
"But a new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case.
"They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.
"Lawyers involved in the case interviewed for this report agreed to talk only if their names were not used, citing Fitzgerald's request for secrecy.
"One source briefed on Miller's account of conversations with [I. Lewis] Libby said it is doubtful her testimony would on its own lead to charges against any government officials. But, the source said, her account could establish a piece of a web of actions taken by officials that had an underlying criminal purpose.
"Conspiracy cases are viewed by criminal prosecutors as simpler to bring than more straightforward criminal charges, but also trickier to sell to juries. 'That would arguably be a close call for a prosecutor, but it could be tried,' a veteran Washington criminal attorney with longtime experience in national security cases said yesterday."
Prosecutor in Plame Case May Seek Conspiracy Charges
By E&P Staff
Published: October 02, 2005 10:20 AM ET
NEW YORK Many observers of the unfolding Plame/CIA case lament the revelations in the federal grand jury probe but suggest it may all be in vain because the level of malfeasance may not produce a specific criminal charge. But that doesn't mean serious charges--including far-ranging ones, connecting the offices of Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney--could not be brought, via the "conspiracy" route.
Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald may announce his intentions as early as this week, now that Judith Miller has testified.
Speculation is rampant in Washington this weekend, with ABC's George Stephanopolous adding fuel to the fire Sunday morning, disclosing on the "This Week" program that "a source close to this told me this week that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions" involving Valerie Plame.
In the Sunday article in The Washington Post, Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus (who has himself testified in this case), sketch out what Fitzgerald may, in fact, be up to:
"Many lawyers in the case have been skeptical that Fitzgerald has the evidence to prove a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which is the complicated crime he first set out to investigate, and which requires showing that government officials knew an operative had covert status and intentionally leaked the operative's identity.
"But a new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case.
"They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.
"Lawyers involved in the case interviewed for this report agreed to talk only if their names were not used, citing Fitzgerald's request for secrecy.
"One source briefed on Miller's account of conversations with [I. Lewis] Libby said it is doubtful her testimony would on its own lead to charges against any government officials. But, the source said, her account could establish a piece of a web of actions taken by officials that had an underlying criminal purpose.
"Conspiracy cases are viewed by criminal prosecutors as simpler to bring than more straightforward criminal charges, but also trickier to sell to juries. 'That would arguably be a close call for a prosecutor, but it could be tried,' a veteran Washington criminal attorney with longtime experience in national security cases said yesterday."
http://www.antiwar.com/eland/?articleid=7503
October 4, 2005
Time to Fire Karl Rove and 'Scooter' Libby
by Ivan Eland
With the coerced testimony of New York Times reporter Judith Miller in his pocket, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is now free to complete his probe of the Bush administration’s “outing” of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald might have difficulty proving that two government officials—Karl Rove, the president’s ruthless political operative, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff—knew of Plame’s covert designation and violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by intentionally leaking her identity. On the other hand, some analysts believe Fitzgerald will try to indict Rove and Libby on conspiracy charges, which are much easier cases to make. Only the special counsel knows the strength of his evidence, whether or not he will seek indictments, and on what charges. Because the term of the grand jury expires by the end of October, the public should know the outcome of Fitzgerald’s inquiry by then.
But President Bush has enough information now to fire both Rove and Libby. Plame was “outed” as revenge for her husband’s—Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s—campaign to debunk the president’s dubious pre-Iraq War claim that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Niger for his alleged nuclear weapons program. After the CIA sent Wilson to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the charges, he concluded there were no such purchase attempts. However, almost a year later, in his January 2003 State of the Union message, President Bush continued to insist that Hussein had tried to make the purchases. Outraged, Wilson launched a public effort to refute the administration’s sleight of hand. Once the invasion of Iraq began and the administration, in response to public and media pressure, was scrambling unsuccessfully to uncover an Iraqi nuclear program, the campaign to undermine Wilson’s findings began.
According to lawyers in the case, since Judith Miller’s grand jury testimony it has become apparent that Libby told at least two reporters that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. He testified, however, that he did not use her name or disclose that she was a covert CIA operative. Similarly, Rove testified that he talked to two reporters about Plame but insisted that he did not mention her name or her covert job at the agency. Yet both men likely knew of her covert status from a State Department report circulated to high-level administration officials on the “uranium in Niger” issue that contained a secret section with data on Plame. At a minimum, even talking to reporters about Wilson’s wife in more general terms indicates that Rove and Libby lied to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who passed on to the press their categorical denial of being involved in any part of the affair.
By their identical and clever defenses, both of these high level officials are attempting to skirt the relatively short reach of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. They slyly told reporters that Wilson’s wife worked for the agency and allowed the journalists to sniff out the rest.
Based on their cunning, Rove and Libby may avoid indictments or beat any that are thrown at them. But they shouldn’t be able to escape the president’s axe. In the isolated and abstract world of Washington, rough and tumble politics has long been regarded as just good clean fun. But this is not just a case of the White House answering its critics, as supporters of the administration contend. Political hardball can have grave real world consequences. Exposing CIA agents can get people killed. In this case, the danger is not as much to Plame, who apparently worked on weapons nonproliferation issues for the CIA, as to all of her contacts and informants in developing nations who might be killed, tortured, or imprisoned for having contact with an American CIA operative. Thus, these kinds of political antics can undermine future, constructive intelligence efforts to gain information on the dangerous proliferation of weapons of mass destruction around the world.
For an administration that accuses critics of the Iraq war of being “unpatriotic,” the cynical exposure of a U.S. covert intelligence officer by administration officials is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. Given my opposition to the war, I am reluctant to impugn anyone’s patriotism. But what Rove and Libby perpetrated was not a mere disagreement on policy. Government officials who were truly patriotic would never undermine the nation’s intelligence efforts and endanger the lives of people who take great risks to help protect this country.
The conventional wisdom is that President Bush never fires anyone. That is not true. Unfortunately, he usually fires truth tellers that stray from official White House spin—for example, Gen. Edward Shinseki, the Chief of Staff of the Army, for saying that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to occupy Iraq, and Larry Lindsey, the president’s chief economist, for his estimate that the war in Iraq would cost $200 billion. This time the president should fire some of the liars who have been loyal to the White House but disloyal to the nation.
October 4, 2005
Time to Fire Karl Rove and 'Scooter' Libby
by Ivan Eland
With the coerced testimony of New York Times reporter Judith Miller in his pocket, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is now free to complete his probe of the Bush administration’s “outing” of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald might have difficulty proving that two government officials—Karl Rove, the president’s ruthless political operative, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff—knew of Plame’s covert designation and violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by intentionally leaking her identity. On the other hand, some analysts believe Fitzgerald will try to indict Rove and Libby on conspiracy charges, which are much easier cases to make. Only the special counsel knows the strength of his evidence, whether or not he will seek indictments, and on what charges. Because the term of the grand jury expires by the end of October, the public should know the outcome of Fitzgerald’s inquiry by then.
But President Bush has enough information now to fire both Rove and Libby. Plame was “outed” as revenge for her husband’s—Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s—campaign to debunk the president’s dubious pre-Iraq War claim that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Niger for his alleged nuclear weapons program. After the CIA sent Wilson to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the charges, he concluded there were no such purchase attempts. However, almost a year later, in his January 2003 State of the Union message, President Bush continued to insist that Hussein had tried to make the purchases. Outraged, Wilson launched a public effort to refute the administration’s sleight of hand. Once the invasion of Iraq began and the administration, in response to public and media pressure, was scrambling unsuccessfully to uncover an Iraqi nuclear program, the campaign to undermine Wilson’s findings began.
According to lawyers in the case, since Judith Miller’s grand jury testimony it has become apparent that Libby told at least two reporters that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. He testified, however, that he did not use her name or disclose that she was a covert CIA operative. Similarly, Rove testified that he talked to two reporters about Plame but insisted that he did not mention her name or her covert job at the agency. Yet both men likely knew of her covert status from a State Department report circulated to high-level administration officials on the “uranium in Niger” issue that contained a secret section with data on Plame. At a minimum, even talking to reporters about Wilson’s wife in more general terms indicates that Rove and Libby lied to White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who passed on to the press their categorical denial of being involved in any part of the affair.
By their identical and clever defenses, both of these high level officials are attempting to skirt the relatively short reach of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. They slyly told reporters that Wilson’s wife worked for the agency and allowed the journalists to sniff out the rest.
Based on their cunning, Rove and Libby may avoid indictments or beat any that are thrown at them. But they shouldn’t be able to escape the president’s axe. In the isolated and abstract world of Washington, rough and tumble politics has long been regarded as just good clean fun. But this is not just a case of the White House answering its critics, as supporters of the administration contend. Political hardball can have grave real world consequences. Exposing CIA agents can get people killed. In this case, the danger is not as much to Plame, who apparently worked on weapons nonproliferation issues for the CIA, as to all of her contacts and informants in developing nations who might be killed, tortured, or imprisoned for having contact with an American CIA operative. Thus, these kinds of political antics can undermine future, constructive intelligence efforts to gain information on the dangerous proliferation of weapons of mass destruction around the world.
For an administration that accuses critics of the Iraq war of being “unpatriotic,” the cynical exposure of a U.S. covert intelligence officer by administration officials is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. Given my opposition to the war, I am reluctant to impugn anyone’s patriotism. But what Rove and Libby perpetrated was not a mere disagreement on policy. Government officials who were truly patriotic would never undermine the nation’s intelligence efforts and endanger the lives of people who take great risks to help protect this country.
The conventional wisdom is that President Bush never fires anyone. That is not true. Unfortunately, he usually fires truth tellers that stray from official White House spin—for example, Gen. Edward Shinseki, the Chief of Staff of the Army, for saying that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to occupy Iraq, and Larry Lindsey, the president’s chief economist, for his estimate that the war in Iraq would cost $200 billion. This time the president should fire some of the liars who have been loyal to the White House but disloyal to the nation.
21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak:
The cast of administration characters with known connections to the outing of an undercover CIA agent, are....
http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal
The cast of administration characters with known connections to the outing of an undercover CIA agent, are....
http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-scandal
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