A federal judge on Wednesday jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to divulge her source to a grand jury investigating who in the Bush administration leaked an undercover CIA operative's name.
"There is still a realistic possibility that confinement might cause her to testify," U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan said of the showdown in a case that has seen both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney interviewed by investigators.
Miller stood up, hugged her lawyer and was escorted from the courtroom.
Earlier, Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, in an about-face, told Hogan that he would cooperate with a federal prosecutor's investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. He said he would do so now because his source gave him specific authority to do so.
"Last night I hugged my son goodbye and told him it might be a long time before I see him again," Cooper said as he took the podium to address the court.
"I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions" for not testifying, Cooper said. But he told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance, he had received "in somewhat dramatic fashion" a direct personal communication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep the source's identity secret.
As for Miller, unless she decides to talk, she will be held until the grand jury ends its work in October. The judge speculated that Miller's confinement might cause her source to give her a more specific waiver of confidentiality, as did Cooper's.
Cooper, talking to reporters afterward, called it "a sad time."
"My heart goes out to Judy. I told her as she left the court to stay strong," Cooper added. "I think this clearly points out the need for some kind of a national shield law. There is no federal shield law and that is why we find ourselves here today."
"Judy Miller made a commitment to her source and she's standing by it," New York Times executive editor Bill Keller told reporters.
Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment lawyer who represented Miller, told reporters: "Judy is an honorable woman, adhering to the highest tradition of her profession and the highest tradition of humanity."
"Judy Miller has not been accused of a crime or convicted of a crime," Abrams said. "She has been held in civil contempt of court."
The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had responded in court to Miller's refusal to name her source by saying "we can't have 50,000 journalists" each making their own decision about whether to reveal sources.
"We cannot tolerate that," he said. "We are trying to get to the bottom of whether a crime was committed and by whom."
Another Miller attorney, Robert Bennett, said earlier that prosecutors traditionally have shown great respect for journalists and "have had the good judgment not to push these cases very often."
Hogan held the reporters in civil contempt of court in October, rejecting their argument that the First Amendment shielded them from revealing their sources. Last month the Supreme Court refused to intervene.
In court documents filed Tuesday, Fitzgerald urged Hogan to take the unusual step of jailing the reporters, saying that may be the only way to get them to talk.
"Journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality - no one in America is," Fitzgerald wrote.
Fitzgerald had disclosed Tuesday that a source of Cooper and Miller had waived confidentiality, giving the reporters permission to reveal where they got their information. The prosecutor did not identify the source, nor did he specify whether the source for each reporter was the same person.
Cooper said he had been told earlier that his source had signed a general waiver of confidentiality but that he did not trust such waivers because he thought they had been gained from executive branch employees under duress. He told the court that he needed not a general waiver but a specific waiver from his source, which he did not get until Wednesday.
"I received express personal consent" from the source, Cooper told the judge.
Hogan and Fitzgerald accepted Cooper's offer.
"That would purge you of contempt," Hogan said.
Prior to the hearing, Miller argued that it is imperative for reporters to honor their commitments to provide cover to sources who will only reveal important information if they are assured anonymity. Forcing reporters to renege on the pledge undercuts their ability to do their job, she said.
Last week, Time Inc., last week provided Fitzgerald with records, notes and e-mail traffic involving Cooper, who had argued that it was therefore no longer necessary for him to testify. Time also had been found in contempt and officials there said after losing appeals it had no choice but to turn over the information.
The case is seen as a key test of press freedom and many media groups have lined up behind the reporters. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have shield laws protecting reporters from having to identify their confidential sources.
Fitzgerald is investigating who in the administration leaked Plame's identity. Her name was disclosed in a column by Robert Novak days after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, impugned part of President Bush's justification for invading Iraq.
Wilson was sent to Africa by the Bush administration to investigate an intelligence claim that Saddam Hussein may have purchased yellowcake uranium from Niger in the late 1990s for use in nuclear weapons. Wilson said he could not verify the claim and criticized the administration for manipulating the intelligence to "exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
Novak, whose column cited as sources two unidentified senior Bush administration officials, has refused to say whether he has testified before the grand jury or been subpoenaed. Novak has said he "will reveal all" after the matter is resolved and that it is wrong for the government to jail journalists.
Disclosure of an undercover intelligence officer's identity can be a federal crime if prosecutors can show the leak was intentional and the person who released that information knew of the officer's secret status.
Cooper spoke to White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove after Wilson's public criticism of Bush and before Novak's column ran, according to Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, who denies that Rove leaked Plame's identity to anyone. Cooper's story mentioning Plame's name appeared after Novak's column. Miller did some reporting, but never wrote a story.
Among the witnesses Fitzgerald's investigators have questioned besides Bush and Cheney are Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby; and former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who is now the attorney general.
Fitzgerald has said that his investigation is complete except for testimony from Cooper and Miller.
I do not understand why her source would "out" an undercover operative. I mean, honestly, it doesn't harm the government much, but it puts that individual in a sticky situation...
"I'm for it so we can put Nuclear power plants up there, and then beam the power back to earth on a laser beam." ~ Whidden
Gambling with American rights. One raises the ante; one folds and one calls the bluff.
On a warm summers evening,
on a train bound for nowhere
I met up with a gambler,
we were both too tired to sleep So we took turns at staring out the window at the darkness
The boredom overtook us and he began to speak
He said, son I've made a life out of reading people's faces And knowing what the cards were,
by the way they held their eyes
if you're gonna play the game, boy,
you gotta learn to play it right (Chorus)
You got to know when to hold 'em,
know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away and
know when to run
"I'm calling. I'll take the 120-days paid vacation." Look behind the real meaning for the injustice. Reporter Judy Miller has a set of brass b@lls to stand up to the bad Supreme Court decision. Her lawyer Bob Bennett stands behind her. "I'm out." Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper (C) and his personal council Richard Sauber (L) walk away from remarks to the press covering his appearance Cooper didn't have the guts to stand up and be a man about it. He's nothing but a sissy in his trade when the going gets rough.
Reporter Judith Miller, 57, began her career with the Times in 1977 as a reporter in the newspaper's Washington bureau. In 1983, she became the first woman to head the newspaper's Cairo bureau and three years later she was named Paris correspondent. She returned to Washington in 1988 and was named The New York Times Magazine's special correspondent in 1990.
Miller was part of a reporting team that won a Pulitzer in 2002 for its coverage of the al-Qaida network and terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Miller won an Emmy the same year for her contributions to a "Nova"-New York Times documentary about germ warfare. She earned a bachelor's degree from Barnard College and a master's from Princeton University
"See this huge pile of chips, $$$ I'm raising and betting taxpayer's money.$$$ I ain't got no college education, but only high school and I'm the brains behind Bush." YIKES! Wonder why this country goes from surplus to deficit? Bush's uber-strategist (and now, officially, the deputy White House chief of staff), was a source for Time magazine. Just remember that THIS adminstration is simply using the power of the government to strip down American Constitutional Rights. Follow the source of this leak (emails) and why the politics of the prosecutors won't ever get to the real culprit, but blame it on two peon reporters.
quote:
Whidden's Associated Press excerpt said this
The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had responded in court to Miller's refusal to name her source by saying "we can't have 50,000 journalists" each making their own decision about whether to reveal sources.
"We cannot tolerate that," he said. "We are trying to get to the bottom of whether a crime was committed and by whom."
Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. Won't happen. I'm putting my money behind reporter Judy. This special prosecutor ain't got a prayer in biting the hand that feeds the fervor. The current Supreme Court decision simply shifted MORE power to the government and eroded American Constitutional rights. The power play simply intimidates journalists from future reporting and scares off future confidential sources. So what's the truth?
Top White House adviser Karl Rove refused to answer questions about the development today… Outside the presidential rally in Morgantown, one protester made reference to the case, holding a sign that read: "Jail Karl Rove," according to a New York Times dispatch. Rove's lawyer has asserted that while he was interviewed by Cooper he was not the key source who revealed Plame's identity as a CIA agent.
Lawrence O'Donnell, the MSNBC analyst who first broke the Rove/Cooper link on Friday, wrote on the Huffington Post blog today, that Rove's lawyer had "launched what sounds like an I-did-not-inhale defense. He told Newsweek that his client 'never knowingly disclosed classified information.' Knowingly.
That McDougall lady was willing to go to jail for President Clinton, why wouldn't this one go to jail for the "brains" behind the president, Karl Rove.
Brains behind the president really isn't a compliment.
It's all about what looks good. Beauty or brains? Or are they merely pawns in the Administration's game plan of protecting the President? So what's the truth?
Whitewater figure Susan McDougal hugs her brother, Bill Henley, after she was acquitted Monday in Santa Monica, Calif., McDougal Says the case was trumped up to pressure her to testify against President Clinton.
New York Times reporter Judith Miller smiles after her and Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper's appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Washington, December 8, 2004. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by two journalists who argued that they should not have to reveal their confidential sources to a grand jury investigating the leak by government officials of a covert CIA operative's name to the news media. Without any comment or recorded dissent, the justices let stand a U.S. appeals court's ruling that New York Times correspondent Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper should be jailed and held in contempt for refusing to testify. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)
Judge Jails Times Reporter Over Source
AP - 2 hours, 12 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed Wednesday for refusing to divulge a confidential source to a grand jury investigating the Bush administration's leak of an undercover CIA operative's name. Another reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, agreed to talk and avoided jail.
She was criticized for her reporting about Saddam Hussein's alleged cache of weapons of mass destruction leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The weapons were never found, and one of her primary sources, Ahmad Chalabi, was discredited.
The Career of Reporter Judith Miller - Miller was jailed for refusing to identify her source to a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is prosecuting the case, is also seeking the telephone records of Miller and fellow Times reporter Philip Shenon in a separate investigation of a leak about a planned FBI raid on the Global Relief Foundation, an Islamic charity suspected of funding terrorism.
07-06-2005 09:16 PM
"I'm calling. I'll take the 120-days paid vacation." 
Look behind the real meaning for the injustice. Reporter Judy Miller has a set of brass b@lls to stand up to the bad Supreme Court decision. Her lawyer Bob Bennett stands behind her. 
"I'm out." Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper (C) and his personal council Richard Sauber (L) walk away from remarks to the press covering his appearance Cooper didn't have the guts to stand up and be a man about it. He's nothing but a sissy in his trade when the going gets rough. 
Reporter Judith Miller, 57, began her career with the Times in 1977 as a reporter in the newspaper's Washington bureau. In 1983, she became the first woman to head the newspaper's Cairo bureau and three years later she was named Paris correspondent. She returned to Washington in 1988 and was named The New York Times Magazine's special correspondent in 1990. 
"See this huge pile of chips, $$$ I'm raising and betting taxpayer's money.$$$ 
Whitewater figure Susan McDougal hugs her brother, Bill Henley, after she was acquitted Monday in Santa Monica, Calif., McDougal Says the case was trumped up to pressure her to testify against President Clinton. 
New York Times reporter Judith Miller smiles after her and Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper's appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Washington, December 8, 2004. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by two journalists who argued that they should not have to reveal their confidential sources to a grand jury investigating the leak by government officials of a covert CIA operative's name to the news media. Without any comment or recorded dissent, the justices let stand a U.S. appeals court's ruling that New York Times correspondent Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper should be jailed and held in contempt for refusing to testify. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters) 
