Posted on 02/15/2005 7:35:47 AM PST by KidGlock
Edited on 02/15/2005 8:17:37 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling against two reporters who could go to jail for refusing to divulge their sources to investigators probing the leak of an undercover CIA officer's name to the media.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with prosecutors in their attempt to compel Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller to testify before a federal grand jury about their confidential sources. "We agree with the District Court that there is no First Amendment privilege protecting the information sought," Judge David B. Sentelle said in the ruling, which was unanimous.
In October, Judge Thomas F. Hogan held the reporters in contempt, rejecting their argument that the First Amendment shielded them from revealing their sources. Both reporters face up to 18 months in jail if they continue to refuse to cooperate.
The special prosecutor in the case, Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, is investigating whether a crime was committed when someone leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Her name was published in a 2003 column by Robert Novak, who cited two senior Bush administration officials as his sources.
The column appeared after Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote a newspaper opinion piece criticizing President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. The CIA had asked Wilson to check out the uranium claim. Wilson has said he believes his wife's name was leaked as retaliation for his critical comments. 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.
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On the Net:
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Circuit:
http://www.cadc.uscourts.govinternetinternet.nsf
I believe that is the key to this story: that this is not simply a "leak of the Plame name" investigation, but rather involves the whole bloody operation of the Old Media Fraudcasters when it comes to their revealing high secrets on the United States.
Apparently .. though we are not sure of what he said .. but he did work out some kind of deal
Whoever the sources are for these reporters, it is NOT someone who supports the Bush administration and Fleischer does.
Novak's sources, I'm inclined to think, honestly were just telling him the facts: The reason Wilson was sent was because his wife recommended him.
I believe that is different than any sources that would be spinning the Wilson version of his story to sympathetic reporters.
I don't think Fleischer would be chatting up the likes of Matt Cooper, for example.
Meant to ping you to my #74 referring back to link found at #61.
I posted too fast and now that I mull over your Fleischer possibility, I do concede it is possible Miller spoke with him about the administration's stance on the Niger/yellowcake issue. Fleischer was in Africa during the dates specified on the Miller subpoena, correct? I would think phone records would already demonstrate any converations that took place and the question is one of content.
I'll keep an open mind but it doesn't seem likely to me at this point.
In their statement, NBC officials said Russert agreed to the interview after first resisting on First Amendment grounds. NBC lawyers reached an accommodation with the prosecutor in which Russert "was not required to appear before the grand jury and was not asked questions that would have required him to disclose information provided to him in confidence."
Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler agreed to a similar interview with Fitzgerald's office earlier this summer. In both Kessler's case and Russert's, prosecutors' questions concerned conversations the reporters had in early July 2003 with Lewis I. "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney. Both reporters have said they told Fitzgerald's staff that Libby did not disclose the identity of the CIA employee, Valerie Plame, to them.
~snip~
Paging Mr. Novak.
heh.....yeah.
Perhaps the statement should have been, "I don't trust the media but I trust the gubermint even less".
He's next!
My guess he's been there, done that and didn't fight it.
Could be.
I figure his sources for his story are not the focus of this investigation. I further figure that, yes, he cooperated with the grand jury and did tell them who his sources were.
It has to be a Clintonista.
Are you still keeping up with this one? I think it might yet get interesting, in a "MSM leaking information about a CIA operative to attempt to setup President Bush" way.
Thanks Cyn .. I didn't remember that part about Libby
I must admit it had kind of fallen off my radar- but nearly everything seems to be an attempt to damage the Bush administration!
I am very interested in this case, and will follow the story with great interest.
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