Posted on 09/29/2005 4:29:05 PM PDT by grjr21
WASHINGTON - Judith Miller, The New York Times reporter who has been jailed since July 6 for refusing to identify a source, has been released, The Inquirer has learned.
Miller left an Alexandria, Va. jail late this afternoon, a jail official said.
She was released after she had a telephone conversation with the Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, sources said. In that conversation, Libby reaffirmed that he had released Miller from a promise of confidentiality more than a year ago, sources said.
The special prosecutor in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has sought to compel Miller to reveal her source to a grand jury investigating whether Bush administration officials leaked the name of a CIA covert officer, Valerie Plame.
A 1982 federal law makes it a crime to disclose the name of American covert agents.
Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, has said he believes his wife's name was leaked as part of an effort to discredit his criticsm of the Administration's build up to the war in Iraq.
Columnist Robert Novak's July 2003 column sparked the controversy by naming Plame as a CIA operative who worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues.
Prosecutors have interviewed President Bush and Cheney and the federal grand jury has taken testimony from senior Bush aides, including advisors Karl Rove and Libby.
In July, a federal judge ordered Miller jailed for refusing to testify about her sources before the grand jury. Miller never wrote an article about Plame.
It could not be immediately determined whether Miller has now agreed to testify.
The judge also threatened to jail Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper, but Cooper was spared incarceration after agreeing to testify at the last minute, saying Rove had given him a personal release to identify him as a source.
A spokesman for Fitzgerald did not immediately return phone calls.
Libby's lawyer, Joseph A. Tate of Philadelphia, declined to comment.
Since July, Miller had been held in suburban Virginia at the Alexandria Detention Center. According to The Washington Post, her visitors included former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, U.N. ambassador John R. Bolton and former senator Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.).
Anyone have any idea of what this means ?
Let me guess: Libby was her source.
She was released from the confidentiality agreement and the prosecutors had already interviewed Libby. To me it sounds like nothing new, other than Miller trying to make this an Amendment issue when no protection is granted.
Will she get her own Apprentice show?
Probably a repeat of the Matt Cooper thing -- she is now 'able' to testify.
It means Miller could have testified since Libby waived confidentiality, but she decided to go to jail instead.
I would expect it means the case has come to an end, and we should be hearing from the special prosecutor soon; perhaps as early as tomorrow???
Never could stand Miller.
No Apprentice show, but she'll get lots of phony "freedom awards", and will command a modest five-figure speaking fee going forward.
Ms. Miller appears to not be that bright.
>>>Anyone have any idea of what this means ?
Sure. A dumb.ass wasted all that time in the can for nothing... :)
The case has come to an end. Unless there is a reason to reconvene a grand jury yet another time.
...and that people have quit paying attention to this whole hoopla which meant that if she didn't find a way out of this she was going to sit there for a really, really long time for no reason.
Strange goings on...
I'm glad she's out. She's a good reporter.
To me, it means she had the release all along, and decided to grandstand to appear the victim in defense of the first A.
It means nothing. It is a red herring, a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention.
She's not that dumb to have sat in jail for nothing.
So, what's the point of going to jail? Wanted to reaffirm her relationship to Big Molly? Thought the time off from work would be nice? Or was it just the cuisine?
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