Posted on 09/29/2005 5:49:33 PM PDT by blogblogginaway
WASHINGTON -- After nearly three months behind bars, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released from a federal prison Thursday after agreeing to testify in the investigation into the disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA officer, two people familiar with the case said.
Miller left the federal detention center in Alexandria, Va., after reaching an agreement with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Legal sources said she would appear before a grand jury investigating the case Friday morning. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury proceedings.
The sources said Miller agreed to testify after securing an unconditional release from Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to testify about any discussions they had involving CIA officer Valerie Plame.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Thanks.
I thought she got that a year ago?
Well, well, well...
Paging FOX News. You kinda left something out, guys.
Statements by Sulzberger, Keller, and Miller on Her Release
Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., Publisher:
As we have throughout this ordeal, we continue to support Judy Miller in the decision she has made. Judy has been unwavering in her commitment to protect the confidentiality of her source. 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. We continue to believe that a strong Federal Shield Law must be passed by Congress, so that similar injustices, which the laws of both New York and Washington, D.C. already prevent, are not suffered by other journalists.
Judith Miller:
It's good to be free.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 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.
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. My attorneys have also reached agreement with the Office of Special Counsel regarding the nature and scope of my testimony, which satisfies my obligation as a reporter to keep faith with my sources.
This enables me to appear before the Grand Jury tomorrow. I'll say nothing more until after my testimony. I do, however, want to thank The New York Times, and my husband, family and friends, for their unwavering support. I am also grateful to the many fellow journalists and citizens from the United States and around the world, who stood with me in fighting for the cause of the free flow of information. It was a source of strength through a difficult three months to know they understood what I did was to affirm one of my profession's highest principles.
Bill Keller, Executive Editor:
It's an enormous relief that Judy's ordeal is over. Her steadfastness in defense of principle has won her admiration from around the world, wherever people value a free, aggressive press.Judy refused to testify in this case because she gave her professional word that she would keep her interview with her source confidential. At the outset, she had only a generic waiver of this obligation, 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.
Her friends and colleagues are delighted she's free, and -- if there is satisfaction in what she has endured -- I am satisfied that she has held fast to a principle that matters deeply.
In other words, the New York Times spin monkeys are saying that if Miller hadn't agreed to testify today, she would have been indicted for Criminal Contempt on Monday and would be spending another 6 months in jail at a minimum until her trial.
I thought she got that a year ago?
Her claim is that he has now personally spoken to her. She knows he was not coerced.
What it really means is that she and Libby have had time to work up a suitable set of lies and that her hope that media pressure would lead to her release has at last failed. This latest lie will let Libby claim, not too plausibly, that he had no fear of her testimony and couldn't understand why she wouldn't testify, since he had already given her the OK.
There will be some nail-biting going on. I bet Miller doesn't know exactly what conversations of hers or Libby's may have been recorded by the FBI.
They are certainly spinning that angle, but is pure speculation.
One lawyer involved in the case told the Washington Post today that Miller's attorneys reached an agreement with Fitzgerald that may confine prosecutors' questions to her chats with Libby. Under one scenario, Miller won the right to not implicate others she may have talked to about Plame. [yeah, the imaginary scenario where there is no other source] ...I haven't found a direct cite for the proposition that Judith Miller was advised that criminal contempt indictment was forthcoming, but it makes sense.In a written statement today, Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said that Fitzgerald had assured Miller's lawyer that "he intended to limit his grand jury interrogation so that it would not implicate other sources of hers." He said that Fitzgerald had cleared the way to an agreement by assuring Miller and her source that he would not regard a conversation between the two about a possible waiver as an obstruction of justice. [Bill Keller deliberatly mischaracterizes the promise not to pursue obstruction charges].
Her rationale and timing for realizing Libby's waiver of confidentiality was voluntary is laughable. Miller didn't accept a telephone confirmation (from Libby) ten days ago - but she waited ten days, until "... after she and her lawyers met at the jail with Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the case, to discuss her testimony".
Better now than later.
&&
I don't know. Something stinks to me. What is going to hit it big within the next few days that the Left is trying to drown out with this story?
So much for her high-minded adherence to journalistic standards.
Sounds like Karl Rove come out clean.
- Next nomination to the SCOTUS
- Corruption charges v. Louisiana officials
- That the indictment against DeLay is probably baseless
But seriously, I think the best explanation is that Miller realized the federal law keeping her in jail has teeth.
All right, I concede the point.
This might have arisen, for example, if for some reason she told another journalist something different about what she and Libby discussed than what they really discussed.
That doesn't make a lot of sense; a contradictory statement out of court is not nearly enough to support a perjury charge.
"What is going to hit it big within the next few days..."
The Left is too stupid to coordinate ahd have anything 'hit it big'. Seriously, over the last five years, the only things that they have come up with have blown up right back in their faces. Just like those terrorists that accidently blow themselves up while putting together their bombs.
"In written statements", they made no reference to the source, blah blah blah. Maybe the problem is in this reporter's story.
Think about it. All this says is that in their written statements they made no reference. It doesn't say that there's no spoken reference to it or that it isn't all over the media.
The real key is the assertion that the Prosecutor assured her of narrow Grand Jury questions, so she would not have to reveal her "other sources". That is the key thing that indicates there are others involved who have not given waivers. Like, we speculate, Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, Miller herself, etc.? By the way, we don't know if the Prosecutor caved because he could have other ways to get at the truth here.
Of course we want Wilson and the conspiracy to "get theirs". But if this thing ends without Rove or other high admin. officials being indicted for anything, and there is a report not too unfavorable to them, then the Dems and Media have fired off a bunch of BLANKS.
It would be a wash, in the public mind, whereas the Dems wanted it to destroy an administration.
Really????????????????????
That ground was pretty well covered in July, except for confirmation from the prosecutor (which has not yet come).
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1444667/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1442288/posts
Well you're right, if she tells the truth to the grand jury, i.e., "yes, I lied about our conversation to other journalists, the truth of the matter is that our conversation is exactly as Libby testified" then there is no basis for a perjury charge against anyone.
The downside to her and the NYT of her telling the truth in my scenario is that it that it will come to light that a NYT reporter tried through her statements to other reporters to essentially "frame" a republication political operative with the charge of leaking a CIA officer's identity, a crime. Would ruin her career, and another giant scandal for the NYT, just as bad as Jayson Blair, IMO.
Just speculation of course.
Now that makes senses
That's my (speculative) story and I'm sticking to it until something better comes along.
#####
Ditto!
Your line of who told who what is the most logical of all. Whether we will ever know it for fact or not is up to the skill and power of Fitzgerald.
This is no coincidence. Dems are looking for a "trifecta" here (DeLay, Frist, Rove). This is a full-court press, meant to blitz the media with more "bad" news for Republicans.
*******
This week's dem talking point ---
"culture of corruption" in the Republican Party
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