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 ...
Me wonders if the delay thing is there to be the compromise piece. GJ indictment can and are often sealed for a period of time.
"I am the first post after six minutes in breaking? That's interesting."
FR is swamped right now with so much leftist BS that stuff will appear neglected in the short term. No worries. It was worse during the Clinton years. We had fewer members, more scandals, and worse scandals to look into. But it's amazing how much can still be referred back to.
FRegards....
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 not writing a story about the case.
You said:
In other words, he's giving her assurance that it won't be a fishing expedition in that he gets her sworn under oath and starts asking about a whole bunch of other things, having nothing to do with Plame.
I have maintained that Fitzgerald wants to get Miller under oath to talk about the leak of the FBI raid on the Islamic charity in northern Virginia. Fitzgerald wants to find out who fed that info to Miller. That leak could have gotten FBI agents killed. Miller stiffed Fitzgerald in a previous investigation.
Why does everybody keep referring to Valerie Plame as a "covert CIA officer"? She wasn't covert. Her husband had previously outed her as a CIA employee.
"We told her lawyers it was not coerced," Tate said. "We are surprised to learn we had anything to do with her incarceration."
...writing a tell-all book takes time, doncha know.. Although I remain convinced Rove knows how to imitate voices. I mean, did she actually talk to Scooter face-to-face? Although I remain convinced Rove knows how to change his appearance at will..
Well, here's my theory: Have you notice that the Republican leaders in BOTH houses have been put into the spotlight at a very inconvenient time -- when the fight for the next Supreme Court justice is about to take place.
I think the DemocRATs wanted to throw the two leaders off their normal track and weaken them so that the filibuster can continue. It's the LAST tactic they have left.
The Miller thing is to weaken the Whitehouse at the same time...part of the whole "culture of corruption" talking points yesterday parroted by every OLD MEDIA outlet and every LOONEY LEFTIST politician.
But will their PLANNED strategy work? Only if the Republicans don't hold together.
And now we will have to stomach Ted the Swimmer on TV feigning outrage and lecturing us on 'ethics', KKK Byrd concerned about the forgotten black poor, and Pelosi in a hyper-meth-rant about how everything that has happened in this country 'leads right to the top'...eccch.
Hey, I just had a great fundraising idea for the DNC. Line up Teddy and Schumer and Hillary! and Pelosi and charge money to throw pies in their faces. I know I'd contribute plenty.
Very good point. However, even without the agreement it would be hard for Fitzgerald to go very far given the scope of the subpoena and the quality of Miller's lawyers.
She should have been drawn and quartered for that leak. Gave the target time to remove any damaging info. In fact she stood STILL be drawn and quartered for that.
Indeed, the timing is suspicious. This is part of a media/DNC blitz to try once again to bring the President down, along with the party. We've got the Katrina media blitz, the Delay issue, the Fritz issue, Dan Rather's return, and now this. It's orchestrated.
Here is a brief timeline of key dates based on a variety of sources that I just quickly pulled together. I certainly can NOT vouch for the accuracy of the sources (especially since some of the articles themselves are based on anonymous sources). It still looks like to me that in all cases, the reporters called the WH and never the other way around. The reporters seem to have the Plame info already when they called and the general response from Libby and Rove are along the lines of ‘I heard something like that as well.’ It still is not clear who Miller’s original source is. It does not appear to be Rove or Libby.
July 6, 2003:
Joseph C. Wilson IV, the former ambassador who wrote an Op-Ed article in The Times, criticizing the Bush administration.
July 8, 2003:
Ms. Miller met with Mr. Libby on July 8, 2003, and talked with him by telephone later that week. 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 tried 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 was 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.
July 11, 2003:
Cooper calls Rove. Afterwards, Cooper wrote email to his boss that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative.
Also after call, Mr. Rove told Stephen J. Hadley, then deputy national security adviser, in the July 11, 2003, e-mail that he had spoken with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper and tried to caution him away from some assertions that CIA employee Valerie Plame's husband was making about faulty Iraq intelligence. "I didn't take the bait," Mr. Rove wrote in the message obtained by the Associated Press. In the memo, Mr. Rove recounted how Mr. Cooper tried to question him about whether President Bush had been hurt by the new accusations that Mrs. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, had been making.
July 11, 2003:
Novak’s column on Plame goes out on news wires.
July 12, 2003:
According to a source involved in the investigation, Time reporter Matthew Cooper told Libby that he had been informed by other reporters that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee. Libby, the source said, replied that he had heard the same thing, also from the press corps.
Libby had a second conversation with Miller on July 12 or July 13, the source said, in which he 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. Libby did not talk to Novak about the case, the source said.
July 14, 2003:
Novak’s column published.
OTHER INFO:
Mr. Rove, however, told the grand jury that he first learned of Mrs. Plame's CIA work from journalists, not government sources.
He [Luskin] said Mr. Rove never invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or Mr. Bush's executive privilege guaranteeing confidential advice from aides.
White House chief political strategist Karl Rove reportedly told the grand jury that he first learned of Valerie Plame's identity from columnist Robert Novak -- but Novak's version of the story is that Rove already knew about her when the two spoke. Briefly, in the early accounts of Rove's testimony (Times, WaPo) the story is that Rove had previously heard that Wilson's wife was involved in sending Wilson to Niger, but that Rove learned her *name*, i.e., her *identity*, from Novak. That hardly conflicts with Novak's claim that Rove knew the broad story previously.
...two sources say Miller spoke with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, during the key period in July 2003 that is the focus of Fitzgerald's investigation. The two sources, one who is familiar with Libby's version of events and the other with Miller's, said the previously undisclosed conversation occurred a few days before Plame's name appeared in Robert D. Novak's syndicated column on July 14, 2003. Miller and Libby discussed former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, Plame's husband, who had recently alleged that the Bush administration twisted intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, according to the source familiar with Libby's version. But, according to the source, the subject of Wilson's wife did not come up.
Sources:
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/07/matt_cooper_and.html
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050717-121150-3026r.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071700755.html
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/week30/index.html
Another possibility raised by your post; if I were a conspiracy theorist, I might consider the possibility that Miller agreed with Fitzgerald that she would spend three months in the klink as "punishment" for screwing up the FBI raid, and in return, after she serves this "sentence," Fitzgerald agrees to give her a pass as she tap dances her way past the grand jury.
As I say, I don't buy it myself but would think about it if I were a conspiracy theorist.
In any event she knows she has one perturbed prosecutor on her hands and that she'd better have her act together before sitting down in front of the grand jury.
if indeed she only agrees to talk about Libby - and her "other sources" are protected, then she won. she walks out of jail, she avoids the criminal indictment, she continues to protect the real story here (which is not the Plame name game nonsense). explain to me where I am wrong.
if that story is true, that the other sources won't have to be revealed - then she won and Fitzgerald caved with respect to getting at the real story here.
"Other sources" covers quite a bit of ground, and includes sources totally unrelated to the Plame story.
The speculation that the prosecutor has agreed to not ask questions relating to this case has a non-specific basis, at best, and is possibly based on deliberate misconstruction of an agreement. See post 147 above.
... explain to me where I am wrong.
Only in accepting media speculation and wishful thinking, without digging deeper. But as you say, IF the speculation is true, then the prosecutor has rolled over and abdicated his responsibility.
She had plenty of time to write her book.
why is Libby (and his lawyer) even taking her calls? Libby was under no obilgation to do anything additional to resolve this.
If this is true, it would all make sense, even the part about the limited questioning of Miller.
Let me put it this way. If Miller (or any non-Government employee) knew of Plames employment through an outside source, it wouldn't be illegal to disclose it. The statute states that there are only limited people that are covered under the law. It is kind of like my profession. I read medical charts everyday, and if I found out you were pregnant because I had read it in your chart, and I told someone else, it would be illegal (HIPAA Laws), but if I saw you in the grocery store, and you told me you were pregnant and told me not to tell anyone, I could tell the whole world without legal repercussions. It would be immoral for me to do so, but not illegal, because I had not gotten the information during my course of employment.
Same concept holds true in this case. If Libby tells Miller because he had seen a confidential memo claiming Plame was a covert agent, that would be illegal. But if Libby tells Miller because another reporter told him, and he has done nothing to verify the info through official sources, just repeats it as gossip, it would be stupid and immoral, but not illegal.
I could be off base, but when I saw that Fitzgerald was not requiring her to name all of her sources, this was my first guess (that he has concluded that anyone had broken any laws), he may also be going after perjury too, but that's probably it.
Good question. I don't know the answer to it, except that there is a written waiver by Libby, and it's not beyond the pale to be repetetive toward stupid "customers" who are unwilling or unable to read what they have in their hands.
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