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A new lawsuit raises the possibility of Tehran's complicity in al Qaeda's infamous attacks. Philip Shenon reports fresh details on who will testify—and the mysteries they could unlock. With the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks looming, a federal lawsuit in Manhattan offers the possibility of resolving a central mystery about the attacks: Was Iran involved? Former investigators on the 9/11 Commission, which uncovered tantalizing but inconclusive evidence of Tehran's ties to the plot, tell The Daily Beast they welcome the lawsuit, because they believe the U.S. government has done little to follow up on the commission's evidence of Iranian...

New York Times turns to Supreme Court 2 hours, 47 minutes ago The New York Times asked the Supreme Court on Friday to block the government from reviewing the phone records of two reporters in a leak investigation about a terrorism-funding probe. The case involved stories written in 2001 by Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon that revealed the government's plans to freeze the assets of two Islamic charities, the Holy Land Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation. In a 2-1 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said federal prosecutors can see the phone records of Shenon...

The investigation into Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist, took a provocative new turn when the Justice Department said that the chief prosecutor in the inquiry would step down this coming week because he had been nominated to a judgeship by President George W. Bush. The prosecutor, Noel Hillman, is chief of the department's Office of Public Integrity, and the move ends his involvement in an investigation that has reached into the administration as well as into the top ranks of the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill. Democrats swiftly questioned the move's timing, and called for a special prosecutor as Bush...

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that federal prosecutors investigating a leak about a terrorism funding probe can see the phone records of two New York Times reporters. A panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held in a 2-1 vote that prosecutors had a valid interest in seeing who had contacted the reporters. "We see no danger to a free press in so holding," Judge Ralph K. Winter wrote for the majority. The case involved stories written in 2001 by Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon that revealed that the government...

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was back in court seeking information about the New York Times' anonymous sources on Monday, this time appealing his setback in a lower court. Fitzgerald is best known for being the special prosecutor whose investigation led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Former Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail in that case last year for resisting Fitzgerald's request to reveal her sources, and the two have been pitted against each other once again in a free-speech battle over journalists' rights to keep their sources secret from...

September 20, 2005 Ex-White House Aide Charged in Corruption Case By PHILIP SHENON and ANNE E. KORNBLUT WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - A senior White House budget official who resigned abruptly last week was arrested Monday on charges of lying to investigators and obstructing a federal inquiry involving Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist who has been under scrutiny by the Justice Department for more than a year. The arrest of the official, David H. Safavian, head of procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget, was the first to result from the wide-ranging corruption investigation of Mr. Abramoff, once among...

CHOOSE A NAME FOR THIS LATEST CLINTON SCANDAL-- How about "WALLGATE" or "TREASONGATE"?

"...In April, CNSNews.com staff writer Scott Wheeler reported that a senior U.S. government official and three other sources claimed that the 1995 memo written by Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Clinton Justice Department’s deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997, created "a roadblock" to the investigation of illegal Chinese donations to the Democratic National Committee. But the picture is much bigger than that. The Gorelick memo, which blocked intelligence agents from sharing information that could have halted the September 11 hijacking plot, was only the mortar in a much larger maze of bureaucratic walls whose creation Gorelick personally oversaw..."

"...So it's my clear belief that the wall itself developed this culture which restrained in a substantial way the exchange of information in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. The Bellows report, which was part of some recommendations following the Wen Ho Lee case, indicated that it was part of the culture at the FBI that if one made a mistake and shared information that was later deemed to be inappropriate, it was called a career- ender, so that the risk of a person sharing information improperly was at least known in the culture of the law enforcement community to...

According to The New York Times (8 July 2003): "the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said today that its work was being hampered by the failure of executive branch agencies, especially the Pentagon and the Justice Department, to respond quickly to requests for documents and testimony." Several alternative media have joined the bandwagon. George W. Bush is accused of obstructing the investigation...Former Jersey governor Thomas Kean, the commission's chairman is presented as an honest and uncompromising individual, who is courageously confronting the US government: "Without greater cooperation, Kean said, ''we cannot do the job we are supposed...

"...It was a deeply rewarding experience to work with highly capable colleagues and for such distinguished and thoughtful commissioners. Our commission sessions had long and occasionally heated discussion, but it was always productive and the commissioners themselves were devoted to achieving bipartisanship and unanimity. They understood very well that their impact would be greatest if they were unanimous..."

...The former intelligence official said the first Able Danger report identified all four men as members of a "Brooklyn" cell, and was produced within two months after Mr. Atta arrived in the United States. The former intelligence official said he was among a group that briefed Mr. Zelikow and at least three other members of the Sept. 11 commission staff about Able Danger when they visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in October 2003...

Two reporters facing up to 18 months in jail for refusing to testify about their sources gained some unlikely allies yesterday. The attorneys general of 34 states and the District of Columbia filed a brief in the United States Supreme Court supporting the reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. The brief urged the court to hear the reporters' case and argued that the absence of federal protection for journalists and their sources undermined the laws of the 49 states that do offer protection.

Virginia man charged in alleged plot to assassinate Bush By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press Writer ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- A former high school valedictorian in Virginia was charged Tuesday with conspiring to assassinate President Bush and conspiracy to support the al-Qaida terrorist network. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 23, a U.S. citizen, made an initial appearance Tuesday in U.S. District Court. He claimed that he was tortured while detained in Saudi Arabia since June of 2003 and offered through his lawyer to show the judge his scars. The indictment said that in 2002 and 2003 Abu Ali and an unidentified coconspirator...

NEW YORK -- The New York Times has a First Amendment right to protect the confidentiality of its sources by denying the government phone records in certain instances, a judge ruled Thursday. Saying that secrecy in government appears to be on the rise, Judge Robert W. Sweet refused to toss out a First Amendment lawsuit the newspaper filed last year to stop the Department of Justice from getting records of phone calls between two veteran journalists and sources.

NEW YORK (AP) A federal judge ruled Thursday that The New York Times has a First Amendment privilege to protect the confidentiality of its sources by denying the government phone records in certain instances. Noting that secrecy in government appears to be on the increase, Judge Robert W. Sweet refused in a 120-page ruling to toss out a lawsuit the newspaper filed last year to stop the Department of Justice from getting records of phone calls between two veteran journalists and sources. The judge noted that the government can obtain telephone records during a grand jury investigation when the information...

The federal prosecutor who has served at least four reporters with grand jury subpoenas in his investigation into the disclosure of an undercover CIA officer's identity is now pursuing a second leak case in which he has obtained a subpoena for New York Times reporters' telephone records.

September 29, 2004 -- The Justice Department has charged that a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent warned an alleged terror-funding Islamic charity that the FBI was about to raid its office — potentially endangering the lives of federal agents. The stunning accusation was disclosed yesterday in legal papers related to a lawsuit the Times filed in Manhattan federal court. The suit seeks to block subpoenas from the Justice Department for phone records of two of its Middle Eastern reporters — Philip Shenon and Judith Miller — as part of a probe to track down the leak. The Times last...

U.S. Probes Alleged Leak on Terror Probe Friday September 10, 2004 11:16 PM By CURT ANDERSON Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal prosecutor is investigating whether two reporters for The New York Times were leaked information about a terror financing investigation that may have tipped off the targets of the probe. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago last week notified the newspaper in a letter that he intended to subpoena the telephone records of reporters Philip Shenon and Judith Miller. An attorney for The Times, Floyd Abrams, confirmed receipt of the letter and said he was negotiating with...