Criminal Contempt Could Lengthen Reporter's Jail Stay

[steve2470]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071502080.html

By Howard Kurtz and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 16, 2005; Page A06

Lawyers in the CIA leaks investigation are concerned that special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald may seek criminal contempt charges against New York Times reporter Judith Miller, a rare move that could significantly lengthen her time in jail.

Miller, now in her 10th day in the Alexandria jail, already faces as much as four months of incarceration for civil contempt after refusing to answer questions before a grand jury about confidential conversations she had in reporting a story in the summer of 2003. Fitzgerald and Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan have both raised the possibility in open court that Miller could be charged with criminal contempt if she continues to defy Hogan's order to cooperate in the investigation of who may have unlawfully leaked the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media.

The unusual threat in the case underscores the sensitivity of an investigation that has reached the highest levels of the White House and the prosecutor's determination to extract information from reluctant journalists even though he has yet to charge anyone with a crime. What secrets Miller can unlock for Fitzgerald -- and the reasons he has so doggedly pursued her -- have been a subject of considerable mystery.

While media coverage in recent days has focused on conversations White House senior adviser Karl Rove had with reporters, 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.

<snip>

[Gregorian]

1. Someone needs to monitor her bank account.

Anyone who lies for bush gets paid. And noone going to jail smiles like she did.

[kestrel91316]

2. Maybe Fitz could send Judy dearest to Gitmo ..............

or Abu Ghraib for a little special treatment.

[Disturbed]

4. Lou Dobbs, a hero to many said...

the leak thing is silly and he thinks that poor Judith in jail is just awful I agree with his attack against outsourcing and his other issue in that regard but he is plain wrong on this one.

[fasttense]

17. I agree with you Disturbed.

I usually agree with most (not all by far) of what Lou Dobbs has to say but he was way off on this issue. Though the guest he had on to discuss this issue was the most informed person I've heard on corporate media. Did you get his name? He was the one who leaked the leak. He said that unlike Novak, Rove, Cooper and Miller, he was trying to keep the public informed.

The thing I like about Lou is he doesn't hesitate to disagree with the administration and he disagrees loudly.

[leftchick]

19. Lou Dobbs bugs me

outsourcing is the only thing I agree with him on. He has the essence of RW shill in every other matter. He is dead wrong on judy. May she rot in jail until she sings.

[arewenotdemo]

22. Ab-so-fucking-lutely!

MediaWhore Miller deserves it solely for her role in beating the war drums!

She can rot in hell, too.

[Jane Austin]

36. Watching the split screen of Lou Dobbs and Lawrence O'Donnell

I was struck by how Dobbs has begun to look like a collectible figurine.

:)

OK, back to more serious business.

[Justice]

55. I think he looks like the campbell's tomato soup kids - the boy

[Jane Austin]

58. You're right!

(But a really OLD boy.) :)

[0007]

23. Lou Dobbs is a silly egoistical RW whore

Don't buy into his two for a nickle one for a dime crap.

[NNN0LHI]

30. Lou Dobbs: "Don't buy into his two for a nickle one for a dime crap."

The same strategy works like a charm for Rush Limbaugh on the ditto heads. Hard to imagine that Lou Dobbs who uses a slightly more refined version gets it to work on liberals. But he does.

Don

[0007]

33. It sure does work on "some" liberals, Don.

[sendero]

27. You will be hard pressed..

... to find any "journalist" that isn't upset at Miller being in jail. Even though the brighter ones can see that her situation is not as simple as "protecting a source", they don't want any precedent of this sort to be set.

I'm still waiting to read a single "journalist" that will admit that Miller is not in jail for "protecting a source" but is in jail for the well-established crime of refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigation.

[DoYouEverWonder]

41. Lou was also complaining

that this investigation has taken two years but no charges have been filed. So? How many years did they investigate Whitewater with very little to show for it in the end? At least this is a real investigation into serious crimes.

[Pystoff]

47. How about a quote then?

[Gregorian]

7. Special inmate gymnastics

Sorry. I'll get my coat.
This day is OVER...Goodnight DU!!!

[lovuian]

3. Judy Judy Judy get use to that jail cell cause your going to be

there for a LONG TIME!!!

This Woman is fooling herself if she thinks she is going to get out of this with out a felony!!!

[fearnobush]

5. Miller: "Ohh, my source is more important than national security."

"I think Judith Miller is in much graver danger than she might be otherwise, because this prosecutor seems to want to pursue every avenue with a vengeance," said Mary Cheh, a professor of criminal law at George Washington University. "I'd be very worried."

[Endangered Specie]

6. Sympathy = 0

:nopity:

[a new day]

24. Susan McDougal did some hard time for refusing to lie

How much for Judy for protecting Cheney?

[VegasWolf]

50. Sympathy < 0 . (nt)

[teryang]

8. Why is it that most WP articles require log in and this one

...is one of the small minority that don't?

[wli]

9. one of two things

I suspect they're either banking on the DLC moles for an overwhelming majority or a 9/11 part 2 (emergency powers etc.)

[High Plains]

10. Contempt for Judith Miller?

Granted, the woman has done some hideous (mis)reporting on WMDs, basically acting as a conduit for Bush's pre-war campaign.

And I assume most people here are pissed off at her because they see her as an obstacle in the attack on Rove. I like to see Rove in the hot seat as much as anybody, but what about the bigger issue of press confidentiality? Has that all gone out the window now? Do we not care about that issue when it doesn't suit our partisan interest?

I'm sure someone will respond with some version of "But this was treason!" I have several problems with that. First, she was undercover in the early '90s, I understand, and outed a decade later. No one has provided any evidence that Plame's being outed actually harmed anyone. Second, that law forbidding the naming of spooks is a shitty law, anyway. It was a hysterical reaction to the killing of a CIA guy in Athens in the late '70s, Richard Welch, and was aimed at a renegade spook, Phil Agee, who had named names--but Welch's wasn't one of them. Third, with the CIA's sorry history, we're better off knowing exactly who those guys are.

Anyway, sure, let's get Rove. I couldn't be happier. But I think all this sanctimonious talk about "treason," the contempt displayed for Judith Miller, and the complete disregard of the issue of protecting the press are just political gamesmanship, and a bit over the top.

[Richard Steele]

11. Your "issues" seem to come from RW Talking-Points. You should read more...

...and get your "facts" straight.

And as far as your statement:
"Second, that law forbidding the naming of spooks is a shitty law, anyway."

I can only ask "WTH?????"

Enjoy your stay here at DU.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bornskeptic]

13. It's important to distinguish

between the CIA's role in gathering intelligence and its role in executing covert operations. The former, in which Valerie Plame was involved, is accepted by most of us as necessary for national security. On the other hand, the history of CIA covert operations, including assassination, fomenting coups, and tampering with elections, is appalling.
As far as the damage done by the leak of Plame's name, this article summarizes it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40012-2003Oct3?language=printer

[IndianaGreen]

14. Miller is probably the reporter that outed Plame

There have been several accounts that some members of the press were bringing up that Plame was CIA in their conversations with Bush Administration officials, at least that's Rove's latest version of events.

Judith Miller is not a journalist, she is a propaganda hack for the neocons in America and in Israel. May she rot in jail!

[pinkpops]

26. Something like that but Miller had to get it from someone in

government, did she not?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

28. Unless, of course, she IS someone in government.

:shrug:

[NeoConsSuck]

31. Exactly..

She shouldn't sit in jail. She should be dragged through the streets of Fallujah. From my favorite website:

In her capacity as a Middle East and WMD “expert,” Miller has functioned as a conduit for stories originating in US military and intelligence agencies, particularly those elements promoting the war against Iraq. In her recent reporting from occupied Iraq, this relationship has grown even more incestuous.

Citing multiple military sources, the Post’s Kurtz describes Miller’s “hijacking” of a US Army unit assigned to search for weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. According to Kurtz’s account, Miller played a key role in turning the unit—Mobile Exploitation Team (MET) Alpha—into what army officials characterized as a “rogue operation.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jun2003/mill-j27.shtml

[IndianaGreen]

39. I am certain that Miller's source was Cheney or Scooter Libby

and Scooter wouldn't know about Plame unless Cheney told him.

[mirandapriestly]

45. ooh, now that is a tantalizing thought... nt

[Carolab]

52. Bingo. Been saying this all along. Miller is protecting Dick. n/t

[me b zola]

16. How about this:

Judy Miller has deep ties/connections with Chalibi that go beyond helping to sell this illegal war. It seems as though the poor dear Judy was involved in interupting a federal investigation of a charity that was linked to raising money for terrorists, she tipped off Chalibi and the investigation was ruined.

Our concern & research goes much deeper than *just* rove, and the implication that anyone here would want to burn an innocent just for political gain is insulting and reflects the behavior of rethuglicans, not the good people here.

[fasttense]

18. As the minority judge in the case said.

There are some issues that are more important than shield laws. He felt that this was very serious and opined that there did exist a federal shield law. Now he has heard the evidence, he has seen all the information, he was the minority voice in this and yet he still felt outing this agent was a very serious and dangerous Security risk to the US.

[Mairead]

21. "what about the bigger issue of press confidentiality?"

Shouldn't we be looking more deeply, tho? Is there really an issue of confidentiality if a journo is being used -in Miller's case, perhaps with her tacit consent- to spread administration dezinformatsiya or inflict punishment?

Surely the purpose of press confidentiality is to protect our interests, public interests, from abuse by the powerful, not to protect powerful abusers from us, isn't it?

(I thought Greg Palast's take on it seemed sensible. Have you seen it? Here's an excerpt:

The only thing more evil, small-minded and treacherous than the Bush Administration's jailing Judith Miller for a crime the Bush Administration committed, is Judith Miller covering up her Bush Administration "source."

Judy, Karl Rove ain't no "source." A confidential source -- and I've worked with many -- is an insider ready to put himself on the line to blow the whistle on an official lie or hidden danger. I would protect a source's name with my life and fortune as would any journalist who's not a craven jerk (the Managing Editor of Time Magazine comes to mind).

But the weasel who whispered "Valerie Plame" in Miller's ear was no source. Whether it was Karl Rove or some other Rove-tron inside the Bush regime (and no one outside Bush's band would have had this information), this was an official using his official info to commit a crime for the sole purpose of punishing a REAL whistleblower, Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, for questioning our President's mythological premise for war in Iraq.

New York Times reporter Miller and her paper would rather she go to prison for four months than identify their "source." Why?

Part of her oddball defense is that The Times never ran the story about Wilson's wife. They get no points for that. The Times SHOULD have run the story with the headline: BUSH OPERATIVE COMMITS FELONY TO PUNISH WHISTLEBLOWER. The lead paragraph should have been, "Today, Mr. K--- R--- attempted to plant sensitive intelligence information on The New York Times, a felony offense, in an attempt to harm former Ambassador Joseph Wilson who challenged the President's claim regarding Iraq's nuclear program."

A Karl Rove or Rove-like creature peddling a back-door smear doesn't make him a source. Miller's real crime is not concealing a source, but burying the story. A reporter should never, ever give notes to a grand jury, but this information is something The Times owes the PUBLIC, not the prosecutors.

) (more at his site)

[seemslikeadream]

25. This isn't even about KKKarl Rove, there's bigger fish to fry

http://www.cursor.org.nyud.net:8090/images/iheartchalabi.jpg
AMERICAN JUDAS -THE SELLING OF THE SECURITY OF AMERICAN & THE WORLD FOR 30 PIECES OF SILVER = Part 1

By Robert Paulsen & the DU Plame Think-Tank



http://wherearetheweapons.blogspot.com/2004/08/american-judas-selling-of-security-of.html

[Jane Austin]

38. Catch up on the current reports on Miller.

Looks like she may be a real player in this plot, and not just a reporter.
'
I think she may be protecting no one but herself.

Read some of last night's and today's reports on her role in this.

[stickdog]

40. So you think it's great to out covert CIA agents with impunity by asking

for confidentiality and then planting the information for publication?

Great. Whatever. But you'll have to change a lot to current laws and overturn a lot of legal precendents to get there.

As our laws currently stand, Rove's seemingly a felon and Miller's clearly in contempt.

[alfredo]

48. Richard Welch was an old spook, well past his prime. He was

nearing retirement. He was compromised, he was expendable. Politically he was worth more dead than alive. My old spook buddies believe he was liquidated. I can't say one way or the other.


BTW, who is the coward in the White House that is letting Judith Miller rot in jail?


A couple other things, Miller was Chalabi's mouthpiece. She also warned some Muslim "charities" about upcoming raids. Who told her of the raids? She's also under investigation for that.

[bettyellen]

54. shitty law?

:rotfl:
who gives a damn, they broke it, they bought it. LOL.

[bunny planet]

57. This is not just about 'getting' Rove although that would be icing on the

cake. This is about lying to the American people about the reasons for the war in Iraq, fixing the facts to fit the policy of pre-emption, clobbering anyone who dared defy their trumped up story for invasion, and it is ultimately about the lives of almost 1800 of our young men and women who died unnecessarily because of this administration's lies and deceits.

As far as Plame goes, she was actively undercover at the time of her outing, and not only that, just in case outing her did not expose enough of her colleagues working undercover to danger, her cover company Brewster Jennings was also exposed in a second Novak article a couple of months later. What was the purpose of that do you think?

Treason is treason, there is nothing 'sanctimonious' about being upset about treason. Perhaps if you had a loved one in Iraq and had been lied to about the reasons for his being there you wouldn't think this case was so 'over the top'.

[bluestateguy]

15. She is being given another chance to obey the law

and if she chooses not to do so, then she will be asked again to comply with the court's ruling and fess up her source.

Court rulings are to be obeyed, not challenged and defied.

[depakid]

20. Perhaps some editors or maybe owners

of the NY Times ought to get a little vacation alongside her....

A little accountability might do the case (and the paper) good.

[liberaliraqvet26]

29. let her neocon ass rot...

i have no sympathy for her, she has blood on her hands. the troops in baghdad have it much worse than judy in club fed and she helped put them there.

[Carni]

32. Remember the rash of "paid" by the bush admin reporters?

Was Miller one of them?

Given the fact that she was the main mouthpiece for WMD's via that fraud Chalabi (at the time the darling of the bush admin)
I have to wonder if she wasn't yet another *reporter* also on the white house payroll.

It's not out of the realm of possibility that she could have been paid "consulting fees" given her so called vast knowledge of WMD.
(ie the bushites were paying her to lie and spout shit about WMD)

Additionally after the invasion took place and Miller was
"embedded" her instructions were trumping that of Colonels in the field (there were several articles about how she was threatening military officials when they didn't follow her instructions)

The fact that Fitzgerald saw fit to send her ass to prison makes me think there are other things at stake here other than "protecting one's source" If Miller was on the WH payroll that IMO would negate any protections afforded to a "real" journalist.

I would imagine if this sacndal is as large as I know it is that some of the info would damage the state of national security in this country.

Protection of a reporters source is important but the person has to be a real journalist to be afforded that right--not some paid shill.

[sabra]

34. Miller Could Face Longer Time In Jail As Probe Deepens

<<SNIP>>
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000980337

Miller Could Face Longer Time In Jail As Probe Deepens

By E&P Staff

NEW YORK Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald may seek criminal contempt charges against New York Times reporter Judith Miller, which could significantly lengthen her time in jail, Howard Kurtz and Carol Leonnig report in today's Washington Post.

They also reveal that, according to two sources, Miller spoke with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, during the period in July 2003 just before Robert Novak's fateful column appeared.

"Fitzgerald and Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan have both raised the possibility in open court that Miller could be charged with criminal contempt if she continues to defy Hogan's order to cooperate in the investigation of who may have unlawfully leaked the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media," the Post observes.

"The unusual threat in the case underscores the sensitivity of an investigation that has reached the highest levels of the White House and the prosecutor's determination to extract information from reluctant journalists even though he has yet to charge anyone with a crime. What secrets Miller can unlock for Fitzgerald -- and the reasons he has so doggedly pursued her -- have been a subject of considerable mystery."

<</SNIP>>

[leveymg]

35. Read carefully: Cheney is the focus of Fitzgerald's investigation

"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."

Looks like Miller was a source to Rove about Plame. Miller's source was in the Vice President's office.

The Rove-Cooper show is a warm-up act. Main show coming up.:7

[Barrett808]

46. From your lips to God's ears n/t

[alfredo]

37. I'm going to recommend this one

I think she is not covering a source, she is covering he complicity in a crime.

[Disturbed]

42. What crime, if any , would she have comitted if she..

got V. Plame's name for Libby and called Novak and told him about it?

[alfredo]

49. conspiracy.

[goforit]

43. Does Miller know that being a witness of the *cabal positions her as

already knowing too much and that that alone is the reason
this cabal may chose to see her as an unnecessary liability?


So .....my advice to her....she has lost and will loose
even more when she gets out, cause Bush doesn't like collateral
damage lingering about.

[goforit]

44. The Washington Post is making the NYT look like junk mail!!

[Carolab]

53. But what about that shitty poll about Kerry next to the story?

WTF?

[raysr]

51. I hope that

"C" rots

[leesa]

56. OK with me, war criminals belong in jail.