Why is Judith Miller in Jail?

[question everything]

Or, rather, what I and others wondered: if she'd never written anything about Valerie Plame, how did Fitzgerald even know that she had her own sources?

Last Friday the WSJ had a page one extensive story about this and I found the chain of events, as well as why Miller was caught, interesting:

(snip)

The chain of events that led to the controversy began with President Bush's Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address. In the speech, he said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

A year before, in February 2002, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV went to Niger to investigate whether Iraq was buying uranium ore there. He had been asked to do so by officials at the CIA, where his wife was a covert operative. He concluded that there wasn't clear evidence of uranium purchases. On July 6, 2003, about three months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Mr. Wilson wrote an opinion article for the New York Times, alleging that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs "to justify an invasion of Iraq."

Five days later, on July 11, 2003, Mr. Cooper called Mr. Rove to ask about the ex-diplomat's claims. The 42-year-old reporter had been on the White House beat for only two weeks after a stint as deputy chief of Time's Washington bureau. An amateur stand-up comedian, Mr. Cooper is the husband of Mandy Grunwald, a prominent Democratic strategist and a daughter of the late Henry Grunwald, the former editor in chief of Time Inc.

According to a first-person account Mr. Cooper published in Time magazine last week, Mr. Rove warned him, "Don't get too far out on Wilson." Mr. Rove also said that the ex-ambassador's wife, whom he didn't refer to by name, worked at the CIA on efforts to curb weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Cooper wrote.

On July 14, 2003, conservative syndicated columnist Robert Novak identified Ms. Plame in his column, which runs in the Washington Post and other newspapers. He cited "senior administration officials" as his sources.

(snip)

Mr. Fitzgerald also turned his attention to Ms. Miller. She had written for the Times about Iraqi efforts to obtain biological and other weapons. Some of these articles supported the Bush administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. In an unusual move, the Times later acknowledged that some of Ms. Miller's reporting had been too credulous.

Ms. Miller, 57, never wrote about Ms. Plame. White House phone records and Mr. Fitzgerald's questioning of government officials may have piqued his interest in her.

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB112259089033899249-6eJAQFJYZQQKUnUcZ75nGzdfauA_20060729,00.html?mod=blogs

[proud patriot]

1. Because there is a coward hiding behind her skirt

:hi:

[KBlagburn]

2. She was her own source.

Some have speculated that she was the source that leaked the info to rove and libby who in turn leaked to novak and cooper. Because she was upset at wilson for doing an op-ed against the war in her newspaper and the op-ed was basically calling her a liar since she wrote articles in support of the war.

[JackRiddler]

18. yup

This is what I'm coming around to, although until now I was very uneasy about any journalist being jailed - bad precedent! But this is what it looks like. She's not just a recipient from "the" source, she's part of the source chain itself, and participated in the attack on Wilson by exposing Plame (and thus the attack on all who served to expose the lies before the war of aggression and crimes against humanity she did as much to facilitate as any open neocon).

[Botany]

3. All hoes do some jail time ......

...... I wonder if she has found any WMDs in the big house?

[Rex]

4. Because she knows all the slimy details- got it from the horses mouth

same horse Boosh blows every night! I bet it would cause a case of sudden terminal cancer for her in jail...or she doesn't know jackshit and opened her stupid git cause mediawhores CANNOT do anything good for society.

[DefenseLawyer]

5. He knows because he subpoenaed her

to ask her about her source and she refused to testify before the grand jury. Because she had no valid legal reason to refuse she was held in contempt of court and jailed. If she had no sources she would have told the prosecutor that she had no source. At that point he either wouldn't have called her, or if he had called her she would have testified that she had no source and gone home. Being in contempt has nothing to do with whether she wrote a story or not, it is all about refusing a court order.

[question everything]

8. Yes, but how did he know to subpoena her in the first place?

There are, what, ten of thousands of journalists and hundreds who supported Bush and the war... Fitzgerald was not going to just pull names from a hat to decide whom to subpoena. He had to have some grounds and this was the first that I've read that he concluded that she had something to say based on White House phone records.

[DefenseLawyer]

12. Could be.

Maybe he just had someone call and ask her. She was a columnist for the New York Times covering the White House and international affairs, it's not as if she covers the garden and patio beat for the Kokomo Tribune. In an investigation such as that you follow all kinds of leads, maybe from phone records, maybe from another witness. I am sure someone talked to her, or tried to and she refused to give up her source, rather than saying "I don't know anything about it". It would have been at that point they would have subpoenaed her.

[Liberal_Andy]

6. For (civil) contempt of court...

she was ordered by a judge to reveal her source and refused, and so she went to jail. Call it civil disobedience if you will.

[question everything]

9. But what grounds did the judge have to decide that she had sources

as she had not written anything about Plame?

[DefenseLawyer]

14. The judge didn't decide she had sources, she did.

She was not the target of the grand jury, she was a witness. Called because the prosecutor felt she had relevant information. Obviously she did have relevant information or, rather than claiming a non-existent privilege, she would have said "I have no relevant information". If I have a case where an incident took place on a particular street, I will investigate by talking to people who live or work on that street, to see if they saw or heard anything. If I talk to a person who says yes "I saw the whole thing, but I really don't want to get involved", I would still likely subpoena that person. If when called as a witness, that person said "I don't feel I should have to answer questions about this", unless there was a recognized legal privilege for him to claim, that person could then be held in contempt of court.

[question everything]

27. That's the best explanation that I've heard or read. Thanks n/t

[Supersedeas]

28. nice work DL

[sendero]

17. I don't think..

... it has anything to do with "sources". It is simple - she was called to testify and she refused. It is about what she knows, not a source for any written words.

That's why when the "journalists" get all misty about the "sanctity of sources", I get all indignant. There are no sources involved. She is merely being asked to testify about what she knows, and she refuses.

I assume that even before a grand jury, she retains her 5th amendment rights, so that can't be it. Just what is her problem? Maybe someday we'll know.

[Just Me]

7. What part of co-conspirator in treason did you miss?

:shrug:

[question everything]

10. Perhaps you, too, are a co-conspirator and need to be hauled

in front of a grand jury

Even in these days of the "Patriot Act' - a prosecutor needs some grounds to determine that someone is a person of interest.

Novak wrote, Cooper wrote Miller never did. Even in days of "Patriot Act" - you don't have prosecutors pulling names out of thin air, or even just going after someone for the sheer of joy without due cause.

[Rex]

11. She opened her mouth to someone and said she knew something.

and now is in hot water for lieing about knowing someone (her source) OR she lied and will not fess up to it. I could see Miller trying to protect her "rep" (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) and staying in the spotlite by going to jail. Better than being remembered as THE no.#1 pathetic MSMwhore of the century!

IMO

PS - if it turns out she just overheard the story and incorporated herself into it she WILL BE the most pathetic MSMwhore to date!

[Just Me]

13. Nope. I've had the honor of being an advocate for truth, along with,..

,...all those millions of comrades.

This bitch sold truth and our security and her own integrity,...for those corporacultists who are traitors to this nation, who would sell all humanity along with "democracy" and "freedom" and all those EMPTY PROMISES for their own ambitions.

What part don't you get about that?

[question everything]

16. You need to get down from your hight horse and to try to understand

what I am asking, not what you think I am asking.

A very simple question.

1. Judith Miller never wrote anything about Valerie Plame

2. 15,234 other journalists never wrote anything about Valerie Plame

3. Of the 15,237 journalists, only Judith Miller is considered to have information of interest to the case. Why?

It is really not important what I personally think about her. Never heard of her until this thing started. But if a person is being subpoenaed by a Federal Prosecutor, I would feel better to know that, in contrast to "1984" (ever heard of this book?) that a Federal Persecutor and a judge have grounds to believe that a person of interest has an information relevant to the case.

Otherwise, each of us can be hauled before a grand jury because someone thinks that we know something.

[DefenseLawyer]

19. Hate to tell you

but there is nothing "Orwellian" about subpoena power. It's in the Constitution. Prosecutors and defendants alike have the power to have witness brought to court, even against their will, if they have relevant information about a case. Obviously they didn't pick her name out of a hat. Someone in the investigation spoke to her and determined that she had relevant information. As I have said, if she had told them she did not have relevant information that would likely have been the end of it, unless they had other sources that contradicted her. But she did not tell the she had no information, she told them she had information that she didn't think she had to tell. I don't mean to question you, but you do understand that she was called as a witness and not a target, right? Actually, if she had been a target she could have pleaded the 5th, which is a privilege that the court would have recognized.

[Just Me]

20. I don't sit on a "hight horse",...*grin* like the likes of Judy,...

and rebel against all those who shoot that "hight horse" shit,...from "above". Of course, you know that.

I wouldn't participate in defrauding our people, like Judy did,...and have no fear of being hauled before a grand jury as a result of my role in fighting for the truth!!!!

[H2O Man]

26. Judy is a criminal.

I fail to see how your believing that there are appropriate consequences for breaking the law could be viewed as placing you on a "high horse." I think people who believe they are above the law are the ones on a high horse.

I think that democrats can be "law & order" people. We can keep an open mind: I have nothing against anarchy, so long as it is orderly in nature. But we must take care not to advocate lawlessness.

[Me.]

21. Just Because She Didn't Publish Anything

doesn't mean she didn't receive the info and take notes. In fact her notes were given to the lawyers and the article was scrapped. As to any additional reasons why she might have been a person of interest and why she might have attracted attention in the first place, well there are plenty of reasons, starting with the fact that she was the conduit for WH dis-info and helped made the case for war, aluminum tubes should ring a bell, then there is her association with Chalabi, who has turned over intelligence secrets (allegedly) to Iran & Israel, and let's not forget her involvement in alerting the members of the so called "Islamic charity" to the fact that the FBI was on the way, not to mention how chummy she is with the neos in general, and the first one on their shopping list along with Novak. And then there is the simplest reason of all, someone gave her up, there are any number of people who would be happy to do so. Judy's case has nothing to do with any "1984" situation, and there has been plenty of info to make that clear. Don't forget, when Fitz went before a three judge panel, which included Judge Tatel, a very liberal judge, even he had to rule against her saying the matters presented were too grave and serious to be ignored.

Further, no one can refuse to testify before a grand jury. That is the law. And while there has been a lot of disinformation spread around about the 1st amendment , journalists do no have an absolute right to confidentiality. Her lawyer's case based on absolutism, is what lost her her appeal before the SC. Even between lawyers and clients there is no absolute privilege in certain instances regarding the commission of a crime. So when JM was ordered to testify before the grand jury she had two options, do so or be held in com tempt. This was the law before the patriot act and remains so.

JM is not the wounded party in this situation, Joe Wilson (who she loathes and despises because the column he wrote in her paper exposed her lies for what they were) and his wife V. Plame are, he was the whistleblower on a false case for war. She is the one who relayed the administration's lies to convince a trusting public to send their sons and daughters to war.

[hootinholler]

22. Because she was connected.

Try this thread to see how well she was connected.

-Hoot

[hootinholler]

23. A prosecutor doesn't need anything other than a name

To subpeona someone as a witness.

-Hoot

[UTUSN]

15. Why Not? Btw, Her Hubby's on a Cruise in the Med n/t

[warrens]

24. My opinion is

She got a call from Cheney. If it was Rove, they already have Rove by Cooper and Timmeh. So she was a link to a new source. And it wasn't Libby, because he was already nailed by two other reporters.

That's why she is in jail. She can lead right to the top and she knows her next airplane flight will blow up in midair if she talks.

[H2O Man]

25. Writing an article

is of no significance; likewise, not writing an article is of no significance. Hence, using this as a foundation doesn't enhance her position.

The conversations with White House officials are when the potential crimes occured. If the officials in question talked to six reporters, it might be six counts. Further, her conversations are believed to shed light on the methods and goals of the officials.

It would surely be cause for concern if Miller were tossed in jail in an attempt to interfere with her work as a journalist. This hasn't happened. It would also be cause for alarm were she tossed in the can without judges having reviewed her case. But numerous judges have.

She is in jail for breaking the law. This is a serious case, and her obstructing justice has earned her time in jail.