Why no "Get Out of Jail Free" card for Judy Miller?

[bleever]

Matt Cooper got a phone call at the last minute from Rove, releasing him from his pledge of confidentiality. He turned over his notes, and he testified to the grand jury.

So...why is Judy in the slammer? Karl didn't have another dime to make a second call?

Something else is going on that we haven't touched on yet, I think. Judy's got something else. Either about Rove, or about someone else. It stands to reason that if it is someone else, it's someone higher on the food chain than Karl.

My guess is that Judy's got the goods on Cheney, either directly or through people from the V.P.'s office.


Any thoughts?

[JohnnyBoots]

1. I agree and think that she is scared shitless at the thought of

bringing down Cheney and the repercussions that may ensue.

[Jersey Devil]

42. disagree & think she is covering for the Administration

She is, after all, someone who wrote a story chock full of bullshit about Saddam supposedly trying to buy yellowcake, sucking up to the official line of the Administration. She only has to serve until October when the grand jury expires to become a right wing heroine.

[JohnnyBoots]

47. Just until October, that's no good. I see your point.

[MO_Dem]

2. Could it be

that they hate the NY Times so much that this is one way of hurting them? You know how those repigs hate the "librul" press.

[bleever]

5. But Judy carried all that water for them in the ramp-up to war.

Shameless echoing of the falsehoods being peddled by the White House that gave their WMD claims gravity they wouldn't have had otherwise.

And Judy's lawyer could be claiming that her testimony was irrelevant and redundant.

Still not making sense.


Hmmm...

[txindy]

12. How about this, then?

Miller isn't being asked to testify about who told her about Plame. She's being asked to testify about everything else she knows - which, I would imagine, is an awful lot about her good pal Chalabi and the WH. Her knowledge could go a long way towards filling in the gaps of who knew what when and what they chose to do with that information. Like, oh, say, put false statements in the State of the Union address.

[bleever]

17. Yes: that would fit in with the rumors that Fitzgerald has looked at

the forging of the Niger documents (integral to this case, in a sense) and that this whole thing is one ball of yarn, and that having pulled one thread one can't stop without unearthing all sorts of buried levels of mendacity that go to the heart of the entire Iraq war plot.

And still, the wind whispers: "Cheney, Cheney..."


:evilgrin:

[txindy]

20. I think that whispering wind is right

I think Bolton is up to his neck in this, but that it all originates with Cheney. Junior, of course, went along because it's what he does.

[bleever]

24. Junior goes along, jumping in front and claiming the leader's role.

Remember this gem?

[txindy]

27. Yet another of the reasons that Poppy has 'adopted' his new son

Bill Clinton. :rofl: What a slap in the face to his eldest!

[calimary]

37. Oh. My. God. I never saw that one. What a DISGRACE!!!!!!!!!

I mean, REALLY, people!!! Is this not something that some of us did back in PRE-SCHOOL?!?!?!?!?!?!? After which, we were taught things like manners and politeness and consideration and courtesy and waiting our turn?

MAN! bush always struck me, behavior-wise, as a classic case of arrested development - stunted growth at maybe age five or so. Holy Crap, if this doesn't prove it...

What a complete disgrace we have in OUR White House. What a disgraceful, selfish, arrogant, petty, me-first ASS. How ANYONE can support this "man" is beyond my comprehension.

[Imagevision]

32. Where is Cheney, he shouldn't allow the statement of the throe's of

war are over etc.to go into hiding -- If Rove is involved you know darn well that Cheney knew and allowed the chimp to be prepped when a comment was necessary to be made.

[MO_Dem]

15. Yes, it still doesn't make sense

I'm just not smart enough to figure out anything deeper than the right wing's hate for the "librul" media. I'm sure there is at least a few repigs gloating that a NYT reporter is in jail. You are right that there is something really big going on here. I can't hardly wait for the grand jury testimony to be made public ("surely they will do so, since Bill Clinton's testimony was later televised", I ask facetiously.)

[sendero]

13. Ah...

.. but this is working against them. Why have the press corp suddenly grown a pair? Because one of their own is in jail for what the administration did wrong and fellow journalists are PISSED.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[ewagner]

3. The first assumption

Something else is going on that we haven't touched on yet, I think

is something I also suspect and I think you're right.

The problem is that there is no basis other than pure speculation as to it being somebody higher up the food chain.....in a sense, that's what's so intriguing about the case. There is an element of uncertainty in it about a mile wide. We don't have even any hints as to who Judith Miller might be protecting...we have taken off on the KKKarl Rove angle because there is a lot of information about him but remember that there were TWO "SENIOR WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS who talked to Novak....we don't even have a hint at who that second person could be.

[sandnsea]

7. Scooter Libby

It was reported almost a year ago to the day, when Matt Cooper was facing jail until Libby told him to testify. Libby, communicated on WMD with Rumsfeld's OSP, and State too I think.

[calimary]

38. And if scooter-boy is in there, that leads directly to dick.

I think the speculation earlier here in this thread about how she's got the goods on cheney and is terrified of what will be done to her, or to her family, if she talks - could be it. I mean, we have a proven track record of what these "people" are capable of when they think they're crossed, or that you're beating them. I think it's post #1 by JohnnyBoots.

[bleever]

9. Who's on the short list for the coveted second spot?

Senior White House officials...

Ari Fleischer?

Scooter Libbey?

Andy Card?

Scott McClellan?

Uncle Dick himself?

Have I missed anyone? And either way, doesn't any candidate end up very likely implicated either Cheney or the chimp himself?

[txindy]

14. I'm not certain about whether he was an actual source for journalists, but

my money for the identity of the original source of the classified information is John Bolton. And that 'Plame' is one of the names on the list of research requests for classfied info. that Bolton made - the list the WH refuses to turn over to the Senate.

[bleever]

23. Don't forget Bolton! :)

Absolutely. The NSA interecepts he illicitly sought.

Also part of this script: a series of conversations in Air Force One, somewhere on the way to and from Africa.

Did Powell get up to stretch his legs and come back to find Karl reading his files? Why would Karl know, ever, about a covert CIA operative? It's not in his portfolio, as they would say.

[txindy]

26. KKKarl channels J. Edgar Hoover

In, oh, so many ways! In this case, though, I think he's been collecting information on anyone and everyone. I don't know if he found out about Plame before or after Wilson went to Niger, but he used that info. as soon as he could.

Powell did claim that he was cut out of a lot of meetings and policy decisions. Did Bolton cut him out? Did Bolton intercept info. that was meant for Powell? Did someone read Powell's papers while he wasn't looking? I wouldn't doubt that, if such a chance existed.

:shrug:

[shraby]

21. It would have been someone Novack

could call up on the phone.

[txindy]

28. Or who called him with the same story

Either way, it was someone whose word he trusted. Which is why it has to be a higher-level official, not just an aide of an aide. That's the reason I've always suspected Rove was one of those sources. Novak would take his word for anything and they have such a great history together, too.

[bleever]

10. Who's on the short list for the coveted second spot?

Senior White House officials...

Ari Fleischer?

Scooter Libbey?

Andy Card?

Scott McClellan?

Uncle Dick himself?

Have I missed anyone? And either way, doesn't any candidate end up very likely implicating either Cheney or the chimp himself?

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. I think Judy is sitting in her cell tonight

finally waking up to the reality that Bu$h & Co just screwed her royally and not in the way she normally gets screwed by her PNAC buddies.

I'm sure she was laughing all the way to jail, thinking that one of her knights in shining armor would come to bail her out or maybe even the pResident himself might issue a last minute pardon. But no such luck. Now she sits alone, lonely and scared realizing she just might never get out. May be time to rethink her position and start talking. Either way she can't win at this point.

[Child_Of_Isis]

6. Maybe she is not in jail.

Maybe she is in some undisclosed location for protection.

[Imagevision]

33. It was reported earlier that Miller didn't even have a cot to sleep on

because --> get a load of this> "they couldn't find one for her"

Miller better keep her mouth shut, these players think nothing of killling thosands of innocent civilians, she may be found hung in her cell because she couldn't handle repercussions from Cheney.

[txindy]

8. As it turns out, Rove did not call Cooper or have his lawyer call him

Fascinating little story this and one I'm not going to attempt to paraphrase, so I'll take the easy way out and link to it :think:
:http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000978837

I think Cooper has himself a very smart lawyer. :toast:

[bleever]

16. Verrrrry interesting. Rove didn't call Cooper. Cooper's lawyer called

Rove's lawyer, after reading in the paper that Rove claimed he'd never asked for confidentiality from anyone. Cooper's lawyer, Richard Sauber, recounts:

/snip/

And, on my plane flight from Chicago into Washington, I read the account in the Wall Street Journal. I picked up a copy of the Wall
Street Journal. And in there, right at the end of the article about this matter is the following statement: "Mr. Rove hasn't asked any reporter to treat him as a confidential source in the matter," Mr. Luskin said, who I understand is Mr. Rove's lawyer. "So if Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source, it's not Karl he's protecting."

/snip/


SAUBER: Let me try to address that to some extent, if I can. For the last year or so, Matt has been a subpoenaed witness in a grand
jury investigation. I advised him and he accepted the advice that he should not have private conversations with other people who may be witnesses in the grand jury proceeding. I was concerned about the perception. I was concerned about what Mr. Fitzgerald might think. And so it was on my advice that he did not personally contact his source.

For me to contact Mr. Rove's lawyer at the time, prior to the time that Mr. Rove had been identified as Matt's source, would have
actually been a breach of confidentiality. My conversation with Mr.
Rove was not privileged and would not have been privileged -- with Mr. Rove's attorney.

There was no indication that we had that Mr. Rove or his lawyer
were interested in receiving such a request. And it was really only
in the last few days, when Mr. Luskin started making some of his
comments, especially the one that I just quoted to you that was in the Wall Street Journal that led us to feel that we were on firm footing picking up the phone and calling and saying, "Based on your public comments, we would ask for an express and personal...," and that's what we did.

/snip/


So it appears Rove was checkmated into waiving confidentiality. Why has Judy's lawyer let her sleep in the clink when he could have done the same thing? Did he try?


(Thanks, txindy!)

[txindy]

18. My guess is that Miller is not there because of the Plame leak, itself

But because she can tie up some other loose ends. Miller's stenography for this admin. since 9/11 has made her privy to many bits of info. that just may help piece the lies together and put names to the sources of many.

[reprehensor]

11. Book deal.

"Gutsy journalist goes the distance to protect her sources."

"Gutsy journalist bonds DNA with RNC."

"Gutsy journalist becomes gutsy lesbian journalist after steamy tryst with female guard."

Whatever the tagline, a bestseller on the NYTimes CIA book of the Week Club.

She'll probably get the 'Martha Stewart suite, gnarly bi-otch.

[Jacobin]

19. She's not protecting a source. She's protecting her own criminal ass

And using the high minded protecting a source thing, hoping it'll all blow away.

If she goes to the grand jury, she'll have to take the fifth or get charged with perjury and she can't face either prospect yet.

This woman is up to her eyeballs in criminal misconduct. You can smell it a mile away.

[txindy]

22. I've got to agree with that.

:thumbsup:

[ewagner]

29. Bingo!!

That's what I'm thinking.....

but it is, I acknowledge, pure, unadulterated speculation.

[ClassWarrior]

25. You're pretty smart for a screwy kid.

Hey Lil Bro... :hi: Impressive as usual.

NGU.

[bleever]

31. Yeah, but you're the one who got the good looks.

Hey C-Dub. :hi:

Are they hiding anything?

What are they hiding?

How long can they hide it?

And...what's that smell?


:)


NGU.

[ClassWarrior]

45. That's the smell of burning Pillsbury Roveboy...

...to borrow from a clever Stephanie Miller caller.

Not hiding nuffin. For much longer.

NGU. :patriot:

[IndianaGreen]

30. Judy Miller is part of the cover up by the Bush Administration

Published on Wednesday, July 13, 2005 by the Boston Globe
Second Thoughts on Leak Case
by Robert Kuttner

In the Alice in Wonderland world of the Plame-Rove story, Judith Miller, who worked hand in glove with the Bush administration to publish bogus stories about Saddam Hussein's alleged nuclear program, is a hero -- for going to jail to protect, once again, her friends in the administration. And Time-Warner, which turned over Matt Cooper's notes (for the wrong reasons -- Time-Warner's corporate interests -- but that's another story) is the villain. Yet it may be Cooper's testimony that finally sinks Rove. So who's the hero and what's the public interest?

As Michael Kinsley has observed, not all leaks are created morally equal. It's one thing for reporters to protect a brave whistle-blower who has taken personal risks to serve the public interest. It is another thing for reporters to collude with the powerful to punish the whistle-blower, in this case Joseph Wilson, and his wife, an innocent bystander.

Is the public good served by helping Fitzgerald learn who at the White House broke the law? Or is it served by having reporters protect Karl Rove? We need a public interest test, not an absolute privilege.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0713-25.htm

Published on Wednesday, July 13, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Mr. Rove and the Access of Evil
by Greg Palast

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.

Why didn't The Times run this story? Why not now? Who are they covering for and why?

Maybe the problem for The Times is that this is the same "source" that used Miller to promote, as fact, her ersatz report before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam truly had nukes and bugs and chemicals he could launch at Los Angeles. That "source" too needs publication, Judy.

Every rule has an exception. My mama always told me to "compliment the chef" at dinner. But that doesn't apply when the chef pees in your soup. Likewise, there's an exception to the rule of source protection. When officialdom uses "you-can't-use-my- name" to cover a lie, the official is not a source, but a disinformation propagandist -- and Miller and The Times have been all too willing to play Izvestia to the Bush's Kremlinesque prevarications.

And that is what Miller is protecting: the evil called "access."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0713-23.htm

[hughee99]

34. My understanding is that she has a get out of jail free card...

I'm looking for a link now, but as I understand it, she has a waiver from her source, but feels that her source was coerced into providing it, and is choosing not to talk.

[bleever]

39. Link please!

I hadn't heard this. True?

[txindy]

44. Yes, but it's the kind of blanket waiver Cooper got yet wouldn't accept.

It's referenced very subtly in that article I first linked to about how Cooper's lawyer saved the day for him. The original waiver was unacceptable to him because it was not personal or specific, but, rather, something signed by each admin. witness. Cooper wanted a specific waiver addressed to him personally. Luskin provided that from Rove.

ETA: So, that is what Miller is claiming, too: The blanket waiver isn't specific. But she doesn't WANT to testify and I doubt Rove wants her to, either, so her lawyer isn't going there! LOL!

[bleever]

50. Yes! Judy's got the blanket waiver, which she's claiming is inadequate

to allow her to testify, though she could very easily claim otherwise.

So yes, she's choosing jail. Maybe it's just to get a Martha Stewart -style bounce out of a stint in the slammer. But it doesn't seem she's really suffered professionally for all the WMD hokum.

More likely you are correct: deep, serious reasons that she doesn't want to testify that may well go far beyond this one incident. And Karl's not doing anything to change her mind.

I guess Fitzgerald decided that if the blanket waiver wasn't good enough for Judy, he'd give her a cot waiver and see if that helped her make up her mind. :)

[JABBS]

35. Why Judy is in jail

Simply, she refused to testify when called before the grand jury. Cooper would have suffered a similar fate, but he cooperated. We have to assume Novak did, too.

I want Rove to be nailed as much as the next Democrat, but I don't see any grand conservative anti-NYT conspiracy here -- especially given Miller's track record of being the most Bush-sympathetic reporter at the Times.

[calimary]

43. Welcome to DU!

Get busy and roll up yer sleeves...

[Patsy Stone]

36. Why no "Get in Jail Free" card for Novak?

Just curious. :hi:

[bleever]

41. Bob rolled over already. That seems to be the consensus.

My guess: he mistakenly believed that there was no crime if the leaker didn't know about the law, so he poured his heart out.

A tiny whisp of dust was all that escaped.

:hi:

[Pithy Cherub]

40. Upon reflection, Fitzgerald made an interesting legal

argument all of this time about Miller & Cooper. He KNOWS who he is after and these two are the two who could provide confirmation. My premise is that means he may ALREADY have the evidence he is just in search of as much confirmation as possible.

That would be a real karma jerk for Miller to be in jail when the prosecutor KNOWS the truth and she is a plain celery stick not the 5 star entree. Two judges, upon reading the evidence have sided with Fitzgerald. That means what he knows is powerful and he is using the "journalists" to confirm as witnesses NOT get original source material. Which means it should really hit the sweet spot when he starts talking. (Elliott)Fitzgerald the new 21st century E. F. Hutton.

:popcorn:

[newswolf56]

46. Here's an alternative possibility for the Miller case:

Some time ago -- too long ago for me to link to a source -- I read that this same special prosecutor/grand jury is also investigating the likelihood that someone at The New York Times deliberately tipped off an "Islamic charity" to a pending FBI/Homeland Security raid, with the result that either some terrorist-suspects escaped, or important records were destroyed, or both. Thus it could be that Miller (and The Times) is deathly afraid of being questioned about this matter, not the least because the tipster is looking at 20 years hard time. And once on the stand before a grand jury being questioned about your job, you can be asked about anything so related, even if it is far afield from the original topic of the interrogation.

While bleever's hypothesis could indeed be correct -- Cheney's possible involvement is one aspect I surely hadn't focused on -- my
own suspicion is that Miller's refusal is based on the aborted-raid matter (assuming it did indeed happen as I remember reading -- sorry I don't recall the source).

Whatever the reason for Miller's refusal, if she is denied a cot and forced to sleep on the floor of her cell, her treatment in prison -- of a degree of deliberate viciousness nominally unheard of outside of military stockades or banana-republic jails -- does not bode at all well for her longevity.

And there is another wild card in this deck too: the involvement of Ted Olson. I cannot imagine Olson making a deal (for Cooper to avoid jail) that does not benefit the administration. Hence a question: how does Cooper's freedom (and testimony) benefit Bush -- especially since Miller remains in jail. In other words, how does Miller's imprisonment and (continued silence) also benefit the administration? By protecting Cheney? By distracting from some question Cooper couldn't answer? (Especially since Miller never wrote a word about the Plame case.)

Very puzzling indeed -- like trying to play Scrabble with half the letters missing.

Edit: grammatical correction.

[bleever]

49. An intriguing hypothesis. Very plausible, considering that Chalabi,

Miller's treasured source for so much "information", was himself involved in leaking classified info to Iran (re: our cracking of one of their codes, I believe).

A similar instance such as you mention would not be at all unlikely, given the tangled web of players with multiple cross-purposes and allegiances.

And though Ted Olson is Time's lead attorney, I have to agree that he wouldn't do anything that didn't also advance the administration's interests. Olson was of course lead attorney for * in Bush v. Gore.

So somehow, it's good for the admin to have Cooper free, and Miller sleeping on concrete right now. And maybe it's better for the NYT and Miller that she be in jail for contempt, versus the potentially catastrophic alternatives.

[StopThief]

48. You heard it here first. . .Colin Powell. . .

is her source. Bookmark this thread.