NYT: Reporter From Time Is Held in Contempt in C.I.A. Leak Case.

[milkyway]

The Times joins in. Scooter sure does seem to be a chatty guy. I hope he has the opportunity to make some new friends in prison.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/politics/10leak.html?hp

<snip>
In a statement, NBC said Mr. Russert was interviewed under oath by prosecutors on Saturday. NBC said Mr. Russert had not been a recipient of a leak and was not asked questions that would have required him to disclose a confidential source.

"The questioning focused on what Russert said when Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, phoned him last summer," NBC reported Saturday. "Russert told the special prosecutor that at the time of the conversation he didn't know Plame's name or that she was a C.I.A. operative and did not provide that information to Libby."
<snip>
A Washington Post reporter, Glenn Kessler, was interviewed by prosecutors in June. The Post reported then that he had testified about conversations with Mr. Libby at Mr. Libby's request and that he did so without violating any promises to confidential sources.

A second Post reporter, Walter Pincus, said he received a subpoena yesterday. He referred questions about whether The Post would challenge the subpoena to the paper's lawyers. Neither The Post's in-house lawyers nor its outside lawyer, Seth P. Waxman, responded to messages seeking comment.

[KoKo]

1. Oh My....now Walter Pincus is being subpeoned? I thought I just read that

the whole investigation hinged on Russert and Cooper's testimony. Sounds like the press can't get it's stories straight on this issue and also sounds like Fitzgerald left the reporters to the last.

Although Novak is still not mentioned in these latest news stories being release about reporters testimony. Maybe they got to him way back and are using the other reporters to verify his story.

But why interview Cheney, Shrub and Powell before the remaining reporters.

All is so strange with this...

[TacticalPeek]

3. From the linked article:

It is not known whether Mr. Novak has received a subpoena or, if he did, how he responded. His lawyer, James Hamilton, declined to comment yesterday.

I'm not sure we had heard before about Hamilton being Nofacts' lawyer(?).

[KoKo]

6. Perhaps saving Novak for the last, is a good tactic, then. Get all the

information from the other reporters and then corner the "fox." :shrug:

If his lawyer wouldn't admit it, then that's interesting, considering Novak's the ONE who put Plame's name out there,so he's gotta know. :shrug:

[creeksneakers2]

2. This looks good at first

Some day it will be a journalist who has exposed something the right has done. If there is no political price to pay for forcing journalists to reveal sources then the right will find ways to do it all the time.

I was really hoping there would be an indictment in the Plame leak but it looks very unlikely now. A judge had to be convinced that information could be obtained no other way than to force journalists to testify.

[John_H]

5. LOL!

"A judge had to be convinced that information could be obtained no other way than to force journalists to testify."

Which he apparently is. My guess is that there will be some jail time for a couple of mediawhores--this is not a misdemeanor or a libel case (which account for 99 percent of journalist subpoenas) This is essentially a treason case, and it looks as though the judge is treating it with the gravity it deserves.

Will poppy's supreme court save scooter's ass? Now that's a distinct possibility.

[jdj]

7. A moot point anyway since they aren't really journalists.

IMHO, anyway.

[enki23]

4. such conviction is great, when it's in a good cause

protecting the government from its citizens is *not* a good cause.

[Rose Siding]

8. Does the NYT have this right?

Because they write that the judge "held a reporter for Time magazine in contempt of court yesterday and ordered him jailed for refusing to name the government officials who disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer to him."

But the Post says:

snip>
Newly-released court orders show U.S. District Court Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan two weeks ago ordered Matt Cooper of Time magazine and Tim Russert of NBC to appear before a grand jury and tell whether they knew that White House sources provided the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to the media.

The Justice Department probe is trying to determine whether this information was provided knowingly, in violation of the law. Hogan's orders show that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald believes Cooper and Russert know the answer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52148-2004Aug9?language=printer

That's different. The judge may believe that Cooper knows who told Novak, not who told him (Cooper). The Times article says something different.

[Jim Sagle]

9. And that would be a neat way to get around the first amendment objection.

Your own source may be protected but someone else's surely is not.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. It's been so long, I'd forgotten Novak wrote "TWO administration...

officials." So, we've got at least two Bush administration suspects under investigation here. And it looks like we can assume that Cheney's guy Libby is one of them.

"On July 14, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote in his column that 'two administration officials' told him that Ms. Plame 'is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.'"

[Moderator]

11. Please update this story and discuss here, thanks

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=738579&mesg_id=738579