Thursday, June 30, 2005

Time to keep Miller & Cooper from doing time

In order to spare Judith Miller & Matt Cooper from being jailed on the grounds of contempt, Time magazine has confirmed it will comply with the court order to turn over notes that may reveal who leaked the identity of CIA office Valerie Plame.

Miller, who did some reporting never published a story on it. Plame's identity was, however, revealed by name in a column written by Robert Novak and then subsequently used in a story by Matt Cooper. Cooper and Miller were both subjected to court orders to reveal their source, Novak was not and has not commented on his involvement in the grand jury investigation of the leak. He will "reveal all" in the future.

Did I mention Novak was the one who revealed Plame's identity publicly? Seems odd that the person who didn't and the one who published the information after it was already in the common domain had no cross to bear in the matter? I wonder why that could be.

Edit 10:40 PM - I've been corrected; apparently despite having Cooper's notes from Time, Judith Miller (a NYT reporter) will still be jailed for contempt unless she turns over her source for a story she did not publish. Pity Mark wasn't capable of understanding the rest of the post by lumping me in as someone who doesn't understand why reporters could be jailed in this situation (here's a hint: focus on the references to Novak).

Update 1 July 11:57 - Liberal Oasis (& dKos) have an interesting theory as to why Bob Novak's not under the gun for Plame-gate like Miller & Cooper: the investigation isn't focused on the intentional leaking of Plame's identity
What started as a potential case of intentionally leaking the identity of an agent has now become about perjury and obstruction of justice in an attempt to conceal White House involvement in fixing the intelligence that led to war.


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