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N.Y. Times writer freed from jail, will testify

Judith Miller will reveal her source in the CIA leak case. The source says he told her to months ago.

By wire services
Published September 30, 2005

WASHINGTON - Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter jailed since July 6 for refusing to testify in the CIA leak case, was released from a Virginia detention center on Thursday afternoon after she and her lawyers reached an agreement with a federal prosecutor to testify before a grand jury investigating the matter, the newspaper's publisher and executive editor said.

Miller was freed after spending more than 12 weeks in jail, during which she refused to cooperate with the criminal inquiry. Her decision to testify came after she obtained what she described as a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality she made to him. She said the source had made clear that he genuinely wanted her to testify.

That source was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, the New York Times reported. Miller met with Libby on July 8, 2003, and talked with him by telephone later that week. Discussions between government officials and journalists that week have been a central focus of the investigation.

Miller said in a statement that she expected to appear before the grand jury today. Miller was released after she and her lawyers met at the jail with Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the case, to discuss her testimony.

The New York Times' publisher, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., said in a statement that the newspaper supported Miller's decision to testify, just as it had backed her earlier refusal to cooperate. "Judy has been unwavering in her commitment to protect the confidentiality of her source. We are very pleased that she has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver, both by phone and in writing, releasing her from any claim of confidentiality and enabling her to testify," Sulzberger said.

Fitzgerald has for more than a year sought testimony from Miller about conversations she had with Libby. Her willingness to testify was based in part on personal assurances given by Libby earlier this month that he had no objection to her discussing their conversations with the grand jury, the newspaper reported.

Fitzgerald's investigation has centered around the question of whether anyone in the Bush administration illegally disclosed the identity of an undercover CIA employee, Valerie Plame, whose name was first published in July 2003 in a syndicated column by Robert Novak.

Miller never wrote an article about Wilson. Fitzgerald has said that obtaining Miller's testimony was one of the last remaining objectives of his inquiry.

The agreement that led to Miller's release followed negotiations between Miller; her lawyer, Robert Bennett; Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate; and Fitzgerald.

Libby and his lawyer, however, both say that they gave their voluntary waiver to Miller's lawyers more than year ago. In fact, Libby wrote to Miller in mid September, saying he believed her lawyers understood that his waiver was voluntary.

Miller contends she was not sure the waiver had been freely given and did not accept it until she had heard from him directly, the New York Times reported.

Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, said Fitzgerald had assured Miller's lawyer that "he intended to limit his grand jury interrogation so that it would not implicate other sources of hers."

Keller said Fitzgerald cleared the way to an agreement by assuring Miller and her source that he would not regard a conversation between the two about a possible waiver as an obstruction of justice.

In a statement, Miller said she believed the agreement between her lawyers and Fitzgerald "satisfies my obligation as a reporter to keep faith with my sources."

She added: "I went to jail to preserve the time-honored principle that a journalist must respect a promise not to reveal the identity of a confidential source. I chose to take the consequences - 85 days in prison - rather than violate that promise. The principle was more important to uphold than my personal freedom."

Miller said she would say nothing more publicly about the case until after her testimony.

The case has been the most significant test in decades of whether reporters can refuse to disclose to prosecutors their discussions with confidential sources.

At least four other reporters are known to have provided information to Fitzgerald, but Miller had until Thursday refused to do so. The Supreme Court declined in July to hear an appeal by Miller of a court order that she be jailed for her refusal to testify.

Valerie Plame is the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who traveled to Niger in 2002 on behalf of the CIA to investigate claims related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program. When Wilson emerged as a critic of the Bush administration in July 2003, administration officials questioned his credibility.

Karl Rove, President Bush's senior political strategist, and Libby both discussed Plame with reporters, according to testimony provided by Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter, and by others. But Rove is not known to have mentioned Plame by name or to have mentioned her covert status at the CIA.

--Information from the New York Times and Associated Press was used in this report.

[Last modified September 30, 2005, 01:37:04]