NY Times reporter released from jail in CIA probe case

By Adam Entous

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – After being locked up for nearly
three months in jail, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was
released on Thursday after agreeing to testify before a grand
jury investigating who in the Bush administration leaked a
covert CIA operative’s name.

Miller said in a statement issued by the newspaper that she
was freed after her source “voluntarily and personally released
me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our
conversations.” The Times identified her source as Vice
President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby.

Miller agreed to appear on Friday before the grand jury,
which has been investigating who in the administration leaked
CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

Miller met with Libby on July 8, 2003, the newspaper said,
and talked with him by telephone later that week.

She was released from the Alexandria Detention Center just
outside Washington after she and her lawyers met at the jail
with Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor in the case, to discuss
her testimony to the grand jury.

Legal sources said Miller’s testimony appeared to clear the
way for Fitzgerald to wrap up his case, which could shake up an
administration already reeling from criticism over its response
to Hurricane Katrina and Wednesday’s indictment of House
Republican leader Tom DeLay.

The leak investigation has ensnarled President George W.
Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove as well as Libby.

Miller, who was sent to jail on July 6 though she never
wrote an article about the Plame matter, said her attorneys had
reached agreement with Fitzgerald “regarding the nature and
scope of my testimony, which satisfies my obligation as a
reporter to keep faith with my sources.”

A spokesman for Fitzgerald declined to comment.

Fitzgerald had indicated earlier this year that he could
wrap up his investigation once he obtained the testimony of
Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, lawyers
involved in the case said.

Cooper avoided jail by agreeing to testify after saying he
received the “express personal consent” of his source to reveal
his identity. The first person to tell him about Plame was
Rove, Cooper said.

New York Times Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr said in
a statement the newspaper supported Miller’s decision to
testify, just as it backed her earlier refusal to cooperate.

“Judy has been unwavering in her commitment to protect the
confidentiality of her source,” Sulzberger said. “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.”

PAY-BACK?

Plame’s husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, has long
asserted that the leak was meant to discredit him for
criticizing Bush’s Iraq policy in 2003 after a CIA-funded trip
to investigate whether Niger helped supply nuclear materials to
Baghdad.

The outcome of Fitzgerald’s investigation could have
wide-ranging political implications for Bush, whose approval
ratings after Hurricane Katrina were the lowest of his
presidency.

After initially promising to fire anyone found to have
leaked information in the case, Bush in July offered a more
qualified pledge: “If someone committed a crime they will no
longer work in my administration.”

Prominent Democrats have called on Bush to fire Rove, the
architect of his two presidential election victories and now
his deputy chief of staff, or block his access to classified
information.

Rove’s attorneys said Rove did nothing wrong and has been
repeatedly assured he is not a target of Fitzgerald’s
investigation.

An investigative reporter who covers national security and
foreign policy issues, Miller was one of about 440 inmates at
the Alexandria Detention Center.

According to her attorneys, Miller has been in a U.S. jail
longer than any other newspaper journalist to protect a source.

The Alexandria facility where Miller was held has housed
some of the nation’s most notorious spies and terror suspects.
One floor above Miller’s cell was Zacarias Moussaoui, the only
person convicted in connection with the September 11, 2001,
attacks.

“It’s good to be free,” Miller said.