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NY Times reporter released from jail in CIA probe case

Posted on: Thursday, 29 September 2005, 20:57 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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