Miller Agrees To Testify In CIA Leak Probe

[dissention]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1171767

WASHINGTON Sep 29, 2005 — After nearly three months behind bars, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released Thursday after agreeing to testify about the Bush administration's disclosure of a covert CIA officer's identity.

Miller left the federal detention center in Alexandria, Va., after reaching an agreement with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. She will appear Friday morning before a grand jury investigating the case.

"My source has now voluntarily and personally released me from my promise of confidentiality regarding our conversations," Miller said in a statement.

Her source was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, reported the Times, which supported her contention that her source should be protected.

"As we have throughout this ordeal, we continue to support Judy Miller in the decision she has made," said Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "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."

Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment.

Until this past summer, President Bush said leakers in the Plame probe would be fired. But in July after it was revealed that top aide Karl Rove and Libby had been involved in the leaks, Bush said "if someone committed a crime," he would be fired.

Miller has been in custody since July 6. A federal judge ordered her jailed when she refused to testify before the grand jury investigating the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's name by White House officials.

The disclosure of Plame's identity by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July 2003 triggered an inquiry that has caused political damage to the Bush White House and could still result in criminal charges against government officials.

The federal grand jury delving into the matter expires Oct. 28. Miller would have been freed at that time, but prosecutors could have pursued a criminal contempt of court charge against the reporter if she continued to defy Fitzgerald.

[dissention]

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/12775934.htm

"She was released after she had a telephone conversation with the Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, sources said. In that conversation, Libby reaffirmed that he had released Miller from a promise of confidentiality more than a year ago, sources said."

WTF?

[irishgrl]

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/12775934.htm

"She was released after she had a telephone conversation with the Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, sources said. In that conversation, Libby reaffirmed that he had released Miller from a promise of confidentiality more than a year ago, sources said."

WTF?

Yeah, if she could have spoken before now, why the grandstanding? :distress:

I hope the Media latches back onto this story and puts Monkey boy and the Organ Grinder back on the hot seat.
http://www.partieswithpizzazz.com/organ%20grinder.jpg
I wish I had photoshop........

[strandinthewind]

Didn't we have a big discussion about this awhile back in Cheney released her, but she was standing her ground because she thought a reporter should not have to reveal their source ever?

In any event, she is gonna sing now.

Interestingly, this may have to do with the final days of this SC approaching.

I am dying to know what contrived crap Cheney has sppon fed her,

[irishgrl]

I am dying to know what contrived crap Cheney has sppon fed her,

this is why I would suspect her testimony....

[strandinthewind]

this is why I would suspect her testimony....


Bur, why would it have changed in the last month or so. Certainly she would have said then what she is going to now say and certainly Cheney's people knew the subpoena would not be withdrawn. Maybe there is an unknowmn third person who can refute her/his lies that they chad not gotten to until now.

Or, maybe Miller really believed in the First Amend., which makes no sense if her source (Cheney) indeed released her.

This is all very strange.

[irishgrl]

Bur, why would it have changed in the last month or so. Certainly she would have said then what she is going to now say and certainly Cheney's people knew the subpoena would not be withdrawn. Maybe there is an unknowmn third person who can refute her/his lies that they chad not gotten to until now.

Or, maybe Miller really believed in the First Amend., which makes no sense if her source (Cheney) indeed released her.

This is all very strange.
yes it is, and I hope everything is very closely scrutinized....

[strandinthewind]

yes it is, and I hope everything is very closely scrutinized....

The Special Prosecutor is widely known as a kick ass take names, fairminded MF'er in legal circles. So, I hope that moniker is true and he has not caved into the what I am sure has been considerable pressure to fold.

I also hope he does not stop at Libby and goes for Cheney as the evidence so far suugests he can.

Then again, there can be no honor amongst thieves - so maybe Libby turned on Cheney - a repast I would love to witness :nod:

[gldstwmn]

Boy, I just don't know what to make of this. :shrug: I think we've got an interesting few weeks ahead. I'm almost certain that the indictments are coming.
BTW, I never bought that Miller believed it was a first amendment issue. She was obstructing justice and she knew it.

[dissention]

Boy, I just don't know what to make of this. :shrug: I think we've got an interesting few weeks ahead. I'm almost certain that the indictments are coming.
BTW, I never bought that Miller believed it was a first amendment issue. She was obstructing justice and she knew it.

Of course she knew it. She's no pillar of journalistic integrity, just look at her pieces on WMDs. She's nothing but a shill.

[dissention]

The Special Prosecutor is widely known as a kick ass take names, fairminded MF'er in legal circles. So, I hope that moniker is true and he has not caved into the what I am sure has been considerable pressure to fold.

I also hope he does not stop at Libby and goes for Cheney as the evidence so far suugests he can.

Then again, there can be no honor amongst thieves - so maybe Libby turned on Cheney - a repast I would love to witness :nod:

Fitzgerald said that he knew who her source was before she even started her grandstanding and went to stir.

[irishgrl]

Fitzgerald said that he knew who her source was before she even started her grandstanding and went to stir.
do you s'pose she got the "treatment" whilst in the hoosegow? I cant imagine suffering that for anyone.....no matter how juicy the payoff......

[dissention]

do you s'pose she got the "treatment" whilst in the hoosegow? I cant imagine suffering that for anyone.....no matter how juicy the payoff......

She's been a shill for them since the beginning, she'll do whatever they ask of her.

Here's a good piece by Arianna (links on her page):

Miller Walks: The Plot Thickens
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/miller-walks-the-plot-th_b_8116.html

It’s time for Judy Miller and Arthur Sulzberger to change their talking points.

The claim that Miller “has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver” is laughable… and, indeed, has already been laughed at by 1) my increasingly frustrated sources within the Times 2) a chorus of voices in the blogosphere (see here, here, and here) and 3) (and much more significantly) Joseph Tate, Scooter Libby’s lawyer, who told the Washington Post yesterday that he informed Miller’s attorney, Floyd Abrams, a year ago that Libby’s waiver “was voluntary and that Miller was free to testify”.

So it defies credulity for Miller, Sulzberger, and Bill Keller to keep insisting that Libby’s earlier waiver was coerced when Libby says that it wasn’t. I don’t have much good to say about the vice president’s chief of staff, but I don’t doubt that he knows the difference between being coerced and acting on his own free will. How deep is the Times’ contempt for its readers that they really think they’ll buy the “Oh, Judy finally has the right waiver” line?

The truth of the matter is there is no way that the New York Times editorial claiming “it should be clear…that Ms. Miller is not going to change her mind” can be squared with Ms. Miller changing her mind. And there is no way to accept at face value Miller’s grandstanding about “fighting for the cause of the free flow of information.” Who is she still trying to convince? Herself?

After she answers Patrick Fitzgerald’s questions today, Judy Miller needs to start answering some of the obvious questions raised by her head-scratching stance:

What made her refuse Libby’s waiver when it was first offered but accept it now? (Especially since Judge Hogan had told Miller that “she was mistaken in her belief that she was defending a free press, stressing that the government source she ‘alleges she is protecting’ had already released her from her promise of confidentiality.”)

Was Miller’s sudden eagerness to find a get-out-of-jail excuse prompted by Fitzgerald’s planning to ask for an extension of the grand jury?

Or was it prompted by Fitzgerald’s gearing up to charge her with criminal contempt?

If all it took for Miller to feel properly released was a phone call, why did she wait 85 days to make it?

And so we don’t forget what this story is really about, and given that the aluminum tubes crap that Miller put on the front page of the New York Times was being heavily promoted by Cheney, how much of that bogus information came to Miller via Libby?

And here are a few questions for the Times:

Had a Plame/Wilson story been assigned to Miller or not?

What, if anything, did she say about the story to anyone at the paper at the time… and what did they say back?

Why did the Times hold back the story about Miller’s release and let multiple other news sources scoop them? Were they trying to miss the evening news cycle and avoid the overnight thrashing their spin has rightly received?

So, as the image of Judy as a principled, conscience-driven defender of the First Amendment gives way to the image of Judy wearing her "new" waiver as a fig leaf allowing her to get out and sing, the big question remains: What is she hiding?

[irishgrl]

pertinent. so: what is going on?