New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified today before a federal grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA agent's identity and said afterward she agreed to end her stay in jail and cooperate with the probe after receiving a personal go-ahead from her source and a prosecutor's promise that her testimony would be limited.
Miller, speaking to reporters on the steps of the federal courthouse in Washington, said her source had released her from a pledge of confidentiality through "a personal letter and, most important, a telephone call to me at the jail." This personal communication went beyond a general waiver that she had previously rejected and assured her that "my source genuinely wanted me to testify," she said.
After she received this "personal, voluntary waiver," Miller said, her lawyer approached the special prosecutor in the leak investigation and received an assurance that her testimony would be narrowly limited to her communications with the source. She did not mention the source's name in her brief appearance on the courthouse steps, but he has been identified previously as I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Cheney. Libby called Miller at the jail in Northern Virginia last week, according to his lawyer.
In some ways, it is not surprising that Scooter Libby was Miller's source. This whole Valerie Plame case reeks of a vindictiveness against Ambassador Joe Wilson's criticisms that the Bush administration fixed the intelligence for supporting their war with Iraq. Those individuals who had the most to gain in this were most certainly working within the White House--destroy and discredit Joe Wilson, and his criticisms will also be discredited and ignored. And if this is true, then who in the Bush White House would have such classified information that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative? Lewis Libby and Karl Rove would certainly have access to that information.
I find it ironic that in the Post article, Rove was said to have "discussed Wilson's wife with [Time Magazine's Matt] Cooper and [Columnist Robert] Novak but that he never mentioned her by name." Libby talked to Judith Miller twice in which Valerie Plame's name came up. According to the Post article:
In the first, on July 8, Miller met with Libby to interview him about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the source said.
At that time, she asked him why Wilson had been chosen to investigate questions Cheney had posed about whether Iraq tried to buy uranium in the African nation of Niger. Libby, the source familiar with his account said, told her that the White House was working with the CIA to find out more about Wilson's trip and how he was selected.
Libby told Miller he heard that Wilson's wife had something to do with sending him but he did not know who she was or where she worked, the source said.
Libby had a second conversation with Miller on July 12 or July 13, the source said, in which he said he had learned that Wilson's wife had a role in sending him on the trip and that she worked for the CIA. Libby never knew Plame's name or that she was a covert operative, the source said.
So we talked about her, but we really didn't mention her by name. I find that a little disingenuous. Rove and Libby have been playing a little game of double-speak, where they'll mention everything they can about Plame, except for her name. And since Rove and Libby didn't give away Valerie Plame's name, well then they technically didn't break the law--although anyone in the Washington press corps could easily find out who Joe Wilson's wife is. And it is also ironic that these two were fishing for reporters willing to take this fabricated story and publish it--Judith Miller, Matt Cooper, and Bob Novak--who ultimately took the bait.
You've got to marvel at the hypocrisy of this Bush administration.
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