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Reporter Held in Contempt in CIA-Plame Leak Probe

By Jeralyn, Section Valerie Plame Leak Case
Posted on Mon Aug 09, 2004 at 03:20:13 PM EST
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A Time Magazine reporter has been held in contempt for refusing to testify before the grand jury investigating the leak of former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. NBC's Tim Russert avoided a similar fate:

In an order issued July 20 but not made public until Monday, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ruled that Time's Matthew Cooper and "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert were required to testify "regarding alleged conversations they had with a specified executive branch official."

NBC News issued a statement saying that Russert already had been interviewed under oath by prosecutors on Saturday under an agreement to avoid a protracted court fight. The interview concerned a July 2003 phone conversation he had with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby....Neal Shapiro, president of NBC News, said the network agreed that forcing reporters to testify about their sources is "contrary to the First Amendment's guarantee of a free press." Shapiro said Russert answered "only limited questions" about the conversation with Libby "without revealing any information he learned in confidence."

Background for those who haven't been following the case:

The investigation concerns the leak last summer to syndicated columnist Robert Novak of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Disclosure of an undercover official's identity can be a felony. Plame's name appeared in Novak's column on July 14 last year, about a week after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, published a newspaper opinion piece criticizing President Bush's claim in the 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger.

Wilson had been sent by the CIA to Niger to check the allegation, and he concluded it was unfounded. Novak wrote that Plame had suggested her husband for the mission, a claim Plame and Wilson have denied.

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