[Mb-civic] Times Reporter Testifies Again in CIA Leak Probe - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Times Reporter Testifies Again in CIA Leak Probe

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A10

New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified for a second time in the 
CIA leak case yesterday, providing new details about a previously 
undisclosed conversation she had with Vice President Cheney's chief of 
staff about the diplomat at the center of the 22-month investigation.

Miller was told by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald that she is 
done testifying in the case and free to return to work without a 
contempt-of-court threat hanging over her head, her lawyers said. Miller 
refused to comment after spending nearly 75 minutes in front of the 
grand jury.

"The contempt has been lifted, and I am delighted that Judy can go 
forward with her great reporting," said Robert S. Bennett, Miller's 
attorney.

Miller, who spent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify in the case, 
told the grand jury about a June 23, 2003, conversation she had with I. 
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's top adviser, regarding former ambassador 
Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had accused the White House of twisting 
intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

Bennett refused to discuss Miller's testimony, but lawyers in the case 
said Fitzgerald appears increasingly interested in whether White House 
officials were involved in a broad effort to discredit Wilson as early 
as May or June of 2003, in part by unmasking his wife, CIA operative 
Valerie Plame.

Wilson was sent on a CIA-funded mission to Niger in 2002 -- at the 
suggestion of his wife -- to investigate whether Iraq had sought to buy 
nuclear weapons-grade material in Niger. Libby and Karl Rove, the 
president's top political adviser, have testified that they each 
discussed Plame with two reporters in July of 2003 but never mentioned 
her by name or her covert status at the agency, according to lawyers 
involved in the case.

The two officials have testified that they were trying to wave reporters 
off Wilson's allegation.

The June 23 conversation would be significant if Miller and Libby 
discussed Plame, the lawyers in the case said. If they did, it could 
help Fitzgerald establish that Libby was involved in an administration 
effort to unmask Plame weeks before she was publicly outed by 
conservative columnist Robert D. Novak in the middle of July.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101202499.html
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