Posted on 08/09/2004 12:30:56 PM PDT by cyncooper
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge on Monday upheld subpoenas to compel testimony of journalists at NBC News and Time magazine in a special prosecutor's probe into whether Bush administration officials illegally leaked a covert CIA officer's name to the news media.
U.S. District Chief Judge Thomas Hogan rejected requests to quash subpoenas issued to Tim Russert of NBC's "Meet the Press" and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine on the grounds they violate the reporters' privilege under the Constitution's First Amendment.
The subpoenas were issued by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and seek to require Russert and Cooper to appear before a federal grand jury to testify about conversations they had with an unidentified government official.
"To be clear, this court holds that Cooper and Russert have no privilege, qualified or otherwise, excusing them from testifying before the grand jury in this matter," Hogan ruled in the 11-page opinion.
"There have been no allegations whatsoever that this grand jury is acting in bad faith or with the purpose of harassing these two journalists," the judge wrote.
A number of top administration officials have been questioned in the leak investigation, including President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The grand jury has been hearing testimony from administration and government officials in an attempt to establish who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media last year.
Plame is the wife of Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who was asked by the CIA to travel to Niger in February 2002 to check reports that Iraq had tried to buy enriched uranium from the African country.
A newspaper columnist disclosed Plame's identity in July last year and Wilson accused the Bush administration of having leaked the information to pay him back for having publicly taken issue with the president's uranium claim.
The White House subsequently said Bush should not have cited the claim in his 2003 State of the Union address.
Disclosing the identity of a clandestine intelligence officer is a federal crime as is leaking classified information to the media.
Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, was appointed by the Justice Department late last year as special prosecutor, an announcement made at the same time that Attorney General John Ashcroft stepped aside from the politically charged probe.
Thanks! Lots of interesting developments on this story today.
Remember, last week Carl Cameron, of Fox, confirmed that a senator from Alabama (Shelby?) revealed classified info to him. I don't think it matters one way or another to the judges.
Mission to Niger
Robert Novak
July 14, 2003
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/printrn20030714.shtml
The CIA leak
Robert Novak
October 1, 2003
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20031001.shtml
Novak Recuses Self from CIA Leak Probe
Posted by Scott Ott
December 31, 2003
http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001463.html
Court Holds Reporter in Contempt in Leak Case (WILSON/PLAME)
Washington Post ^ | August 9, 2004 | Carol D. Leonnig
Posted on 08/09/2004 12:37:45 PM PDT by cyncooper
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1188142/posts
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