I've always wondered what happened with these Newsday reporters.....In the Columbia Journal Review, Timothy M. Phelps of Newsday has a run down of his dealings with special prosecuter Fitzgerald,
this information has never been made public until now.
Phelps and his coauthor, Knut Royce along with Novak were the only reporters named in the original document request from the DOJ in September 2003, they were also named in the January 2004 subpoena from Fitzgerald.
According to Phelps, he and Royce were the first reporters contacted by Fitzgerald.
Roughly two months after he empaneled a grand jury in Washington in December 2003, Patrick Fitzgerald called Newsday saying he wanted to talk to us. So far as I know, we were the first reporters he contacted, with the possible exception of Novak, whose interactions with Fitzgerald are still unknown.
CJR January/Febuary 2006
More
If you remember Phelps and Royce wrote the 7/22/03 article entitled
"Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover" for Newsday that established that Valerie Plame worked undercover at the CIA. This was the story that shut down the WH smear campaign that had geared up after the
7/14/03 Bob Novak column.
In the CJR article, Phelps recounts how and why Newsday went after the story. he is very clear that the sources for his story are from the intelligence community.
When I read the column I wondered whether Plame was working undercover. So, along with Newsday's Knut Royce, known for his sources in the intelligence community, I started making inquiries.
A week later we wrote a story quoting "intelligence officials" as saying that Plame did indeed work undercover at the CIA, on weapons of mass destruction, raising the possibility that the disclosure to Novak broke the law. Novak himself volunteered something interesting when we reached him. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me." His sources, he said, "thought it was significant; they gave me the name and I used it."
Our story was the first to establish that Plame was undercover. In fact not only was she working for the secret "D. O." or Directorate of Operations at agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but she was also still in transition from an even deeper underground mission as a "NOC" for Nonofficial Cover, posing as a businesswoman during agency-sponsored trips to Europe. The day after our story there were calls for an investigation by Democrats, and White House press secretary Scott McClellan vigorously asserted that "That is not the way this White House operates."
CJR
Phelps has sources that told him that the CIA referred the Newsday story to the DOJ early in the investigation and that the original document request eventially went far beyond the White House.
(Sources told us that the CIA had referred not only Novak's column but our Newsday story to the Justice Department for investigation because we, too, had revealed new classified information -- that Plame was working undercover.) Subsequently the document requests relating to the three of us were sent to the CIA and top officials at the Pentagon, as well as hundreds of senior officials at the State Department, where I cover Middle East policy
CJR
Phelps thinks it's possible that Fitz had a waiver from one or more of their sources. Phelps and Royce considered the waivers coerced and refused to talk to Fitzgerald. They also felt that their source would "deny having disclosed that Plame was undercover."
Roughly two months after he empaneled a grand jury in Washington in December 2003, Patrick Fitzgerald called Newsday saying he wanted to talk to us. So far as I know, we were the first reporters he contacted, with the possible exception of Novak, whose interactions with Fitzgerald are still unknown.
Don't worry, Fitzgerald assured us, he was not asking us to name our sources. He simply wanted some information about our discussions with the sources. Oh.
snip
In our case, Fitzgerald intimated that he might have a waiver from one or more of our sources. These exploratory conversations between a prosecutor and news organization usually involve quite a bit of shadow boxing. Neither side wants to give too much away, so things tend to be discussed in theoretical terms. But my impression was that Fitzgerald may have talked to or planned to talk to someone who had admitted talking to us. It seemed likely to us, however, that that person would deny having disclosed that Plame was undercover.
What Fitzgerald wanted us to do, among other things, was to differentiate between Source A, B, or C. Without giving up any names, would we simply outline which source had said what in our story?
CJR
Interestingly Phelps and Royce after talking with Fitzgerald decided not to testify and although Fitz threatened to subpoena Newsday and the reporters he never did.
But Royce and I told our editors at Newsday that we would become pariahs in Washington if we agreed to testify -- that no other Washington reporter would ever do so. Newsday backed us up, and told Fitzgerald in mid-April that we would not help in any way. He threatened a subpoena that for some reason never came.
CJR
Also of interest, Newsday pulled their reporters off the story.
Newsday decided that Royce and I should no longer cover the story, since we were now part of it. I play a dual role as reporter and editor, and I had to withdraw from any editing involvement as well. So Royce and I could no longer work the story we had been among the first to recognize.
CJR
I recommned reading the entire article, Phelps has an excellent run down on Fitzgeralds dealings with the other reporters and his take on the First Amendment issues.
Other Plame News / Declassified State Department Memo
The NYT has a story in a recently declassified State Department memo entitled "2002 Memo Doubted Uranium Sale Claim". The NYT received the memo from Judicial Watch who obtained the memo by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was "unlikely" because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles, according to a secret memo that was recently declassified by the State Department.
snip
A four-star general, Carlton W. Fulford Jr., was also sent to Niger to investigate the claims of a uranium purchase. He, too, came away with doubts about the reliability of the report and believed Niger's yellowcake supply to be secure. But the State Department's review, which looked at the political, economic and logistical factors in such a purchase, seems to have produced wider-ranging doubts than other reviews about the likelihood that Niger would try to sell uranium to Baghdad.
The review concluded that Niger was "probably not planning to sell uranium to Iraq," in part because France controlled the uranium industry in the country and could block such a sale. It also cast doubt on an intelligence report indicating that Niger's president, Mamadou Tandja, might have negotiated a sales agreement with Iraq in 2000. Mr. Tandja and his government were reluctant to do anything to endanger their foreign aid from the United States and other allies, the review concluded. The State Department review also cast doubt on the logistics of Niger being able to deliver 500 tons of uranium even if the sale were attempted. "Moving such a quantity secretly over such a distance would be very difficult, particularly because the French would be indisposed to approve or cloak this arrangement," the review said.
Chris Farrell, the director of investigations at Judicial Watch and a former military intelligence officer, said he found the State Department's analysis to be "a very strong, well-thought-out argument that looks at the whole playing field in Niger, and it makes a compelling case for why the uranium sale was so unlikely."
The memo, dated March 4, 2002, was distributed at senior levels by the office of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and by the Defense Intelligence Agency
NYT 1/17/06
Added
from Judicial Watch
he analysis, entitled, “Niger-Iraq: Sale of Niger Uranium to Iraq Unlikely,” was part of a larger analysis document for the week of February 25 – March 3, 2002
Judicial Watch obtained the document under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, having successfully appealed an earlier State Department decision to withhold the document from disclosure. Portions of the document contain redactions of classified material made by both the State Department and the CIA.
The link to the actual document pdf file can be found at Judicial Watch.
And more on Plame / Judy Miller
As part of an annual Leadership Educational Forum on Sunday at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach for the American Friends of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Miller discussed the case and spoke with New York Times columnist David Brooks on "The Reporter's Privilege Under Siege."
Palm Beach Daily News 1/16/06
This is the only item I thought noteworthy
The Times, she said, spent $1.7 million to defend her. Most organizations don't have that kind of money, she said.
Palm Beach Daily News 1/16/06
Update: Here is one other item on Plame. Hat tip to
2lucky
For anyone still hoping for an indictment of Karl Rove, I have a smidgen of hope to offer. A well-wired lawyer in Washington tells me that not too long ago he bumped into Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney and a friend of this lawyer. My source said to Luskin, "Looks like you're out of the woods." Luskin replied, "Not so fast. It's not over yet." So....
David Corn 1/18/06