I recall this being discussed some time ago, but there is so much analysis out there now, I can’t find reference to it. So I’ll post it for discussion.
Having read in detail everything on Fitz’s new website, I was struck by the differences in the subpoenas issued to Cooper and Time versus the one issued to Judith Miller and the NY Times. See below for the difference (I’ve bolded the relevant part included in Miller’s subpeona that was NOT included in Cooper’s and I wonder what it may mean…)
From the document Brief of the United States, Appellee, found on Fitz’s new website.
Subpoena issued to Cooper and Time:
On September 13, 2004, the grand jury issued subpoenas to Cooper and Time seeking: “testimony and documents relating to conversations between Cooper and official source(s) prior to July 14, 2003, concerning in any way: former Ambassador Joseph Wilson; the 2002 trip by former Ambassador Wilson to Niger; Valerie Wilson Plame a/k/a Valerie Wilson a/k/a Valerie Plame (the wife of former Ambassador Wilson); and/or any affiliation between Valerie Wilson Plame and the CIA.” A-314, A-315.
Subpoena issued to Miller and the NY Times:
On August 12 and August 20, 2004, grand jury subpoenas were issued to reporter Judith Miller and her employer, the New York Times, seeking documents and testimony related to “conversations between Miller and a specified government official occurring between on or about July 6, 2003 and on or about July 13, 2003, concerning Valerie Plame Wilson (whether referred to by name or by description) or concerning Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium.“
So, why the addition of “Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium” with respect to Miller? Could it be that Fitz was, in fact, investigating the Niger documents as far back as August of last year and somehow Miller’s name came up? Last night on Hardball, I nearly had an aneurism when David Shuster brought up the Niger forgeries AND connected Chalabi! And we all know how Miller was in bed with Chalabi on her pre-war “reporting”. Well, we’ve been saying that here for months, but to hear it on Hardball, well, you understand my surprise…
But could it be that Fitz really does have something on this aspect of the case? Do we perhaps really have a Category 5 heading for the White House?
One can only hope.
I’ll be glad when the speculation is over and we have some indictments to review (or even the lack of indictments to bitch about). The suspense of not knowing is killing me. Just did an hour-long lecture to my eight year old who happened to have an innocuous question about the Fitz article on the front page of the NYT. The poor trooper. At the end she was kindly begging to be let away, “Daddy, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. This is really interesting. But I need to go take a shower.” Ugh! I’m going to get induced into a coma so I can avoid the waiting for the next few days.
Next time, include pictures. 🙂
Similiar experience with my neighbor. She said, “this Plame thing has to do with channeling money to corporations?” When I go through with my minute by minute timeline and long list of names and possible charges she said, “Oh, I don’t watch the news anymore, I just ask you.” BTW, just noticed on Raw Story (dated yesterday, but did not appear until today) that two of Fitzgerald’s assistants carrying voluminous documents, meet with the grand jury yesterday.
She’s getting better info that way.
Good catch!
BTW, BradBlog has the video of the Hardball segment.
What’s interesting about the Miller subpeona is that, before she agreed to testify after being in jail, she made a deal with Fitzgerald that he would not ask her about her WMD coverage sources. So who was she protecting in jail? Libby or Chalabi?
precisly…poor baby, she might be protecting both in each of their venues of deception. Interesting, to say the least.
Earlier this week, Josh Marshall reminded us that Frank Foer in New York magazine in 2004 had written about Miller’s security clearance:
She was embedded in Iraq during spring 2003 when the shit was hitting the fan over the Niger document forgeries so my guess would be that she knows far more than she’s letting on or was willing to give Fitzgerald – and he knew it.
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~ Cross-posted from my diary … ~
By Lawrence O’Donnell | Bio
Huffington Post July7, 2005 — In February, Circuit Judge David Tatel joined his colleagues’ order to Cooper and Miller despite his own, very lonely finding that indeed there is a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources. He based his finding on Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which authorizes federal courts to develop new privileges “in the light of reason and experience.” Tatel actually found that reason and experience “support recognition of a privilege for reporters’ confidential sources.” But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to “the gravity of the suspected crime.”
Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to “having carefully scrutinized [the prosecutor’s] voluminous classified filings.”
It’s Rove… ◊ by Lawrence O’Donnell – July 2, 2005
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“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
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~ Cross-posted from my diary … ~
Tavis: Nice to see you again. I’ve been dying to ask you this for a few days since I knew that you were connected to this. What did Lawrence O’Donnell know and when did he know it?
O’Donnell: Well, he knew what was in the “Time” magazine emails that were under subpoena by the special prosecutor. That subpoena was being defied for a year and a half, as was, as we all know, the two reporters were defying their subpoenas and appealing all the way up to the United States Supreme Court to try to be excused from answering—
Tavis: The two reporters: Judith Miller of the “New York Times–”
O’Donnell: Judith Miller and Matt Cooper of “Time” magazine. The press took their eye off the ball of the most important subpoena, which was the documents subpoena. It was my feeling for a very long time that “Time” magazine, once they exhausted their appeals and if the case went against them, would turn over those documents. And what I knew for months was in those documents, it will be revealed to the prosecutor that Karl Rove was indeed the source that Matt Cooper had been protecting for two years and willing to go to jail for two years. And so that’s what I revealed on July 1 on “The McLaughlin Group” that kind of got this end of the controversy started again. It had been a quiet controversy for almost a year at that point.
Read full comment »»
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY