Journalist Jailed for Not Revealing Source to Court
WASHINGTON — A New York Times reporter was jailed Wednesday for refusing to submit to questioning by a special prosecutor investigating possible wrongdoing by the Bush administration, but a Time magazine reporter avoided jail at the last minute by agreeing to cooperate with the government.
U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan ordered Judith Miller, 57, imprisoned until she agreed to testify in an investigation into the naming of a CIA operative, declaring that the rights of journalists to gather news and protect confidential sources must occasionally yield to the power of prosecutors to demand testimony and investigate suspected crimes.
In the test of press freedoms, Miller's lawyers had contended that the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter should not be sent to jail because she was exercising her 1st Amendment rights. But Hogan said journalists had no greater rights than other citizens when called upon to testify in federal proceedings.
The judge's order was the culmination of an emotional court hearing in which the fates of the two journalists took dramatically different turns. While Miller braced for jail, Time reporter Matthew Cooper surprised the court by announcing that he would agree to testify in the case.
Both had been held in civil contempt of court by Hogan for their refusal to identify sources in their investigations of the possibly illegal disclosure of the identity of a CIA agent by a Bush administration official.
Cooper said a source in the CIA leak investigation had phoned him Wednesday morning to release him from his pledge of confidentiality and had encouraged him to testify. That source has not been identified.
White House political strategist Karl Rove has acknowledged speaking with Cooper in the past, but has denied unmasking the CIA agent. Asked whether Rove was the source who called the Time reporter to waive his confidentiality, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, said Wednesday night that the strategist had "not contacted Cooper about this matter," but declined to comment further.
"I have a person in front of me who is defying the law and may be obstructing justice," Hogan said in pronouncing judgment on Miller. "The court has to take action." He said he feared that letting Miller avoid testifying would put the judicial system "on a slippery slope to anarchy."
Miller was escorted from the courtroom by U.S. marshals. Hogan said she would be confined in the Washington area. She reportedly was seen entering an Alexandria, Va., detention center.
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