Miller Testifies Before Grand Jury For Second Time Wednesday

By: E&P Staff After meeting again with the federal prosecutor in the
Valerie Plame/CIA leak case Tuesday, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was asked to testify again before the grand jury on Wednesday. Miller's testimony this morning lasted over an hour. Her attorneys had no comment as they left the courthouse.

The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, had summoned her for a talk on Tuesday after she recalled her previously unknown June 23, 2003, meeting with I.Lewis Libby, top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, and sent the prosecutor the notes of the meeting. But it was not known if Fitzgerald would actually ask her to testify again. Now he has.

The news emerged in an e-mail sent by the Times' executive editor, Bill Keller, to staff this afternoon, which was obtained by E&P. As has been customary in recent weeks, however, the Times did not quickly produce its own article on the latest development. (A story by David Johnston did not appear until after midnight.) Keller did take the opportunity to hit "armchair critics" of the paper's muted handling of the case.

The Washington Post article, one of several that beat the Times to the punch, disclosed that Fitzgerald questioned Miller about the notes which "reveal that the two discussed Bush administration critic and former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV about three weeks before the name of Wilson's wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, appeared in a syndicated column written by Robert D. Novak....One source close to Miller said it appears that the notes were Fitzgerald's first indication that Miller and Libby had spoken in June."

A story in The Wall Street Journal for Wednesday, besides covering Miller's day, also reported that the Plame investigation was now reaching very broadly and deeply into the White House. "Mr. Fitzgerald's pursuit now suggests he might be investigating not a narrow case on the leaking of the agent's name, but perhaps a broader conspiracy," the paper declared. The fabled White House Iraq Group is getting special attention.

At The New York Times, meanwhile, Keller wrote in his memo to staffers: "Judy met this afternoon with the special counsel to hand over additional notes and answer questions. She is to return to the grand jury Wednesday to supplement her earlier testimony. We'll be reporting this in the paper, of course. It means that for a couple more days she remains under a contempt-of-court order, and is not yet clear of legal jeopardy."

He reiterated that the paper planned to write about all this (it has received much criticism for the delay, including from withins its own newsroom): "As we've told readers, once her obligations to the grand jury are fulfilled, we intend to write the most thorough story we can of her entanglement with the White House leak investigation. It's a complicated story involving a large cast, and it has required a meticulous reporting effort -- in part to chase down and debunk some of the myths kicked up by the rumor mill.

"Judy has talked to our reporters already about her legal battle, but the story is incomplete until we know as much as we can about the substance of her evidence, and she is under legal advice not to discuss that until her testimony is completed. This may be frustrating to our armchair critics, and it is frustrating to all of us, but it is not unusual even for this investigation. Matt Cooper of Time wrote about his conversation with his source, Karl Rove, only after his cooperation with the special counsel was completed and the contempt citation had been vacated. Other reporters who have testified -- Walter Pincus, Glenn Kessler and, of course, Robert Novak -- have not disclosed the details of their grand jury testimony to this day."

The Washington Post story noted, "After Miller testified before the grand jury Sept. 30, a source close to Miller said, Fitzgerald and her lawyer urged her to go back through her old notes and turn over any that involved Libby or would be relevant to the case." The Times article on Wednesday corrected one widely-reported tidbit: Miller's notes were discovered in the paper's New York office, not in its Washington bureau.

Earlier Tuesday, Murray Waas reported at NationalJournal.com that inside sources had told him that Libby had not disclosed the June 23 meeting to the grand jury or to FBI investigators.

Karl Rove, top White House aide, has also been called back to testify this week by Fitzgerald.