'Wash Post' Reporter Pincus Asks Judge to Reconsider Contempt Charge

By: E&P Staff Walter Pincus, the veteran Washington Post reporter, on Thursday urged a federal judge to reconsider her order that he ask his confidential sources to waive their anonymity.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer had held Pincus in contempt Wednesday for refusing to name his sources in the civil suit brought by Wen Ho Lee, the former nuclear weapons scientist.

Pincus asked Collyer to at least delay enforcement of that order while he appeals.

"The Court's Order requiring Mr. Pincus to contact his sources is without precedent and itself threatens to undermine the privilege that has been asserted -- at a stage of the proceedings at which the privilege has not been finally adjudicated," Pincus's lawyers told the court.