A prosecutor's hunt for Bush administration leakers of classified information has produced no indictments after almost two years, and legal experts say it's very possible the only person jailed will be a reporter who never wrote a story.
In pursuit of the officials who revealed a CIA officer's identity to reporters, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has gone to the highest reaches of the White House, interviewing President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and their closest aides, including deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove.
Rove's name resurfaced in the past week, with his lawyer saying that Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper spoke to him in the days before the name of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame was first revealed by columnist Robert Novak. The Bush White House has denied since the issue first came up in 2003 that Rove was involved.
The outcome of Fitzgerald's probe could depend on what Cooper tells prosecutors, who already have the Time reporter's notes and e-mails identifying a source.
Cooper's employer, Time Inc, handed the material to Fitzgerald last week. On Wednesday, Cooper agreed to testify after saying his source had released him from his promise to stay silent about the source's identity, while Judith Miller of the New York Times was led away to jail when she refused.
The key to a criminal case, a number of former federal prosecutors say, would seem to be Novak.
Novak refuses to say whether he is cooperating with Fitzgerald. Novak's attorney, James Hamilton, also won't comment.
Novak identified Plame as a CIA operative eight days after her husband, former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times. Wilson suggested the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat on weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the US invasion.
Even if Novak has given away his sources, Fitzgerald may feel that he needs testimony from corroborating witnesses to make a prosecutable case, says Zachary Carter, a former US attorney for the eastern district of New York.
The prosecutor may believe that "given the possibility of a credibility contest between the accused and the reporter, that he would need more than one reporter-witness to establish what was said and by whom," Carter said.
If Miller doesn't talk, she will be released in October when the grand jury investigating the matter expires. She told her newspaper about her trip to jail.
"They put shackles on my hands and my feet," the New York Times reported on Thursday, quoting Miller after her first few hours in jail.
"They put you in the back of this car. I passed the Capitol and all the office buildings I used to cover. And I thought, `My God, how did it come to this?'" she said.
Miller said that the jail's staff were professional and courteous.
Assuming Miller never agrees to testify, "is Fitzgerald going to throw up his hands? That seems unlikely," Carter said.
Fitzgerald would not be putting in all this effort if he thought it was something that had no potential, said Jonathan Feld, a white-collar criminal lawyer in Chicago, where Fitzgerald is US attorney.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese