[Mb-civic] Journalists Treated as Eyewitnesses - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Journalists Treated as Eyewitnesses

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 29, 2005; Page A08

President Bush, who famously says he doesn't read newspapers, has often 
described his administration as not overly concerned with news coverage. 
But yesterday's indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff 
portrays a White House that reacted angrily to media accounts and tried, 
with stealth and deception, to use journalists to undermine one of its 
critics.

At the heart of the criminal case against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby are 
charges that he lied about his conversations with three reporters, and 
falsely told a grand jury that he had learned the identity of an 
undercover CIA operative from the journalists, not from Cheney and other 
officials.

The role of the reporters who spoke with Libby on a not-for-attribution 
basis -- NBC's Tim Russert, Time's Matthew Cooper and the New York 
Times' Judith Miller -- is so central that they will likely be called to 
testify if Libby's case goes to trial.

"No one likes to be in the center of these things," Russert said 
yesterday. "I'll do what I have to do as a citizen. It's not 
complicated. . . . If you tell the truth, you only have to tell it 
once," he said of his 20-minute deposition with special prosecutor 
Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Reading the indictment's account of how Libby is 
alleged to have lied about their 2003 conversation, Russert added, was 
"eye-opening."

The indictment backs Russert's account that Libby never spoke to him 
about Valerie Plame, the wife of administration critic Joseph C. Wilson 
IV, when Libby called to complain about a story carried on MSNBC. 
According to the indictment, Libby testified that Russert asked him 
whether he knew that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and, when he said 
he did not, that the "Meet the Press" host said that all the reporters 
knew it.

Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist who disclosed Plame's CIA job 
on July 14, 2003, said in a brief interview that he had hoped to write 
about his role yesterday but could not because Fitzgerald "left 
something on the table. I hope they take that off the table and I'll do it."

He was referring to the indictment's failure to identify "Official A," 
one of Novak's two sources on the Plame story who told Libby of his 
conversation with Novak on July 10 or 11. In the meantime, Novak said, 
he cannot comment, on the advice of his attorneys. The indictment does 
not mention whether Novak testified before the grand jury.

What emerges from the indictment is a picture of a Washington culture in 
which partisans routinely pass sensitive information to reporters under 
a cloak of secrecy. Wilson was originally an unnamed source, and once 
Libby decided to use similar tactics, Libby spent considerable time 
discussing media strategy with other officials, including then-press 
secretary Ari Fleischer. Libby was so concerned about leaving no 
fingerprints that he insisted Miller identify him as a "former Hill 
staffer," not as a senior administration official.

Libby's actions appear driven by press criticism of Bush's erroneous 
claim about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium from Niger, beginning with a 
May 6, 2003, New York Times column by Nicholas D. Kristof for which 
Wilson was an unnamed source. When Washington Post reporter Walter 
Pincus called Libby for a June 12 story on the subject, Libby had 
discussions within Cheney's office "concerning how to respond to 
Pincus," the indictment says. Pincus, who had also talked to Wilson, 
said he spoke twice by phone with Libby on a "background" basis but that 
Wilson's wife did not come up. The indictment says Cheney told his aide 
about Plame's job on June 12.

A week later, an online New Republic article titled "The First Casualty: 
The Selling of the Iraq War" quoted an unnamed ambassador -- Wilson -- 
as saying that administration officials knew the uranium allegations he 
had gone to Niger to investigate were "a flat-out lie." Libby discussed 
the article with his principal deputy, who asked whether information 
about Wilson's trip could be shared with the news media. Libby said he 
could not discuss the matter on a non-secure phone line.

John B. Judis, co-author of the New Republic piece, said he understood 
why Libby was upset by an effort "to unveil the kind of deception that 
had occurred before the Iraq war. Unfortunately, what it provoked on 
Libby's part seems to be revealing the identity of Wilson's wife."

Soon afterward, on June 23, 2003, Libby met with Miller and told the 
Times reporter that Wilson's wife might work at a CIA bureau.

Libby stepped up his press offensive after Wilson went public on July 6, 
in a Times op-ed column, a Post interview and a "Meet the Press" 
appearance. Two days later, he told Miller that Plame did work for the CIA.

On July 12, as he flew back from Norfolk on Cheney's plane, Libby talked 
to other officials about what he should say in response to inquiries 
from Time's Cooper and other reporters. Libby later confirmed to Cooper 
that Wilson's wife had been involved in sending Wilson to Niger. 
Presidential adviser Karl Rove had told Cooper about Plame a day earlier.

In his testimony, Libby said he believes he told Cooper he did not even 
know whether Wilson had a wife.

Mark Feldstein, a professor of media and public affairs at George 
Washington University, said the indictment "strips bare that what 
reporters often learn is officially managed, spinned news. It tends to 
make the reporters look like receptacles for very self-interested leaks, 
which is how the game is often played in Washington. . . . Libby also 
counted on these same reporters to conceal his role in this propaganda 
war, knowing that they would have an instinctive desire to protect their 
confidential sources."

At a news conference, Fitzgerald offered his first public defense of his 
aggressive tactic of threatening journalists with jail for refusing to 
testify about their sources. Miller served 85 days before reaching an 
accommodation with Libby.

"No one wanted to have a dispute with the New York Times or anyone else. 
. . . I was not looking for a First Amendment showdown," Fitzgerald 
said. He added: "I do not think that a reporter should be subpoenaed 
anything close to routinely. It should be an extraordinary case. But if 
you're dealing with a crime, and what's different here is the 
transaction is between a person and a reporter, they're the eyewitness 
to the crime."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801913.html?nav=hcmodule
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