Judith Miller Controversy

17 November 2005

US Court rules Washington Post reporter in contempt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge found Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus in civil contempt on Wednesday for refusing to disclose names of sources in the case of Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos nuclear scientist once suspected of espionage. Ruling in the latest defeat for reporters in the courts, U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer imposed a fine of $500 a day until Pincus complies...

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17 November 2005

Woodward's Outing Shows Change in Sourcing

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bob Woodward's name is synonymous with anonymous sources, ''Deep Throat'' and reporting that uncovered a scandal that brought down a presidency. Some three decades after Watergate, the outing of Woodward in the CIA leak investigation underscores the change in anonymous sourcing and revives the criticism of the media's use of unnamed officials to curry favor. Woodward's career...

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17 November 2005

Source: Cheney Isn't Woodward's Source

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney is not the unidentified source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about the CIA status of the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, a person familiar with the investigation said Thursday. Woodward did not talk with the vice president that day, did not provide the information that's been reported in Woodward's notes and has not had...

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17 November 2005

Woodward Claim on CIA Leak Disputes Charge

WASHINGTON (AP) - Bob Woodward's version of when and where he learned the identity of a CIA operative contradicts a special prosecutor's contention that Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide was the first to make the disclosure to reporters. Attorneys for the aide, I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, described Wednesday's statement by the Washington Post's assistant managing editor as helpful for their...

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17 November 2005

Woodward Apologizes to Post For Silence on Role in Leak Case

Bob Woodward apologized to The Washington Post yesterday for failing to reveal for more than two years that a senior Bush administration official had told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame, even as an investigation of who disclosed her identity mushroomed into a national scandal. Woodward, an assistant managing editor and best-selling author, said he told Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr...

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16 November 2005

Post editor: Woodward 'made a mistake'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Word came Wednesday that Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, knew the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame before it was published in a July 2003 column. The attorney for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and the only person indicted during the CIA leak investigation, quickly asserted that Woodward...

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16 November 2005

Woodward was told of Plame more than two years ago

WASHINGTON -- Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed. In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told...

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16 November 2005

Bernstein Says There's Too Much 'Piling On' Woodward

NEW YORK Watergate legend Carl Bernstein warned critics to back off their attacks on his former partner Bob Woodward following this week’s disclosures that Woodward had testified in the Valerie Plame case, and had failed to inform Washington Post editors for two years about a confidential conversation he’d had with a White House official. "I think there is an awful lot of piling on," Bernstein...

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16 November 2005

Testifying in the CIA Leak Case

On Monday, November 14, I testified under oath in a sworn deposition to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for more than two hours about small portions of interviews I conducted with three current or former Bush administration officials that relate to the investigation of the public disclosure of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame. The interviews were mostly confidential...

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4 November 2005

American journalism, 'dirty tricks' and political skulduggery

ONE of the troubles with political journalism, especially American political journalism, is that its attention span is so short. A story is front-page news today, but by tomorrow the media spotlight has moved on and the story disappears. Or some minor aspect of it catches the journalists’ imagination and the main thrust of the story is overlooked and then forgotten. Take as an example what has...

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