Times reporter subpoenaed over source used in CIA book RAW STORY

Published: Friday February 1, 2008



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Print This Email This The reporter who helped break the story on the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance has been subpoenaed for refusing to give up a source. "A federal grand jury has issued a subpoena to a reporter of The New York Times, apparently to try to force him to reveal his confidential sources for a 2006 book on the Central Intelligence Agency, one of the reporters lawyers said Thursday," the New York Times reports. Philip Shenon's article continues, "The subpoena was delivered last week to the New York law firm that is representing the reporter, James Risen, and ordered him to appear before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 7. Mr. Risens lawyer, David N. Kelley, who was the United States attorney in Manhattan early in the Bush administration, said in an interview that the subpoena sought the source of information for a specific chapter of the book 'State of War.'" According to the paper, "The chapter asserted that the C.I.A. had unsuccessfully tried, beginning in the Clinton administration, to infiltrate Irans nuclear program." "We intend to fight this subpoena, so well likely be engaging in some sort of litigation, Risen's attorney said. "Jim has adhered to the highest traditions of journalism. He is the highest caliber of reporter that you can find, and he will keep his commitment to the confidentiality of his sources." Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said the paper "strongly supports Mr. Risen and deplores what seems to be a growing trend of government leak investigations focusing on journalists, particularly in the national security area." The information on the CIA and Iran's nuclear program was never published in the Times. Mathis would not say why it had not been. The Justice Department would not comment on the work of the grand jury that issued the subpoena, citing a pending investigation. Risen and Times colleague Eric Lichtblau won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for their disclosure of the Bush administration's wiretapping program. In 2005, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for nearly three months for refusing to identify a confidential source during an investigation into the disclosure of the name of a covert CIA agent. Miller testified after her source, I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, waived Miller's pledge of confidentiality. (with wire reports)



