Judith Miller

In the fall of 2002, during the run up to the war in Iraq, Oprah Winfrey devoted a portion of one of her shows to answering a pressing international question. Do the Iraqi people want America to liberate them from Saddam Hussein?

Ms. Winfrey posed the question to Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesperson for the Iraqi National Congress—an erstwhile group of Iraqi exiles led by Ahmed Chalabi that, at the time, was busy lobbying the American government to overthrow Saddam Hussein. “Absolutely,” responded Mr. Qanbar.

Later, Ms. Winfrey called on an audience member. “I hope this doesn’t offend you,” said the young woman. “I just don’t know what to believe with the media and…” Ms. Winfrey cut her off. “We’re not trying to show you propaganda,” Ms. Winfrey explained. “We’re just showing you what is.”

Four-and-a-half years later, with American troops embroiled in a seemingly intractable civil war in Iraq, and the reputation of Iraqi National Congress in tatters, the question of what exactly Ms. Winfrey and the rest of her colleagues in the media were showing to millions of American viewers on the eve of invasion begs a second look.

Tonight at 9:00 p.m., PBS will be airing a special episode of Bill Moyers Journal, entitled, “Buying the War,” which takes a long, hard look at the American media’s performance in the months leading up to the start of the war. The result is a detailed portrait of media groupthink gone horribly awry.

Throughout the 90 minute program, a large number of print and broadcast journalists--from Oprah, to Judith Miller, to George Will, to the Sunday morning talk show pundits, to Roger Ailes’ legions at Fox, to William Kristol, to the reporters on the evening network news, to Vanity Fair’s David Rose—are shown passing along hyperbolic stories about Iraq’s biological and nuclear weapons capacity.

As it turns out, many of those overblown stories relied almost exclusively on the false claims of hawkish administration officials and dodgy Iraqi defectors. Claims that often went unchecked by some of the best minds in the business.

There were exceptions, and throughout “Buying the War,” Mr. Moyers gives plenty of airtime to the reporters who got the story right, particularly to John Walcott, Jonathan Landay, and Warren Strobel of the erstwhile Knight Ridder news service.

The show also features captivating interviews with 60 Minutes’ Bob Simon, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus, and an apologetic Dan Rather.

“Especially right after 9/11, especially when the war in Afghanistan is going on, there was a real sense that you don’t get that critical of a government that’s leading us in war time,” Walter Isaacson, the former chairman and CEO of CNN tells Mr. Moyers. “Big people in corporations were calling up and saying, ‘You’re being anti-American here.’”

Reached by phone on Monday, Kathleen Hughes, the producer of “Buying the War,” said that the documentary has been a year in the making. “Bill has called this a historical documentary except the history is only four years ago,” said Ms. Hughes.

“By and large most of us in the media accepted the administration’s point of view,” said Ms. Hughes. “I think that had to do with what some of our reporters say in the show--that there seemed to be an almost bipartisan belief that Saddam Hussein was keeping a big arsenal and that we had to be worried about him. But when you look at the Knight Ridder reporting you begin to understand that there was plenty of detailed, accurate information available in real time. That was the biggest surprise.”

Did the largely unflattering portrayal of the press leave Ms. Hughes feeling depressed about her profession?

“No,” said Ms. Hughes. “I still have a tremendous amount of respect for journalists. We all have our good work and our not so good work. I still think it’s a noble profession. Just look at the Knight Ridder guys. In this case, they’re my heroes.”

“On the First Amendment,” Judith Miller said, “I am a hard-liner.”  read more »

Yesterday on "Meet the Press," a bunch of journalists rued the new landscape created by Patrick Fitzgerald and his star witness Judith Miller. Tim Russert, Gwen Ifill, Howard Kurtz—they all feared damage to professionalism, that the public might see the press as in bed with powerful officials. (Aren't they?) Even as they complained, the journalists seemed to fear their own loss of privilege. Kurtz talked about professionalism in an entitled manner. Gwen Ifill said that only a crowd inside the Beltway really cares about what Scooter Libby said or didn't say to Judith Miller.

These journalists are out of touch. They don't understand the seismic consequences of the Iraq war, which is slowly transforming our politics (beginning with the Congress). Journalists failed us in that war; Judy Miller disgraced the New York Times by carrying the water for Richard Cheney and thereby misleading a society, with the gravest consequences. In fact, you might say that Judy Miller's testimony is her most honest reporting yet about the way the Iraq war was engineered. Thank you, Judy and Scooter; now I know why the VP's tragic/literary chief of staff routinely took hours of out of his days to talk to reporters.

This trial has demonstrated the corruption of "access journalism," which these journalists like to style as "professional." The crisis of leadership that Iraq represents is also theirs. In the Information Age, they failed us by pushing this war on the basis of false information about WMD and no information about the hidden agendas. It turns out that the less access you had, the more clearthinking you were about what a bad idea it was to invade Iraq. Why does Barack Obama look so good right now? He wasn't in the Senate, that's why; he wasn't compromised. I.F. Stone and Noam Chomsky always said, it's more important to read than to go to a cocktail party.

The professional bloodletting that is happening in the Libby trial, the destruction of all those promises journalists made to the White House—this can only serve journalism right now by restoring traditional virtues of the writing business: a sense of vocation that has nothing to do with corporate salary, a sense of citizenship that has nothing to do with Meritocratic Election, and a sense of detachment that wants nothing to do with imperialistic misadventures that are bound to cause untold suffering in another part of the world.

"I never worked with Judy Miller," said Thomas Ricks, Washington Post military correspondent and Fiasco author.

Ricks was defending the Post's coverage during the run-up to the Iraq War, and drew some laughter from the New York Times-toting crowd last night at the 92nd Street Y.

The occasion was a panel discussion moderated by veteran journalist Robert McNeil, and featuring former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle Perle, documentary Filmmaker Martin Smith, and Ricks. Prior to the heated discussion on the war, two clips were shown from "America at a Crossroads," a week-long PBS series that premieres in April, that features Smith and Perle.

Perle, who still defends the invasion of Iraq, took plenty of criticism from the floor: there were several shouts of "liar," a fair amount of hissing, and the ejection of one audience member who was shouting about how the Bush administration benefited from 9/11.

But later, during a press Q&A, Perle took the opportunity to swipe back at Ricks.

(As Perle, Smith and McNeil sat down for the post-panel Q&A, Ricks passed through already in his overcoat. Ricks said that as a reporter, he shouldn't be up there answering questions).

"I didn't have a chance inside to defend my friend Judy Miller," said Perle. "I don't know if the New York Times is still here."

"Judy reported, with the great skill she possesses, what she was being told by people who had access to the information, who believed what they were telling her. The derision that she has suffered, because some of that information is inaccurate, is an appalling way to judge--particularly--a fellow journalist.

"I think that anyone who goes back over what Judy was writing will find that it was professionally sourced, and accurately reported. I was following what she were writing, and I knew what people in the administration, and elsewhere, were saying, based on the information that was available to them. I think that she has been dealt with unfairly. It particular pains me that Tom--that a remark would come from a fellow journalist."

-Michael Calderone

When prosecutors won the right to inspect reporters’ phone records earlier this month—potentiall  read more »

When prosecutors won the right to inspect reporters’ phone records earlier this month—po  read more »

On the evening of July 17, The New York Times announced plans to cut the width of its pages by one a  read more »

On Sunday, April 9, the New York Times reported on page A1 that the Vice President's former Chief of Staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby had been authorized to leak to former Times reporter Judith Miller that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium" to produce a nuclear bomb.

The Times piece said that Libby was told to overstate the intelligence.

But on Wednesday, Libby filed a correction to accompany his original court filings (from which the Times had gotten its information). The correction explained that he was not told to oversell the intelligence. Details of the letter were made available to the media on Tuesday night, and The Washington Post ran a piece on Wednesday explaining Libby's correction.

The Times, however, did not publish the new Libby filing until today, because, as an Editor's Note points out in today's Times, a voicemail and an email with the information "went unnoticed." —Gabriel Sherman

In the ideal world of shopping, there are no failed products; there are only failed consumers.  read more »

In the ideal world of shopping, there are no failed products; there are only failed consumers.  read more »

The piece that Judith Miller is working on for the Atlantic appears to be a profile of Libya's Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, according to sources familiar with the magazine or with Miller's activities. Earlier this week, Miller told the Media Mob she had recently returned from the Middle East.

According to one source, Miller's Atlantic piece was assigned months ago, before the March 1 appointment of James Bennet to be editor. It is unclear whether Bennet, who was the Times' Jerusalem bureau chief while Miller was reporting on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for the paper, plans to run the piece. Bennet declined to comment yesterday on Miller's reporting assignment. --Gabriel Sherman

A source at the Atlantic confirms that former New York Times reporter/journalistic privilege test case Judith Miller is working on a piece for the magazine. The possibility of Miller's return to writing was first reported yesterday by Gawker. According to the Atlantic source, Miller is working on a reported piece--and not a first-person account of her crisis at the Times, like Howell Raines' 20,000-odd word Atlantic piece of May 2004.

Newly appointed Atlantic editor James Bennet does not yet have a working phone line. Reached by phone, Miller declined to comment on her Atlantic assignment. "I just got back from the Middle East," she said. "I can’t talk right now."

--Gabriel Sherman

Covert manipulation of the Iraqi news media certainly must have seemed like a brilliant idea to some  read more »

Sometimes the smoke of battle has to clear before vital issues can be seen.  read more »

In late August of 2002, David Sanger, White House correspondent for The New York Times, found himsel  read more »

Dear Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.:   Who are you kidding?    read more »

Dear Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.:Who are you kidding?  read more »

The end of The New York Times’ five-week standoff with reporter Judith Miller appears to be near.  read more »

The end of The New York Times’ five-week standoff with reporter Judith Miller appears to be ne  read more »

On the heels of New York Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr.'s declaration to Charlie Rose that "morale is just great," executive editor Bill Keller is headed for a meeting with the paper's Washington bureau---the epicenter of disgruntlement over the Judith Miller case. Keller plans to meet the bureau staff today at a brown bag lunch sessio0n, a week after he canceled a similar lunch to stay in New York and deal with the Miller negotiations. According to a Times source, managing editor Jill Abramson may attend the meeting as well.

"The Washington bureau knows the topic will be Judy and where the bureau goes from here," a Times source said.  read more »

--Gabriel Sherman

The Judith Miller farewell press tour continues. This morning, while publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. was preparing to go on Charlie Rose, Miller was giving an exit interview to New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser.

The Media Mob sighted the two at a table at Balthazar--where Miller went last week for an interview with Lynn Duke of The Washington Post--shortly after 9 a.m. Peyser, who had previously waded with glee into the dustup between Miller and Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd, was scribbling notes throughout the conversation; Miller was expressive, at times waving her arms in the air.  read more »

UPDATE: Gawker got a photo, but somehow was unable to recognize the former Columnist of the Year.

--Gabriel Sherman

"One person's whistleblower is another person's snitch," Judith Miller said last night. "And they all have to be defended. I was disappointed some of my fellow colleagues didn't see that."

Miller was making her first public appearance as a former New York Times reporter, in a panel discussion at a dinner hosted by the Media Law Resource Center.

The Miller saga is far from over--she may yet be a witness against her indicted snitch/whistleblower, former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby. But the moving-on phase has begun for Miller and for the Times.

Thus Miller was speaking her piece--and posting more pieces on her Web site. Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., after weeks behind a press-office veil of no-comments, is booked for Charlie Rose tonight, according to a Times source.

Last night's panel topic in the New York Sheraton ballroom was "Reporter's Privilege," but the first question of the night from moderator Terry Moran of ABC was about Miller's just-announced retirement. Sounding a theme from her farewell letter, Miller told the audience she "had actually become the news, and that's something that no New York Times reporter wants to be."

In the rear of the hall, Times reporter Katherine Q. Seelye was typing away on a laptop, writing a news story about the end of Miller's Times career.

"The Times is a great institution and a great newspaper," Miller said, "and I'm very happy with my career there. But it's time to do something else."

That something else has yet to be defined. Miler said she plans to take time off, now that her five-week standoff with the newspaper is over--"the break I was supposed to take when I came out of jail and never got."

In a Nov. 5 interview, Miller had said that she still has no book deal to write about her involvement in special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's leak probe--lamenting "bloggers who report I have a book deal that I don't have, that my publisher says I don't have, that my agent says I don't have, that my best friends say I don't have...To continue to print that, and to have The Los Angeles Times for example carry [Arianna Huffington's reporting] as if it is fact--that's not her problem, that's mainstream media's problem."

During last night's panel, Miller offered another piece of media criticism, saying she'd been "jumping up and down" in jail with frustration over the Times' lack of aggression in covering the leak case--even if the paper did have "a dog in the fight."  read more »

And she added that the press coverage had failed to adequately address the First Amendment aspects of her case.

"I think the media tends to be focused on the wrong issues when there is so much at stake," Miller said. "We take the First Amendment for granted. I don't think we can, given the judicial decisions that have been handed down. We're facing a serious crisis." --Gabriel Sherman

On her Web site, Judith Miller has now posted the text of the goodbye letter she's scheduled to publish in tomorrow's New York Times.

In it, Miller describes herself "sad to leave my professional home." She also says that she desired to set the record straight on weapons-of-mass-destruction coverage before the Times ever published its 2004 editors' note on the subject:

At a commencement speech I delivered at Barnard College in 2003, a year before that note was published, I asked whether the administration's prewar W.M.D. intelligence was merely wrong, or was it exaggerated or even falsified. I believed then, and still do, that the answer to bad information is more reporting. I regret that I was not permitted to pursue answers to the questions I raised at Barnard. Their lack of answers continues to erode confidence in both the press and the government.

She also writes: "The right of reply and the obligation to correct inaccuracies are...the mark of a free and responsible press."  read more »

And she concludes by stating her resolve to "call attention to the internal and external threats to our country's freedoms--Al Qaeda and other forms of religious extremism, conventional and W.M.D. terrorism, and growing government secrecy in the name of national security--subjects that have long defined my work. "

"I'm tired," Judith Miller said by phone, two hours after The New York Times announced her retirement from the paper.

Miller, having reached the end of her long standoff with the Times, was preparing for tonight's previously-scheduled appearance on a panel at the Media Law Resource Center's annual dinner, along with Time reporter Matt Cooper.

"I'm really very satisfied with the agreement. I will always miss the Times, but now it was time to move on," Miller said.

"I plan to take a little time off, the time I was supposed to take before this 40-day nightmare began."

Miller said the agreement was reached today, after the Times relented and agreed to her request that she be allowed to publish a piece in the paper rebutting her critics. The piece will run tomorrow.

In announcing Miller's departure, executive editor Bill Keller also released a note he'd sent Miller, which softened the edges of some of his most pointed public statements about her conduct.  read more »

"They agreed to run an article and you know Bill graciously clarified his remarks and set the record straight," Miller said. "And that's what I wanted. I had been very upset by his choice of language, and I'm delighted to see that he clarified his remarks."

--Gabriel Sherman

New York Times staffers greeted the paper's divorce from reporter Judith Miller with weary cheer. Executive editor Bill Keller's memo landed in inboxes at half past three, when many reporters were on deadline. So the news skipped over cubicle walls and staffers took a brief pause, then went back to filing.

"There's a general sense of relief," a staffer said. "It'll be interesting to see how we play it in the paper tomorrow. We would like to know more about the terms of her departure, and what limitations the paper faces in describing Judy. Thank God the nightmare is over."

"It's a good thing for the newspaper to put this episode behind us," another staffer said. "The paper and Judy did the right thing by coming to an accommodation which had to happen. There are some people in the newsroom who felt she should be fired. If that wasn't going to happen, then this was the next best thing. Now we have to go about building on the credibility that the paper lost through this episode."

"I could hear people ask their cubicle mates if they read the e-mail in the seconds after it hit," another staffer said. "But it's deadline here and as of this moment and as of a few moments after the e-mail everyone within earshot was working the phones and/or typing like the wind as if the e-mail hadn't happened."  read more »

--Gabriel Sherman

To the Staff:

Judy Miller has retired from The New York Times effective today.

In her 28 years at The Times, Judy participated in some great, prize-winning journalism. She displayed fierce determination and personal courage both in pursuit of the news and in resisting assaults on the freedom of news organizations to report. We wish her well in the next phase of her career. Bill

P.S. Judy asked that I share with you a letter I sent regarding my recent memo to the staff. It follows, and speaks for itself.

Dear Judy,

I know you've been distressed by the memo I sent to the staff about things I wish I'd done differently in the course of this ordeal. Let me be clear on two points you've raised.

First, you are upset with me that I used the words "entanglement" and "engagement" in reference to your relationship with Scooter Libby. Those words were not intended to suggest an improper relationship. I was referring only to the series of interviews through which you -- and the paper -- became caught up in an epic legal controversy.

Second, you dispute my assertion that "Judy seems to have misled" Phil Taubman when he asked whether you were one of the reporters to whom the White House reached out with the Wilson story. I continue to be troubled by that episode. But you are right that Phil himself does not contend that you misled him; and, of course, I was not a participant in the conversation between you and Phil.  read more »

Wish you all the best for the future.

Regards, Bill

Reporter Judith Miller may be returning to the New York Times newsroom this month.  read more »

Reporter Judith Miller may be returning to the New York Times newsroom this month.  read more »

It looks like Judith Miller won't be returning to the New York Times newsroom Monday morning. Last week, the Times asked Miller to cut short her leave of absence and return to the paper Monday or Tuesday in an "unspecified editing" role, a source with knowledge of the situation said.

Previously, the Times had been negotiating with Miller about leaving the paper, discussing severance pay and a joint statement about her departure.

But both proposals--Miller going and Miller staying--have stalled out on the same negotiating point: Miller's desire to publish an op-ed in the Times to rebut her critics.

Miller is insistent, sources on both sides of the negotiation said, on getting a forum to rebut public criticisms of her by executive editor Bill Keller, columnist Maureen Dowd and public editor Byron Calame. With the Times unwilling to grant Miller the space, the negotiations are at an impasse.  read more »

--Gabriel Sherman

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller canceled his planned visit to the paper's Washington bureau today. According to Times sources, Washington bureau chief Phil Taubman told his staff in an e-mail that Keller was canceling his lunch meeting with the bureau and remaining in New York to handle the ongoing Judith Miller standoff. --Gabriel Sherman  read more »

Remember the old Herblock Watergate cartoon?  read more »

Out of the delirium of Judiana (Gawker’s coinage), a paradigm shift?  read more »

By Tuesday, Oct.  read more »

Remember the old Herblock Watergate cartoon?  read more »

By Tuesday, Oct.  read more »

Observer columnist Ron Rosenbaum isn't for everyone, and most writing about blogging is pretty dull. But if you're a fan, his piece this week shouldn't be missed.

"I think the recent total frenzy of Judiana—the Talmudic, blogospheric analysis of the entire spectrum of speculation, rumor, conjecture in the Plame case and its Judy Miller subplot that has consumed so many of us—may mark the moment when the way we process information has changed in some deeper fundamental way that transcends this particular media colonoscopy, transcends media consciousness and suggests some deep internal realignment of the prefrontal lobes."  read more »

He's not really joking...

And relatedly, Ad Age concludes that U.S. workers this year will spend the equivalent of about 551,000 years reading blogs.

Reporter Judith Miller and The New York Times are in negotiations over the terms under which she would possibly agree to leave the paper.

According to a source familiar with the discussions, there are three issues on the table. The first is how much severance Miller would receive, the second concerns whether she will be given space on the Op-Ed page to answer critics and the third is whether the Times and Miller will issue a joint statement defining the terms of her departure.

Miller declined to comment. Miller's attorney, Robert Bennett, and Times lawyer George Freeman, did not return calls for comment.

Multiple sources sympathetic to Miller's case said they did not anticipate Miller leaving until her conditions were met.

"The sense I have is that it's not a question of dismissing her. If she won't go, she won't go," said one source.

On Monday, the Observer reported that Miller had met with publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. Today, The Wall Street Journal reported that the meeting had touched on severance.

Miller's potential departure is complicated by the fact that she is protected by the Newspaper Guild's contract with the paper. The contract limits the paper's ability to fire employees at will.

A source with knowledge of the proceedings said Miller has not ruled out legal action if her proposed conditions are not met.  read more »

"She will not leave under these circumstances, not in a defamatory atmosphere," the source said.

--Anna Schneider-Mayerson and Gabriel Sherman

Of all the evidence that has emerged so far in the C.I.A.  read more »

“What kind of reporter are you?” Judith Miller asked Don Van Natta Jr.  read more »

“What kind of reporter are you?” Judith Miller asked Don Van Natta Jr.  read more »

Of all the evidence that has emerged so far in the C.I.A.  read more »

From the other side of the International Date Line, Bill Keller presents his latest memo on the Judith Miller crisis (via Romenesko).

Revisiting his go-slow approach to cleaning up after the WMD-reporting mess, Keller writes that "we fostered an impression that The Times put a higher premium on protecting its reporters than on coming clean with its readers."  read more »

Keller then sets about fostering the opposite impression. He concedes that in Miller's contempt case, he didn't know--and that the lawyers did know--"the substance of the confidential interviews, the notes." And he suggests that, in dealing with Miller, he probably ought to have:

Until Fitzgerald came after her, I didn't know that Judy had been one of the reporters on the receiving end of the anti-Wilson whisper campaign. I should have wondered why I was learning this from the special counsel, a year after the fact. (In November of 2003 Phil Taubman tried to ascertain whether any of our correspondents had been offered similar leaks. As we reported last Sunday, Judy seems to have misled Phil Taubman about the extent of her involvement.)

Only a certain segment of The Politicker's readership will appreciate this (OK, one person. She knows who she is.), but FishbowlNY has found eerie parallels between Times lightning-rod Judy Miller and Daily News lighting-rod-to-be Dawn Eden. (via Gawker)  read more »

Last week, as reporter Judith Miller prepared to return to The New York Times newsroom—having  read more »

Last week, as reporter Judith Miller prepared to return to The New York Times newsroom—having gott  read more »

It didn't take 85 days, but Judith Miller was slow enough to cooperate with the New York Times team reporting on her case that some readers ended up missing the paper's long-awaited Miller coverage on Oct. 16.

The paper's two-story Sunday package--a 5,800-word account of Miller's role in the Valerie Plame affair and Miller's own first-person tale of her conversations with vice-presidential chief of staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby--missed the deadline to be included in the bulldog edition, 270,000 copies distributed nationally.

Deputy managing editor Jon Landman, who oversaw the reporting team, said the slipped deadline was a result of Miller's delaying. Throughout the previous week, Landman said, Miller gave conflicting signals about whether she would write a story herself or not.

"We didn't have her first-person account," Landman said. "We didn't have her perspective on things. We got it a little before noon [Oct. 14]. It was very frustrating.

"There was lots of off-and-on and on-and-off," Landman added. "And that was frustrating too."

The reporters on the story--Don Van Natta Jr., Adam Liptak, Clifford Levy and Janny Scott--had been working to complete a piece with or without Miller's participation, Landman said. But when Miller turned in her first-person piece late on the morning of Oct. 14, the reporters had to race to re-report details to reflect her assertions, with less than a day to spare before deadline.

Executive editor Bill Keller, who was traveling in China, reviewed a partial draft. Copy editors received the piece by 9 a.m. on Saturday, but it was too late to turn the package around for the noon bulldog close.

--Gabriel Sherman   read more »

Correction: The number of copies in the national bulldog edition was about 270,000, not 100,000 as originally reported in this item.

New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas D. Kristof--the first journalist to have written about former ambassador Joseph Wilson's now-famous fact-finding trip to Niger--was originally on prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's subpoena list in 2003, but was never subpoenaed.

In a phone conversation this afternoon, Kristof said he had been on the list. He also said that he had never heard from Bush administration officials about his columns, and had never discussed the subject with Times reporter Judith Miller.

Word that the columnist had been on the list "seeped to me unofficially," Kristof said. He added that people both inside and outside the Times had told him of his role in Fitzgerald's investigation, and of a possible subpoena.

Earlier today, Miller testifed for two hours in a return trip to Fitzgerald's grand jury, which is investigating the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's identity to the press. Her first round of testimony came after she spent 85 days in jail for refusing to discuss her conversations with vice-presidential chief of staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, on the grounds she was protecting a confidential source.

Kristof said that though he had written about Joseph Wilson, he never heard from Libby, presidential advisor Karl Rove or other administration officials about his columns. Kristof also said that he did not discuss the columns with Miller. It remains unclear what story Miller was working on when she spoke with Libby in 2003, or for what editor.

The leak was widely thought to have followed from Joseph Wilson's July 2003 Times op-ed piece, in which the ex-diplomat, citing his own CIA-assigned investigation, cast doubt on the Bush administration's claims that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Niger.

But last week, Miller revealed to Fitzgerald that she had conversed with vice-presidential chief of staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby in June of 2003--not merely in July, as her previous testimony had established.

Kristof had written about Joseph Wilson's uranium inquiries on May 6, 2003, using the ex-diplomat as an anonymous background source. That column inspired Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus to report about Wilson--also without using his name--in a front-page piece on June 12.

Pincus was among the reporters summoned to testify before Fitzgerald's grand jury, but Kristof was not. The prosecutor apparently abandoned plans to subpoena Kristof after it was pointed out that Kristof's writings on the subject--on May 6 and June 13, 2003--all predated the Robert Novak column in July that revealed Valerie Wilson's identity.

"It was correct I was on such a list," Kristof said. "Several months later, I did hear unofficially there was a decision not to call me."

Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis would neither confirm nor deny whether Kristof had been on Fitzgerald's subpoena list.

"As you know the grand jury proceedings are secret," Mathis said in an e-mail. "We are only aware of the subpoenas that we actually received. Mr. Kristof did not receive one."

A spokesperson for Fitzgerald declined to comment.

Kristof also said that he had been planning to write about Miller's incarceration. He had arranged to meet with Miller at the Alexandria Detention Center on October 3, but Miller negotiated her release before the appointed day.

The purpose of the meeting was to write a column about Miller's prison experience, Kristof said.

"I was planning to write a column describing her condition and saying a reporter has no business being in prison and should be out," he said. "I'm waiting, as a lot of people are, for the Times opus on it, and I don't feel right now that I understand it well enough to weigh in. I'm eagerly looking forward to that piece. I think it's important, and I may write about it if I have something useful to add."  read more »

--Gabriel Sherman

On Oct.  read more »

According to sources involved in the Judith Miller case, lawyers for Miller have turned over an additional, previously unreported batch of notes on the New York Times reporter's conversations with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. The notes, a source said, could significantly change the time frame of Miller's involvement with Libby.

After spending 85 days in jail for civil contempt, Miller testified before Fitzgerald's grand jury on September 30 and turned over one set of edited notes. Those notes covered a pair of conversations she had with Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, in July of 2003--shortly after former ambassador Joseph Wilson published a Times op-ed challenging the Bush adminstration's account of the evidence for Iraq's nuclear ambitions.

The appearance of that op-ed is generally seen as the event that triggered the leaking of the information that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA employee, which led in turn to Fitzgerald's investigation. But a lawyer close to the investigation said that the new set of notes details earlier contact Miller had with Libby--possibly in May 2003, two months before Wilson's op-ed appeared.

The existence of the additional notes may be behind the Times' report today that Fitzgerald may call Miller back for additional testimony October 11.

Robert Bennett, a lawyer for Miller, declined to comment. Joseph Tate, the lawyer representing Libby, did not return calls seeking comment. Times lawyer George Freeman would not comment.

The presence of the undisclosed set of notes comes as the Times is seeking to quell internal and external criticism over a lack of transparency in the Miller case. In today's Times, executive editor Bill Keller said Miller's potential return trip to meet with Fitzgerald could further delay the Times' plans to publish an account of the Miller saga. Deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman, who has been tapped to edit the report, declined to discuss the state of the paper's Miller reporting.  read more »

"I'm not going to talk about it," he said.

--Gabriel Sherman