Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald argues for leak sources - Judith Miller

New York Times News Service
Published January 20, 2005

NEW YORK -- A federal prosecutor argued Wednesday that the government should be allowed to examine the telephone records of two New York Times reporters to identify their sources for articles about Islamic charities.

"We want to find out who leaked national security information," prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in a federal court hearing in New York.

Floyd Abrams, a lawyer for the reporters, Judith Miller and Philip Shenon, said the records Fitzgerald wants contain information about "dozens and dozens" of confidential sources the reporters consulted in the fall of 2001. He argued that allowing prosecutors to inspect the records would ultimately affect the flow of information to the public.

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Miller is involved in an unrelated case involving confidential sources. A federal judge in Washington has ordered her jailed for refusing to name her sources to a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald is the prosecutor in both cases.

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On Wednesday, Fitzgerald was acting in his usual capacity as the U.S. attorney in Chicago. He said he was investigating the disclosure in 2001 of impending government actions against two Islamic charities, Holy Land Foundation of Texas and Global Relief Foundation in Bridgeview, Ill. Before the assets of the charities were blocked and their offices raided, Fitzgerald said, a Times reporter called each charity for comment, alerting them to the coming actions.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501200302jan20,1,2777731.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=3&cset=true

In an unrelated case? Demanding the same thing, from the same reporter?

My wild guess: Fitzgerald is trying to leverage the goodwill he thinks he's earned among liberals by appearing to investigate the Plame leak, to gain more investigative powers for himself.

Judith informed an Islamic front that was suspected of plotting violence about a plan by federal police to do a surprise search. The fact that Judith appears to be working more as an asset for certain interests within intelligence agencies -- far more than as a reporter -- in this and the Plame case deserves serious attention. Uncle Armstrong isn't the only media source who was actually on the pay roll of interests within the administration. The fact that she uses her cover as a reporter should not be considered a constitutional shield for her criminal behaviors.

what are the interests in the Chicago case, and if these interests wanted to warn these organizations, why do it via a reporter asking for comment?

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The administration may even have made plans for when the bottom drops out – for when the inevitable indictable offenses see the light of day. That's where Alberto Gonzales, White House über-loyalist, comes in. Formally, any investigation of a federal criminal offense is conducted by the Justice Department, and no indictment can go forward without Gonzales' say-so. Under the old set of rules, we might have been able to count on political pressure to force the appointment of a special prosecutor, as occurred in the investigation of the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to the media. But that's exactly the set of rules this gang has set its sights on upending.
more
http://www.alternet.org/story/21031/