September 29, 2005: Lawyer for Reporter Claims Libby’s Lawyer Tried to Discourage Client from Testifying

A day before New York Times reporter Judith Miller is scheduled to testify before the grand jury investigating the Plame Wilson identity leak (see September 30, 2005), Miller’s attorney, Floyd Abrams, writes a letter to Lewis Libby’s attorney, Joseph Tate, alleging that Tate had repeatedly made comments to him that may have been intended to discourage Miller from testifying. Miller is expected to provide testimony that will contradict Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, who has testified that he never provided Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a CIA agent to Miller (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Miller was concerned that Libby would not provide her with a specific waiver of confidentiality, without which she was unwilling to testify. Libby had signed a general waiver provided by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, but Miller did not consider that as enough of a release from her obligation to protect him, her source. Miller has said that she spent 85 days in jail (see July 6, 2005) because Tate told her that the general waiver was not given freely. Libby provided her with a specific waiver two weeks ago (see September 15, 2005). Abrams writes that Tate told him that the general waiver was “by its nature coerced and had been required as a condition for Mr. Libby’s continued employment at the White House.” Abrams writes in part: “In our [various] conversations… you did not say that Mr. Libby’s waiver was uncoerced. In fact, you said quite the opposite. You told me that the signed waiver was by its nature coerced and had been required as a condition for Mr. Libby’s continued employment at the White House. You compared the coercion to that inherent in the effective bar imposed upon the White House employees asserting the Fifth Amendment. A failure by your client to sign the written waiver, you explained, like any assertion of your client of the Fifth Amendment, would result in his dismissal. You persuasively mocked the notion that any waiver signed under such circumstances could be deemed voluntary.” Tate says that Abrams’s claims are “outrageous” and “factually incorrect,” and that neither he nor Libby has said or done anything to discourage Miller from testifying or to influence any testimony she might give. Abrams says that Tate provided him with some information from Libby’s previous testimony to the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), and attempted to find out from him what Miller might testify to. He says he refused to provide Tate with any such information. Miller has also written that Tate expressely asked her not to “go there” when she refused to say that her testimony would exonerate Libby, but other sources have said Tate did not say anything of that nature to her. [National Journal, 10/18/2005]