September 30, 2005: Miller Testifies Before Plame Wilson Grand Jury

Judith Miller speaks to reporters outside the courtroom. [Source: Luke Frazza / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images]New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who yesterday was released from jail after agreeing to testify before the grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see September 29, 2005), testifies before that jury. [Washington Post, 7/3/2007] In some respects Miller’s testimony is less than enlightening. She admits that Lewis Libby was the source that she was protecting (see September 15, 2005), but says that she doesn’t believe Libby told her Plame Wilson’s name. In the same notebook Miller used to take notes from her conversations with Libby (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), Miller wrote “Valerie Flame,” an apparent misspelling. Asked why that name appears in the notebook alongside the notes from her conversations with Libby, Miller equivocates, saying she doesn’t believe she heard the name from Libby. She will later write of her testimony, “I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall.” As a side note, the Times only now reveals Libby as Miller’s source, though other news outlets have already identified Libby. [New York Times, 10/16/2005] Miller testifies that she does not recall her first meeting with Libby, which took place June 23. She will change her testimony (see October 7, 2005 and October 12, 2005) after prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald shows her Secret Service logs showing that she had met with Libby in the Executive Office Building. [National Journal, 10/20/2005] This memory lapse is consistent with theories that Miller may be attempting to protect Libby by failing to testify about that first meeting, where Libby informed Miller that Plame Wilson was a CIA official working in the Weapons, Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control office (see September 29-30, 2005). Miller also testifies that Libby saw the media’s reporting of the Iraq-Niger story as the product of “selective leaking” by the CIA. The purpose of the CIA leaks, Miller says Libby believed, was to protect the agency if no WMD were found in Iraq. [Roberts, 2008, pp. 151]