Reporters' Files Subpoenaed

[seemslikeadream]

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A16

The federal prosecutor who has served at least four reporters with grand jury subpoenas in his investigation into the disclosure of an undercover CIA officer's identity is now pursuing a second leak case in which he has obtained a subpoena for New York Times reporters' telephone records.

Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is also acting as a special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe, informed the Times by letter last week that his office has subpoenaed telephone company records. The move is part of an effort to determine whether anyone in the government told Times reporters of planned federal asset seizures in December 2001 at the offices of an Islamic charity suspected of providing funding to al Qaeda, according to several sources familiar with the case.

U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald is seeking reporters' phone records.

The FBI believes that a call from a reporter to a representative of the charity, the Illinois-based Global Relief Foundation, may have led to the destruction of documents there the night before the government's raid, according to findings by the Sept. 11 commission.

The subpoena seeks the phone records of two Times reporters, Philip Shenon and Judith Miller, according to the sources. Officials at the Times and in Fitzgerald's office refused to comment.

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9890-2004Sep9.html

[HEyHEY]

1. I thought you had protection agains that in the US

I hope their notes don't use real names and are all in crappy shorthand

[manteuffel1]

11. Don't you want to know

who in the White House betrayed Plume? This could be BIG!!!

[Javaman]

27. Not in cases that are federal offences...

[Bandit]

32. No protection...It's called the Patriot Act.

They can break every Constitutional Right if they link it to terrorism.

[Renew Deal]

2. I guess the investigation is still alive.

This must be huge in size and scope.

[The Zanti Regent]

3. I have no sympathy for Judith Miller

I think of all the blood on her hands that she will never wash off. It couldn't happen to a more deserving presstitute!

[MnFats]

10. that may be true, but we don't want the gov't. screwing with..

....press freedom.
....there have been clear attempts to intimidate and stonewall, just as some in the media are stiffening their backs and growing some gonads.

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. Aiding and Abetting terrorists

is a serious crime. I don't care if your a journalist or anything else, you just threw your rights out the window, when you commit crimes against your own country.

[Rose Siding]

23. These reporters are protecting powerful govt sources....

who have attacked regular citizens in calculated political moves. The govt sources aren't the kind of whistleblowers who were acting in the public's interest.

[Bozita]

13. "Presstitute" -- great word -- Judith Miller is the centerfold ...

... of choice for any magazine wanting to promote pre-emptive war.

How in hell does she sleep at night?

[UpInArms]

4. Hooray for Fitzgerald!

and for the memory impaired:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,128743,00.html

excerpt:

Reports about Gill have invigorated a smoldering debate among Republicans, some who say the administration has been too accepting of certain representatives of Muslim groups with dubious ties to terror funding and anti-American sympathies. Others say going after Muslims like Gill is akin to a political witch hunt.

According to a former federal counterterrorism official who asked not to be named, Gill had a brief non-defense/intelligence-related background with the federal government after graduating from law school and joining the Naval Reserves in 1997.

Press releases available on the Internet also show Gill quoted as a vice chairman of the Prince William County Republican Committee in Northern Virginia, a post he apparently no longer holds, as well as treasurer of the Prince William Taxpayers' Alliance in 2003.

Gill, 32, also worked with the Islamic Free Market Institute, which was co- founded by prominent Republican activist and lobbyist Grover Norquist and Khaled Saffuri, who also worked as AMC's government affairs director.

[KoKo]

12. Oh Geeze! Finally the Grover Norquist story hits the fan! We had

some threads about that on DU when it happened. There is a tie in to one of the Major PNAC/AIPAC folks..., too. Can't remember his name...but he was on C-Span last week hawking for Iran Invasion or some such thing...

Thanks for finding this. It's hard to believe that Asscroft is allowing this investigation to broaden in scope, though...Fitzgerald has to report to him. :shrug:

So many twists and turns, but I would be happy to see Judith Miller outed.

[shraby]

15. Ashcroft has recused himself from

the Plame case. Looks like Fitzgerald's case has been drastically widened.

[Just Me]

5. OMG!!! This is wild!!!

Talk about a defining "axis"!!!

WOW!!!

I am visualizing a conspiracy (not theory) that would destruct all illusions.

,...wow,...

[dweller]

7. spill it then

perhaps others will have supporting detail/theory.


dp

[seemslikeadream]

19. Just Me

:hi:

[reorg]

6. Disinfo agent Miller possibly an informant for al Qaeda funders?

That would shed an entirely new light on certain terror networks portrayed in this article:

Beslan: the real international connection
by Brendan O'Neill

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA6CA.htm

[shraby]

8. That all has to do with this thread

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2296320>

[grytpype]

9. Hmmm... first new Plame story in quite awhile....

Things to note...

This is a substantial broadening of Fitzgerald's work, but the only connection to the Plame Affair might be that the same Bushist shitheads are to blame.

This leak took place in December 2001, well before the Plame leak, although the same people might have been involved. Feith's office is leaking like a fricking sieve, they leaked Iran intel to Chalabi, who passed it on, and the leaked shitloads about Iran policy to Israeli intelligence.

[leftchick]

18. Joe Wilson said last week "There will be redemption"!

I watched him and several other great authors on C-span's booknotes.
During his talk he assured the audience he had evey confidence in Fitzgerald and that there would be redemption for the crime of outing his wife. I believe him!:)

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. No, this is not expansion of Fitzgerald's Plame work

it's what he was working on before Plame happened.

Fitzgerald's leak investigation in the Global Relief matter began shortly after NATO troops and U.S. personnel, acting at the direction of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), raided several of the charity's overseas offices on Dec. 14, 2001. At the time, the Chicago U.S. attorney's office was conducting a criminal investigation of the Illinois offices of Benevolence International Foundation and Global Relief Foundation.

An examination of those investigations by the Sept. 11 commission said that Fitzgerald's "original plan did not call for searches or takedowns of the GRF or BIF offices in Illinois." Instead, the commission found, the FBI had planned to listen via wiretap to the charities' reaction to the overseas searches.

But, the commission said in findings released after its main report, "this plan went awry when word of the impending action apparently leaked to GRF. FBI personnel learned that some of the targets of the investigations may be destroying documents." Agents then "hastily assembled" a search, the commission reported.

The commission's findings added that "press leaks plagued almost every OFAC blocking action that took place in the United States."
...
Fitzgerald brought half a dozen GRF officials and other witnesses before a grand jury in 2002 in an effort to learn the identity of the Times's source, according to Simmons. Fitzgerald subsequently sought a subpoena for the Times reporters' phone records last year but was turned down by political appointees at Justice Department headquarters, according to current and former government officials. It is unclear what other investigative steps he has taken since then.

[snippy]

28. All of the things you mention are being investigated as related matters.

At least there was an article posted a couple of weeks ago citing an unnamed source in the White House saying that the investigation into the Plame leak had broadened to include all of those things, plus the Niger uranium forgeries. It appears to be all part of one big marketing plan.

[SeekingTruth]

14. What I think is going to happen.....

This investigation is going to draw on way past Nov 2 with no indictments until afterwards.

I am amazed at how slow this investigation is being carried out. I mean, come on, how hard is it to find out what Bush Whitehouse official told reporters what?

As for a constitutional protection for reporters, it is a myth. The Columbia Journalism Review magazine did a piece on this topic a couple of issues ago. It's pretty good and written by Mark Bowden.

[shraby]

16. There will be not only indictments

but impeachments galore when this breaks.

[Ladyhawk]

30. Perhaps this investigation is "Election Insurance."

If the shrub pulls a win out of his ass, his administration will have to face the music for at least a few of their criminal acts.

[geek tragedy]

20. Oh sweet irony, considering that the Reichwingers expanded Whitewater

into Clenisgate. Hit 'em hard, Mr. Fitzgerald.

[tabasco]

24. And Whitewater involved NO issues of national concern. NONE!

The Plame crimes have already done significant, actual damage to national security. These traitors must pay for their crimes.

[geek tragedy]

26. Indeed.

A double hanging--let Grover Norquist and Scooter Libby hold hands whilst justice and gravity run their course.

[Rose Siding]

22. The govt shut down a Saudi charity just yesterday

and Graham has been talking about it, too. Even though Steno Sue repeatedly tries to steer the story into being one of persecution of the press, there's lots of info here.

[KoKo]

25. Kick

:kick:

[swag]

29. Rekick

Kick it good.

[KoKo]

31. Kick

:kick: