Reply #106: When John Dean spoke to that ACLU group here, that is indeed what

[calimary]

he said. He made a reference to a Supreme Court ruling that, as he briefly described it, said reporters have to divulge their sources to a grand jury if the grand jury asks. And the other hint was the timing, in connection with ashcroft having to recuse himself. Dean said he suspects that some mid-level person cracked over the 2003 Christmas holidays, and the FBI told ashcroft, which meant he then knew, which meant he formally became Mr. Conflict-of-Interest, and had to step away from it and appoint Fitzgerald. And as Dean put it - "ashcroft probably prefered that he (Fitzgerald) NOT be there."

When I was a reporter, I was quite conscious, at all times, of the notion that I'd have to go to jail rather than divulge a source. But I did news for local rock radio stations much of the time, and who on earth does any muckraking from there? You barely even HAVE a "news" room in the first place (you, by yourself, ARE the newsroom at those stations). But at the AP, where some people did do some digging, it never reached that point where somebody was gonna face jail time or appeal to our local/regional news support organizations or any company lawyers. I didn't ever get even near the same planet of that kind of journalism on the Hollywood beat. So I don't know all the in's and out's. There WAS an LA Times reporter, Bill Farr (I think), who did. But that was quite a long time ago, and I'm not familiar with the details.