Judith Miller Jailed 85 Days for Refusing to Identify Plame Source
New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for 85 days in 2005 after refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity. Miller had not even written about Plame, but the Bush-era DOJ subpoenaed her anyway, making her incarceration one of the most prominent reporter-contempt cases in U.S. history.
Following the July 2003 publication of a Robert Novak column identifying CIA officer Valerie Plame — widely seen as political retaliation against her husband, war critic Ambassador Joseph Wilson — the DOJ opened a leak investigation. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald subpoenaed several reporters including New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who had spoken with Vice President Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby but had never published anything about Plame. Miller refused to testify, asserting reporter's privilege. On July 6, 2005, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ordered her jailed for civil contempt. Miller served 85 days in the Alexandria Detention Center before accepting a limited waiver from Libby and agreeing to testify in October 2005. The case galvanized calls for a federal reporter shield law and drew widespread condemnation from press freedom organizations. Time magazine's Matthew Cooper faced the same subpoena but his source released him from his pledge before incarceration.