Plame affair grand jury investigation
Miller
#### Miller

*New York Times* investigative reporter [Judith Miller](/wiki/Judith_Miller_%28journalist%29 "Judith Miller (journalist)"), who met with Lewis Libby on July 8, 2003, two days after Wilson's editorial was published, never wrote or reported a story on the Plame affair, but nevertheless refused (with Cooper) to answer questions before a grand jury in 2004 pertaining to confidential sources. Both reporters were held in contempt of court. On June 27, 2005, after the [U.S. Supreme Court](/wiki/U.S._Supreme_Court "U.S. Supreme Court") refused to grant [certiorari](/wiki/Certiorari "Certiorari"),[null](http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000968809)  *TIME* magazine said it would surrender to Fitzgerald e\-mail records and notes taken by Cooper, and Cooper agreed to testify before the grand jury after receiving a waiver from his source. Miller and Cooper faced potential jail terms for failure to cooperate with the Special Counsel's investigations.[Reporters Facing Jail Time Submit Preferences – New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/politics/02leak.html)

*[New York Times](/wiki/New_York_Times "New York Times")* reporter [Judith Miller](/wiki/Judith_Miller_%28journalist%29 "Judith Miller (journalist)") served a civil contempt jail sentence from early July 2005 to September 29, 2005, for refusing to testify to the grand jury.

Miller was jailed on July 7, 2005, in [Alexandria, Virginia](/wiki/Alexandria%2C_Virginia "Alexandria, Virginia"). She was released on September 29, upon reaching an agreement with Fitzgerald to testify at a hearing scheduled on the morning of September 30, 2005\.[ABC News: ABC News](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1171977)[Reporter Judith Miller Released From Prison](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092901972.html) Miller indicated that her source, unlike Cooper's, had not sufficiently waived confidentiality. She issued a statement at a press conference after her release, stating that her source, [Lewis Libby](/wiki/Lewis_Libby "Lewis Libby"), Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, had released her from her promise of confidentiality, saying her source "voluntarily and personally released \[her] from \[her] promise of confidentiality".

In August 2005 the *American Prospect* magazine reported that Lewis Libby testified he had discussed Plame with Miller during a July 8, 2003, meeting. Libby signed a general waiver allowing journalists to reveal their discussions with him on this matter, but *American Prospect* reported that Miller refused to honor this waiver on the grounds that she considered it coerced. Miller had said she would accept a specific individual waiver to testify, but contends Libby had not given her one until late September 2005\. In contrast, Libby's lawyer has insisted that he had fully released Miller to testify all along.

On October 16, 2005, Judith Miller published an account of her grand jury testimony for the [New York Times](/wiki/New_York_Times "New York Times"). In the article, titled *"My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room"*,[My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room – New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/national/16miller.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=73940c6ad613e17b&ex=1150603200) Miller writes:

> My notes indicate that well before Mr. Wilson published his critique, Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the C.I.A. My notes do not show that Mr. Libby identified Mr. Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative", as the conservative columnist Robert D. Novak first described her in a syndicated column published on July 14, 2003\. (Mr. Novak used her maiden name, Valerie Plame.) ... My interview notes show that Mr. Libby sought from the beginning, before Mr. Wilson's name became public, to insulate his boss from Mr. Wilson's charges. According to my notes, he told me at our June meeting that Mr. Cheney did not know of Mr. Wilson, much less know that Mr. Wilson had traveled to Niger, in West Africa, to verify reports that Iraq was seeking to acquire uranium for a weapons program ... Although I was interested primarily in my area of expertise — chemical and biological weapons — my notes show that Mr. Libby consistently steered our conversation back to the administration's nuclear claims. His main theme echoed that of other senior officials: that contrary to Mr. Wilson's criticism, the administration had had ample reason to be concerned about Iraq's nuclear capabilities based on the regime's history of weapons development, its use of unconventional weapons and fresh intelligence reports. At that breakfast meeting, our conversation also turned to Mr. Wilson's wife. My notes contain a phrase inside parentheses: "Wife works at Winpac." Mr. Fitzgerald asked what that meant. Winpac stood for Weapons Intelligence, Non\-Proliferation, and Arms Control, the name of a unit within the C.I.A. that, among other things, analyzes the spread of unconventional weapons. I said I couldn't be certain whether I had known Ms. Plame's identity before this meeting, and I had no clear memory of the context of our conversation that resulted in this notation. But I told the grand jury that I believed that this was the first time I had heard that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for Winpac. In fact, I told the grand jury that when Mr. Libby indicated that Ms. Plame worked for Winpac, I assumed that she worked as an analyst, not as an undercover operative ... Mr. Fitzgerald asked me about another entry in my notebook, where I had written the words "Valerie Flame", clearly a reference to Ms. Plame. Mr. Fitzgerald wanted to know whether the entry was based on my conversations with Mr. Libby. I said I didn't think so. I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall.


How does the administration's nuclear claims relate to the main theme of Lewis Libby's conversation with Judith Miller?