[JURIST] New York Times reporter Judith Miller [JURIST news archive] wrote in an extensive article published on the Times website Saturday that although the special prosecutor investigating the leak of the identity of CIA analyst Valerie Plame [JURIST news archive] pressed her during grand jury testimony on details about her meetings with Dick Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the weeks leading up to the leak, she "didn't think" she got the name from him, and said she couldn't recall who she heard the name from, although a misspelled version of the name and an alias appeared in her notebooks. Miller reported that Libby himself had been very careful in handling classified information, and was interested in insulating the Vice-President from accusations leveled by Plame's husband, US ambassador Joseph Wilson, that the administration had mishandled Iraq intelligence in the run-up to war. Miller was released from a federal prison in Virginia in late September after spending 85 days there on a judge's contempt order for refusing to reveal the source of her information related to the Plame affair. The contempt order against her was lifted last week [JURIST report] after her second grand jury appearance. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the leak is said to coming to its concluson; top White House political advisor Karl Rove testified for a fourth time [JURIST report] before the grand jury on Friday. AP has more. Other New York Times reporters offer their own view of the Miller controversy here [NYT report], noting that Miller and the Times itself have not come away from it unscathed.
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