The Meeting

Prospect: Why Won't Scooter Libby Let Judy Miller Talk?

(The American Prospect) 
More specifically, the importance prosecutors attach to learning what occurred during Miller's meeting with Libby is illustrated by a subpoena by Fitzgerald's grand jury of Miller on August 20, 2004, for "any and all documents (including notes, e-mails, or other documents) relating to any conversations, occurring on or about July 6, 2003 to on or about July 13, 2003, between Judith Miller and a government official whom she met in Washington D.C. on July 8, 2003, concerning Valerie Plame Wilson."

Miller was also ordered to bring to the grand jury "documents provided to Judith Miller by such government official on July 8, 2003."

Details of the subpoena to Miller were first disclosed in a story in Newsday by reporter Tom Brune.

In an affidavit prepared by Miller to respond to the request, Miller said she "did not receive any documents" from the person she met, but declined to say who the person was that she met on July 8.

In subsequent court papers filed in federal court by attorneys for Miller and The New York Times, the newspaper said that Miller "had no documents responsive" to Fitzgerald's request of any documents given to her on July 8, 2003.

But Miller's affidavit and other court filings by the Times -- and the narrow language contained therein -- did not say whether Miller might have read or reviewed any documents that might have brought to the July 8, 2003, meeting.

And an attorney in private practice who once worked closely with Fitzgerald while both men were federal prosecutors said that the specific nature of Fitzgerald’s request was a "good indication that [Fitzgerald] has specific information ... or perhaps even a witness who saw, or had other information" that Libby "might have brought documents to the meeting with Miller."

In her affidavit, Miller also asserted: "I have never written an article about Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson. I did however contemplate writing one or more articles in July 2003, about issues related to Ambassador Wilson's op-ed piece. In preparation for those articles, I spoke and/or met with several potential sources. One or more of those potential sources insisted as a precondition to providing information to me, that I agree to maintain the confidentiality of their identity."

The Libby-Miller meeting and the publication of Novak's column unmasking Valerie Plame as a CIA "operative" came during an intensive period of time while senior White House officials were scrambling to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Wilson, who was then asserting that the Bush administration had relied on faulty intelligence to bolster its case to go to war with Iraq.

Wilson had only recently led a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was covertly attempting to buy enriched uranium from the African nation to build a nuclear weapon. Wilson reported back that the allegations were most likely the result of a hoax.

But President Bush had still cited the Niger allegations during his 2003 State of the Union address as evidence that Hussein had an aggressive program to develop weapons of mass destruction.