News media oppose Libby subpoenas

April 19, 2006|Toni Locy, Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for NBC News, The New York Times, and Time Inc. accused a former White House aide yesterday of threatening the integrity of their news gathering operations by seeking access to a wide range of documents in the CIA leak case.

The media lawyers, in separate filings, said I. Lewis Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, is on a ''fishing expedition" with his request for documents from the news organizations.

They are asking US District Judge Reggie B. Walton to block seven subpoenas seeking access to drafts of news articles, e-mails, and notes generated by any and all of the news organizations' employees -- not just the three reporters involved in the case.

Libby, 55, is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned about CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and what he subsequently told reporters about her.

Conservative columnist Robert Novak named her in a column July 14, 2003, eight days after Plame Wilson's husband, former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged in an opinion article in The New York Times that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war.

The CIA sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was any truth to reports that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson determined that there was no truth to the reports. But the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.

Libby is charged with lying about what he told reporters about Plame Wilson as he acted as a point man in the efforts of the White House to counter Wilson's charges.

The Libby defense team has issued subpoenas to NBC News and correspondents Tim Russert and Andrea Mitchell; The New York Times Co. and former reporter Judith Miller; and Time Inc. and reporter Matthew Cooper.