NY Times reporter testifies in CIA leak case

WASHINGTON - After 85 days in jail for refusing to name her source, New York Times reporter Judith Miller has testified about conversations with a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney to a grand jury investigating who leaked the name of a CIA operative.

Legal sources close to the case said Miller, who was freed on Thursday, gave the federal grand jury in Washington a detailed account of two conversations she had in July 2003 with Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Miller said she agreed to testify about the conversations only after receiving what she called a "personal, voluntary" waiver of confidentiality from her source. Miller said the source had conveyed the waiver in the form of a letter and a phone call to her in jail.

Though Miller declined to publicly name Libby outside of the grand jury room, attorneys in the case said he was her source. During her testimony, one source said, "she walked them through those conversations."

After obtaining her waiver, Miller said her lawyers secured an agreement with Fitzgerald to narrow the scope of her testimony to her conversations with that single source.

Lawyers close to the case said Miller's testimony appeared to clear the way for prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to wrap up his two-year-old inquiry into who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity and whether anyone broke the law in doing so.

Plame's diplomat husband, Joseph Wilson, said the administration had leaked her name, damaging her ability to work undercover, to get back at him for criticising President George W. Bush's Iraq policy.

The lawyers said Fitzgerald could now move quickly to bring indictments in the case, or he could conclude that no crime was committed and end his investigation and possibly issue a report on his findings.

Fitzgerald had indicated he could wrap up his investigation once he obtained Miller's testimony.

The outcome could shake up the Bush White House, already reeling from criticism over its response to Hurricane Katrina and the indictment of House Republican leader Tom DeLay on a conspiracy charge related to campaign financing.

The leak investigation has ensnarled Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, as well as Libby. The White House had long maintained that they had nothing to do with the leak but reporters have since named them as sources.

"Believe me, I did not want to be in jail," said Miller, who was imprisoned on July 6 although she never wrote an article about the Plame matter.

Miller's attorney, Robert Bennett, said, "It was really the responsibility of Mr. Libby to come forward. Judy Miller felt very strongly that she should not initiate things."

Newspaper columnist Robert Novak first revealed Plame's identity in a column on July 14, 2003, citing two administration officials, shortly after Wilson published an opinion piece in The New York Times accusing the White House of twisting intelligence on Iraq.

According to legal sources familiar with Miller's testimony, Miller met with Libby on July 8, 2003, and talked with him by telephone later that week.

After initially promising to fire anyone found to have leaked information in the case, Bush in July offered a more qualified pledge: "If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration."

- REUTERS