What the F—?
By Ms. Miller authorized Mr. Abrams to talk to Mr. Libby’s lawyer, Joseph A. Tate. The question was whether Mr. Libby really wanted her to testify. Mr. Abrams passed the details of his conversation with Mr. Tate along to Ms. Miller and to Times executives and lawyers, people involved in the internal discussion said.
People present at the meetings said that what they heard about the preliminary negotiations was troubling.
Mr. Abrams told Ms. Miller and the group that Mr. Tate said she was free to testify. Mr. Abrams said Mr. Tate also passed along some information about Mr. Libby’s grand jury testimony: that he had not told Ms. Miller the name or undercover status of Mr. Wilson’s wife.
That raised a potential conflict for Ms. Miller. Did the references in her notes to “Valerie Flame” and “Victoria Wilson” suggest that she would have to contradict Mr. Libby’s account of their conversations? Ms. Miller said in an interview that she concluded that Mr. Tate was sending her a message that Mr. Libby did not want her to testify.
What what what?
The fact that Libby’s testimony contradicted Miller’s notes indicated to Miller that Libby didn’t want her to testify?
That’s great. Just fucking great. A reporter for the New York Times, the flagship newspaper in the United States of America, and the paper most often critcized for its attachment to liberal causes, decided to sit in jail so that she wouldn’t contradict the testimony of one of her conservative sources by suggesting that, after all, he had lied in his testimony.
I’m glad that our journalists have such a deep, deep concern for their right wing sources that they’ll do time even when those sources indicate that testimony is permissable. It really redeems my faith in the journalistic profession, and in the New York Times specifically.