Judge Jails NY Times Reporter

A federal judge on Wednesday jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to divulge her source to a grand jury investigating who in the Bush administration leaked an undercover CIA operative's name. You can read more here. The Supreme Court recently refused to hear the case, leaving it up to the lower courts to decide.

The case involves the nearly two-year criminal probe into a possibly illegal exposure of a covert CIA operative named Valerie Plame. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was asked in 2002 by the Bush administration to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein sought uranium in West Africa.

In July 2003, Wilson publicly disputed White House claims about the subject of his mission and what he found or didn't find. Shortly thereafter, Plame's name surfaced in a column by Robert Novak, alleging she had interceded to send Wilson on the weapons mission.

In response, Wilson charged that in an effort to intimidate him, White House officials knowingly exposed his wife's identity, which is a federal offense. Robert Novak has steadfastly refused to comment on his central involvement in the case.

Two other journalists -- New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who researched the story, and Time Magazine's Matthew Cooper, who wrote an article -- refused to name their confidential sources before a grand jury convened by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Lower courts held them in contempt, and Monday the Supreme Court declined to intervene.

The NewsHour article I've quoted from, above, can be found here.