New York Timesreporter Judith Miller was summoned for a second appearance today before a grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity after she found notes from a previously undisclosed conversation with a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Judith Miller
In a memo to New York Timesstaff yesterday, Executive Editor Bill Keller said Ms Miller would return to the grand jury to "supplement" her initial testimony after handing over to federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald notes from her June 23, 2003, conversation with Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
That once-secret conversation could be critical to Fitzgerald's case.
It could help establish that Mr Libby and others in the White House were talking to reporters about Joseph Wilson, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's diplomat husband, and possibly Ms Plame, in the weeks before Wilson publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq.
President George W Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, has been summoned to make another appearance -- his fourth -- before the grand jury later this week, and prosecutors have told him they can make no guarantees he won't be indicted.
After spending 85 days in jail, Ms Miller testified before the grand jury for the first time on September 30 about her two previously disclosed conversations with Libby -- on July 8 and July 12, 2003.
"For a couple more days she (Miller) remains under a contempt-of-court order, and is not yet clear of legal jeopardy," Mr Keller said. It is unclear how Mr Fitzgerald first learned about the June 23, 2003, conversation.
Legal sources close to Ms Miller said she discovered the notes after she testified.
According to a National Journal report, in two appearances before the federal grand jury, Mr Libby did not disclose the June 23 conversation with Ms Miller.
Nor did Mr Libby disclose the conversation when he was twice interviewed by FBI agents.