Reporter to take stand in CIA leak case

Journalists will take center stage at the CIA leak trial as Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald begins calling reporters as witnesses.

Fitzgerald said Judith Miller was to take the stand Tuesday, the first time the former New York Times reporter has testified publicly against the man she went to jail to protect as a source.

I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, the one-time chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is accused of perjury and obstruction for lying about conversations he had with journalists about outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to cooperate with Fitzgerald's investigating and reveal her conversations with Libby.

She retired from the Times in November 2005, declaring that she had to leave because she had ``become the news.''

Prosecutors say Libby discussed Plame - the wife of prominent war critic Joseph Wilson - with Miller three times. Two of those conversations occurred before Libby says he first remembered learning Plame's identity from another reporter, NBC newsman Tim Russert.

Libby now says his memory failed him when he spoke to Russert. Russert said Monday that he did not tell Libby about Plame. ``I was not and never have been the recipient of the leak,'' Russert told an audience in Oklahoma City. Such discrepancies are at the heart of Libby's trial.

Previous witnesses, including former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, have testified they had conversations with Libby about Plame before his conversation with Russert.

After Miller ultimately decided to testify, saying Libby had given her permission to do so, the Times published an article describing Miller as a rogue reporter who battled with editors and colleagues.

Like so many other government witnesses in the case, Miller's credibility will be an issue under cross-examination. She made some inconsistent statements in her grand jury testimony, defense attorneys say.

Journalism groups have criticized Fitzgerald for calling reporters as witnesses and demanding they discuss conversations with sources.

Miller's notes likely will be used as evidence, and Fitzgerald is expected to call two other reporters - Russert and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine - during the trial.

Miller shared in a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on terrorism, but her relationship with the Times was strained when it was discovered that her reporting on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq - the Bush administration's primary reason to go to war - was built on faulty intelligence.

AP