Ex-NYT reporter names Libby in CIA-leak case

The hour-long appearance by Miller—who spent 85 days in jail rather than reveal her conversations with Libby to a jury two years ago—was a blow to his defence.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s onetime chief of staff is charged with lying about his conversations with Miller and two other journalists in an effort to obstruct a federal investigation into how the identity of Plame became public. She is expected to be followed to the stand by former Time magazine White House correspondent Matthew Cooper and Tim Russert, the moderator of the NBC News programme Meet the Press.

The spectacle of reporters from three major news organisations becoming government witnesses in a criminal prosecution has been a source of dread for media advocates concerned that the legal precedent—and glare of publicity—could make it harder for reporters to gather and report the news from confidential sources.

She is one of the trial’s most compelling figures because of her high-profile role covering Iraq’s alleged weapons programmes, her extensive contacts with Libby, and the time she spent in a Valencia jail for refusing to reveal his identity as her source.

Miller left The New York Times in 2005 and now works as a freelance journalist.

During Miller’s stay in jail, Libby sent her a famously florid letter, urging her to cooperate with the investigation and resume her life. “Out west, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning,” Libby wrote. “They turn in clusters because their roots connect them. Come back to work—and life.”

In 2003, newspapers were beginning to report about a CIA-sponsored trip that a then-anonymous former envoy—Plame’s husband, Joseph C Wilson IV—had taken to Niger in 2002 to assess claims that Iraq was seeking weapons-grade uranium.

Wilson wrote about his trip in a July 6, 2003, op-ed article in The New York Times.

Plame was identified as a CIA operative eight days later in print by syndicated columnist Robert Novak, which triggered the probe into how the identity of a covert agent was revealed.