Who Else Is Judy Miller Protecting?

New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was released Thursday after spending 85 days in jail, has agreed to testify in the investigation of who in the Bush administration leaked the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The New York Times reported that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, was Miller’s source, however this was common knowledge in Washington a year ago, and that information became even clearer after Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper had testified before the Grand Jury investigating the case. So why did Miller spend 85 days in jail?

Conservative pundit George Will on ABC’s This Week dismissed Miller’s stay in the slammer as simply a result of “bad timing.” Should we believe that Judith Miller, whose NY Times articles erroneously gave credence to the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq had WMDs, was simply staying in prison to get a personal reassurance that she could release her source as Libby, when Libby had already gave Miller the permission to do so a year ago? Or is Judy Miller hiding other sources in the Bush administration?

Miller’s attorney, Floyd Abrams said on Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources that “I tried to get a deal a year ago. I spoke to Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, and he did not agree at that time to something that he later did agree to, which was to limit the scope of the questions he would ask, so as to assure that the only source he would effectively be asking about was Mr. Libby.” Abrams went on to say that Miller spent nearly three months in jail because “she has other sources and was very concerned about the possibility of having to reveal those sources, or going back to jail because of them.”