Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, is now looking at some hard time. Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the Federal District Court in Washington, ordered him jailed for contempt yesterday when he refused to identify government sources who outed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative.
Columnist Robert Novak published Ms. Plame’s identity in what some say was an attempt by the Bush administration to strike back at her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times on July 6, 2003 that said President Bush relied on discredited intelligence when he said in his state of the union speech that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa.
The NYTimes‘ story says it isn’t known whether Novak got a subpoena.
The jail sentence and a $1,000 a day fine against the magazine were suspended pending appeal.
“Legal experts said yesterday that the potential jailing of a journalist represented perhaps the most significant clash between federal prosecutors and the press since the 1970s,” Times reporter Adam Liptak said in his story.