It’s been quite a week for Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus. On Wednesday, he was again sucked into the “Scooter” Libby / Valerie Plame vortex when Bob Woodward admitted that an administration official told him of Plame’s identity in June 2003. Woodward wrote in the Post that he told Pincus about this at the time “without naming my source.” Problem is, as Woodward admits, “Pincus does not recall that I passed this information on.” Cue small media firestorm.
Pincus is one of the reporters who originally reported on ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger in 2002, which set this whole thing off. Earlier this year, he testified before special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury to that effect.
But there’s another confidential source case winding its way through the legal system that may have even greater ramifications for the press than PlameMillerWoodwardLibbyGate: the civil case former scientist Wen Ho Lee has brought against the US government. And in that case, Pincus was charged Wednesday with contempt of court for refusing to reveal who gave him information about the government’s investigation of Lee.
Lee, if you’ll recall, is a former scientist at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab. In 1999, he was accused of passing weapons design secrets to China. Although he was never charged with a crime, he was held in solitary confinement for nine months, until he finally pled guilty in September of 2000 to one felony count (out of fifty-nine original charges) of mishandling sensitive information. Lee filed his civil suit in 1999, using provisions of the 1974 Privacy Act, alleging that he had been set up by officials in the Clinton administration who were waging a smear campaign against him in the media via leaks to reporters.
So why is Pincus in trouble? According to the Post, “U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled that Lee is entitled to know who reporter Walter Pincus’ sources are because his lawsuit against the government for alleged violations of federal privacy law cannot go forward otherwise, and because he has exhausted all other possibilities for getting the information.” Pincus refused to name his source, and was held in contempt of court, for which the judge imposed a fine of $500 per day that Pincus holds out.
Then on Thursday, Pincus’ lawyer plead with the judge to delay imposing the daily fine, in order to give Pincus time to appeal the ruling. His attorneys, according to the Post are arguing that Judge Collyer should use her power to recognize a civil case reporters’ privilege, which is “based on the value to the public of information gathered by the press from confidential sources.” They also claim that the First Amendment guarantees such a privilege.
Pincus and his phalanx of attorneys aren’t alone in this fight. The New York Times‘ James Risen, H. Josef Hebert of the Associated Press, Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times and ABC News’ Pierre Thomas (who was at CNN when the Lee story broke) have also been held in contempt in the case.
The implications of the Lee case for journalists may reach well beyond those of the Plame affair. Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press recently told the San Francisco Chronicle‘s James Sterngold that “I see this as an even graver threat than the Plame (Valerie Wilson) case to a reporter’s right to know … Really, the Plame case was almost a freak instance. The Lee case is far more of a problem in the long term because it is a civil suit and involves more routine reporting issues.”
And that makes it far more frightening for reporters and press observers alike.
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.