Reporter turns over notes to prosecutor

WASHINGTON – New York Times reporter Judith Miller on Tuesday turned over notes of a previously undisclosed conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and underwent questioning by prosecutors in the criminal probe of the Bush administration’s leak of a covert CIA officer’s identity.

In a memo to its staff, the newspaper said Miller will appear today before a federal grand jury in the investigation, her second grand jury appearance in recent days.

The Times said that it is preparing a story about Miller’s “entanglement with the White House leak investigation” and that the story will be completed when the reporter finishes her cooperation with prosecutors.

Miller testified Sept. 30 before a federal grand jury after getting a waiver from her source, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and after receiving assurances from prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that questions would be limited to Miller’s conversations with Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff. The reporter had spent 85 days in jail for refusing to cooperate with Fitzgerald.

Miller’s earlier testimony dealt with conversations she had with Libby on July 8, 2003, and July 12, 2003.

The Times memo said Miller met with prosecutors Tuesday to answer questions and hand over additional notes. The newspaper reported over the weekend that those notes dealt with a conversation she had with Libby on June 23, 2003, that the prosecutors are only now learning about. Libby has testified in Fitzgerald’s investigation.

Presidential aide Karl Rove and Libby had conversations with reporters in 2003 about the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame days after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, suggested the Bush administration had misrepresented prewar intelligence on Iraq.