Media outlets challenge Libby subpoenas

Media responses
NBC’s lawyers said Russert does not have any documents that would show that Plame’s CIA employment was known before Novak’s column. They said Mitchell’s records aren’t relevant to the criminal case and are protected from release under the First Amendment.

Lawyers for The New York Times depicted Libby as desperate in casting a “wide net” that he hopes will locate “a statement somewhere” that Plame’s role as a covert CIA operative was well known in Washington before Novak’s column.

If Libby is permitted access to all that he seeks, they said, it would cause “an immediate and chilling effect on The New York Times’ news gathering activities.” Sources would become reluctant to talk or allow their interviews to be recorded. And reporters would begin to maintain — or not maintain — notes with an eye toward possible litigation, they said.

The New York Times lawyers also said Libby is improperly seeking documents pertaining to reporters and editors who will not be called as witnesses. Only Miller, who spent 85 days in jail last year refusing to testify about what Libby told her, is the only New York Times employee expected to testify for the prosecution, the newspaper’s lawyers said.

Lawyers for Miller said Libby is improperly seeking access to her telephone records and calendar — “personal and sensitive professional references” that are completely unrelated to Libby or the CIA leak case.

Time magazine’s lawyers said Libby already has all of Cooper’s notes because the company gave them last summer to the special prosecutor, who in turn gave them to the defense team.

Instead, Libby is trying to find out about communications that “MAY have occurred and documents that MAY exist,” the Time lawyers wrote.

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