As reported in this diary late last nite, the New York Times has revealed that Judith Miller’s “newly discovered” notes this week contain the records of a conversation Miller had with Lewis “Scooter” Libby on June 25, 2003. That date is significant for many reasons and the activities just prior to and on that date shed some light on why that conversation happened and what the two may have spoken about. To this point, as the NYT article states, “Until now, the only conversations known to have occurred between Ms. Miller and Mr. Libby were on July 8 and 12, 2003.” Was Miller holding out or did she really forget about that June conversation?

(Ed. As jpol reminds us: “For those of you who do not recall the time line, Wilson’s op-ed piece ran on July 6, 2003, so a Miller meeting with Libby in June regarding Wilson is very significant. And a State Department memo was written on June 10th that first identified “Valerie Wilson” as Joseph Wilson’s CIA-employed wife. Keep both of these timeline items in mind when examining the significance of Miller’s newly-found notes.”

Here is the July, 2005 Washington Post article regarding that State Department memo.)

As the editor of the Columbia Journalism Review points out, the NYT is in an awkward position as it attempts to cover this case involving one of their own and, as a result, really hasn’t stepped up to the job – so that leaves the sleuthing to the rest of us. Perhaps they will write the tell-all piece as promised after everything blows wide open, but perhaps not. In the meantime, here’s some context.

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Jason Leopold of the Huffington Post reminds us that Joseph Wilson was the anonymous source used in the May, 2003 Kristoff article that first mentioned Wilson’s trip to Niger, the resulting revelation of the forged Niger documents and the role of Cheney’s office in arranging the Niger trip. Thus began the administration’s furious search for that anonymous source. Wilson also acted as an unnamed source for a similar June 12, 2003 article in the Washington Post.

As soon as the Post’s story was published a number of officials in the Bush administration became concerned and started questioning who Wilson was and why he was criticising the president.

By Wilson’s own account, he said he ratcheted up the pressure on the White House to come clean about its error in giving credence to the Niger uranium claims by calling some present and former senior administration officials who knew then National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice, asking his colleagues to tell Rice she was flat wrong in saying on NBC’s Meet the Press on June 8 that there may be some intelligence “in the bowels of the agency” but that there was no doubt the uranium story was true.

Wilson said Rice told him through intermediaries that she was uninterested in what he had to say and urged Wilson to tell his story publicly if he wanted to state his case. So he did.

Meanwhile, back at the NYT ranch, trouble was brewing for Judith Miller, the administration’s pet reporter on all things WMD related. On June 25, 2003, the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz ran a story that heavily criticized Miller and her involvement as an embedded reporter with the MET Alpha team in Iraq – accusing her of acting as a middleman between the army unit and Ahmed Chalabi. On June 25, 2003, the NYT also reported a story questioning the contention that trailers had been used as mobile weapons labs in Iraq. In that atmosphere, and considering that the administration’s claims of WMD in Iraq – the main justification for the invasion – were crumbling around them, it’s no surprise that Libby would have contacted Miller.

The NYT now reports that the June 25, 2003 conversation was about Joseph Wilson. It’s not inconceivable that Libby, feeling the noose tightening, might have either pressured Miller for any information she had on him or actually leaked the classified information about Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, to her. When faced with the ugly truth, Bushco’s method of damage control is to attack the truth tellers.

When Judith Miller was granted her freedom from jail last week, not only had she been given a waiver from Libby, she sought assurances from Patrick Fitzgerald that he would not go on a general fishing expedition about her WMD sources in general. Fitzgerald agreed. With the revelation of these new Miller notes, the two will meet on Tuesday. Karl Rove is set to testify before the grand jury again later this week and Fitzgerald may also recall previous witnesses before the grand jury is set to expire on October 28, 2005. Until then, speculation is all we have. We know one thing: we can’t rely on the New York Times to connect the dots until then, so we’re left to our own devices.