The Booby Files

Hardball, 7/11/2005:

So, let`s talk about what`s going on right now. Judy Miller sits in D.C. jail tonight, apparently sleeping on the floor, according to a report I read in one of the papers today.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Because she won`t tell her who her source is in the leak case.

WOODWARD: Yes.

MATTHEWS: In the leak case involving Joe Wilson and that trip to Niger.

WOODWARD: And that case, when I think it is all told, there is going to be nothing to it. And it is a shame. And the special prosecutor in that case, his behavior, in my view, has been disgraceful.

MATTHEWS: Well, how does he prove...

WOODWARD: That he has not...

MATTHEWS: How does he catch the bad guy?

WOODWARD: Well, he can keep trying. But I think -- look, she didn`t even write a story. Come on. What are you going to do?

I mean, did you ever talk to anybody about this case? Why don`t we just take the whole damn press corps and line them up and everyone can go to the grand jury or jail, because somebody might have talked to somebody about this?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Well, was this, then, a crime? We`re talking about a crime.

WOODWARD: I don`t think there`s any crime.

MATTHEWS: There is a crime on the books now. Just so we know what -- there is a statute that punishes someone who gives away the undercover identity of an FBI agent.

WOODWARD: Intentionally, and a law written because Philip Agee back in the `80s was listing all the people who were undercover agents.

Novak has explained this, Bob Novak, who wrote the original story, and said, he was told this woman, Joe Wilson`s wife, was a weapons of mass destruction analyst in the CIA. He called her an operative because that`s one of the terms he uses in his column. He didn`t know. And...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: He uses that word all the time. It is not exactly a fond word, is it?

WOODWARD: You`re an operative.

MATTHEWS: I was an operative.

WOODWARD: Yes, right.

MATTHEWS: Everybody who has ever worked in politics is an operative.

WOODWARD: Exactly.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

WOODWARD: And so, it turned out she was an operative. This is an accident. I think the judge in the case also should have found some way to balance...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: OK.

WOODWARD: ... the interests here.

MATTHEWS: Congress is looking -- Congress -- excuse me, Bob.

WOODWARD: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Congress is looking at passing a shield law, meaning something like the priesthood or a rabbi.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: If you to tell somebody -- to somebody something that`s important, and they don`t want to say where they got it from, and you don`t want them to say where they got it from, that that`s privileged information. It`s like going to a confession. You go to a reporter.

Do you think Congress will pass that? Do you think they should?

WOODWARD: I think it would help. But you know what we need here? Common sense.

MATTHEWS: Would you testify?

WOODWARD: Common sense.

MATTHEWS: Would you go to the Hill? If somebody asked you in a press freedoms organization, and said, Bob Woodward, will you come to Capitol Hill and testify for a shield law?

WOODWARD: I don`t know that a reporter should testify. Maybe I -- I definitely would be in favor...

MATTHEWS: Why not?

WOODWARD: I don`t -- I don`t know.

MATTHEWS: Well, isn`t it tradecraft? Isn`t this something that reporters need?

WOODWARD: I don`t know. I think we need -- yes, I think so. But I think common sense would solve the problem.

Look, we are in -- what`s going on in America and the world now? Terror. We are engaged in a war on terror.

MATTHEWS: Fifteen seconds, hard. Bob Woodward...

WOODWARD: OK. And it -- it -- it is a big deal. And we need, in my business, confidential sources. And you`re going to freeze everyone from telling us the truth if you send reporters to jail.