Journalist Risen '77 subpoenaed
Gov't seeks source for alum's CIA book
Jenna Stark
Issue date: 2/5/08 Section: Campus News
New York Times reporter James Risen '77 has become one of the latest journalists to be subpoenaed by a federal grand jury.
A subpoena issued last week is attempting to force Risen to reveal confidential sources from a specific chapter in a book he wrote about the CIA, the New York Times reported Feb. 1.
The chapter in question - in Risen's 2006 book "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" - reported that the CIA had unsuccessfully attempted to gain access to Iran's nuclear program, starting as early as during the Clinton administration.
Risen and fellow New York Times writer Eric Lichtblau won a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Risen's "State of War" expanded on his reporting on the wiretapping program. None of the reporting from the chapter in question appeared in the Times.
"We're going to fight" the subpoena, said David Kelley, Risen's lawyer. Risen may "file a motion with the court contending that the subpoena should not be enforced because it would violate the First Amendment," said Kelley, a former U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York.
According to the Times, the subpoena was delivered to the New York-based law firm representing Risen and has ordered his presence in front of a grand jury on Feb. 7 in Alexandria, Va.
Risen, a former Herald staff writer, came to Brown in November 2006 and gave a lecture that was sponsored by The Herald. A growing "climate of fear" in the government was making investigative reporting more difficult, he said then.
In an e-mail, Risen declined to comment on the subpoena for this article.
Kelley said that he isn't concerned with the administration's reasons for filing the subpoena. "We're on the ball here in working on the subpoena and not the motivation behind it," he said.
Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times, wrote in an e-mail that "the New York Times strongly supports Jim Risen, and deplores what seems to be a growing trend of government leak investigations focusing on journalists, particularly in the national security area."
A subpoena issued last week is attempting to force Risen to reveal confidential sources from a specific chapter in a book he wrote about the CIA, the New York Times reported Feb. 1.
The chapter in question - in Risen's 2006 book "State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" - reported that the CIA had unsuccessfully attempted to gain access to Iran's nuclear program, starting as early as during the Clinton administration.
Risen and fellow New York Times writer Eric Lichtblau won a 2006 Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Risen's "State of War" expanded on his reporting on the wiretapping program. None of the reporting from the chapter in question appeared in the Times.
"We're going to fight" the subpoena, said David Kelley, Risen's lawyer. Risen may "file a motion with the court contending that the subpoena should not be enforced because it would violate the First Amendment," said Kelley, a former U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York.
According to the Times, the subpoena was delivered to the New York-based law firm representing Risen and has ordered his presence in front of a grand jury on Feb. 7 in Alexandria, Va.
Risen, a former Herald staff writer, came to Brown in November 2006 and gave a lecture that was sponsored by The Herald. A growing "climate of fear" in the government was making investigative reporting more difficult, he said then.
In an e-mail, Risen declined to comment on the subpoena for this article.
Kelley said that he isn't concerned with the administration's reasons for filing the subpoena. "We're on the ball here in working on the subpoena and not the motivation behind it," he said.
Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times, wrote in an e-mail that "the New York Times strongly supports Jim Risen, and deplores what seems to be a growing trend of government leak investigations focusing on journalists, particularly in the national security area."