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NY Times Facing NSA Leak Indictment?

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The New York Times reporters who broke the Bush "Spygate" story, as well as the paper's top executives who approved its publication, face the very real prospect of criminal indictment by the Bush Justice Department - a lawyer involved in the 1971 Pentagon Papers battle is warning.

With a full-blown Justice Department investigation now underway, Harvey Silvergate tells the Boston Phoenix: "A variety of federal statutes, from the Espionage Act on down, give Bush ample means to prosecute the Times reporters who got the scoop, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau."

Silvergate represented several parties in the Pentagon Papers litigation, a first amendment battle royale that pitted the Nixon administration against the Times, the Boston Globe and the Washington Post 35 years ago. The Watergate scandal's rising tide, however, swamped then-Attorney General John Mitchell, prompting him to abandon plans to prosecute the three papers.

This time, says Silvergate, the White House and the Old Gray Lady appear to be on an unavoidable collision course.

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  "Even Executive Editor Bill Keller and Publisher Arthur 'Pinch' Sulzberger Jr., could become targets," he predicts.

Silvergate says he's amazed that the prospect of criminal prosecution hasn't generated more controversy, especially since "such an indictment could be brought in short order."

The mere publication of the Times story on Dec. 16 could be considered a crime, he warns, and charges could be filed even before the DOJ probe ferrets out the identity of the leakers.

To be sure, Silvergate is no fan of the Bush administration - and says the Times was right to blow the lid off the secret surveillance program. He warns that any upcoming prosecution would be the product of "a vengeful White House concerned not so much with disclosure of national secrets as with revelation of its own reckless conduct."

Still, the Pentagon Papers veteran predicts that the Times' defense would be no slam dunk - especially since Keller and Sulzberger were personally warned by President Bush in an Oval Office meeting last year that publication of the story could damage national security.

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