Hey, I knew we were playing up against the line.
. . . I don’t understand the necessity to pursue Jim.
On Sunday October 12th, James Risen of the New York Times appeared on 60 Minutes. He was interviewed by Lesley Stahl. Below are some selected excerpts from that installment of the CBS news program.
Stahl: Will you divulge your source?
James Risen on 60 Minutes with Lesley Stahl
Risen: No, never; I’m not going to talk.
Stahl: Sometimes you get yourself in trouble.
Risen: [Chuckles] Yea, the government has been after me for a while now. . . .
Stahl: What was your first reaction when you realized that the New York Times was onto the NSA story?
General Michael Hayden: First reaction was this is not good news. . . . [The NSA surveillance practices] were warrantless but not unwarranted. It would have been irresponsible for NSA not to have done this in the immediate aftermath of the attacks of 9-11. . . . Hey, I knew we were playing up against the line. . . . Jim is going to go to jail, why? Because Jim wants to protect his sources. . . .
Stahl: What kept you from walking out [when your editors initially held back your story]?
Risen: I wanted to get that damn story in the paper. It was the best story of my life and I was not going to let anyone else write it. . . .
Risen: [Responding to some comments by Stahl, Risen replied]: The whole global war on terror has been classified. If we, today, only had that information that was officially authorized from the U.S. government, we would know virtually nothing about the war on terror.
→ Risen’s story was killed a second time in December of 2004.
Risen: The story was dead, for good. I was furious and said to myself, ‘I’m gonna put that in my book.’ . . .
Later, when the Times elected to run with the story, there was a meeting in the Oval Office among President Bush, General Hayden, Bill Keller and the publisher of the Times, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.
Bill Keller: The President said . . . if there’s another attack like 9-11, you know, we’re going to be called up before Congress to explain how that happened, and you should be sitting alongside us. It was, in effect, you could have blood on your hands.
Even so, the Times went to press on December 16, 2005. This was more than a year after James Risen had first submitted his NSA surveillance story. Among other things, it triggered an FBI investigation to discover the identity of Risen’s sources.
General Michael Hayden
Risen: The Bush Administration [left us alone] because they decided they didn’t want a constitutional showdown with the New York Times over a story like the NSA story. And so, they decided to drop that investigation and come after me on my book. . . .
Stahl: Do you think Jim Risen should be compelled to divulge his source?
General Hayden: I am, like America, conflicted. . . . Frankly, Lesley, I don’t understand the necessity to pursue Jim. . . . I’m conflicted. I know the damage that is done, and I do. I also know the free press necessity in a free society.
* * * *
→ News item: Matt Zapotosky, “Prosecutors suggest they will still subpoena New York Times reporter James Risen,” Volokh Conspiracy, Oct. 10, 2014
→ Here is Mr. Risen’s book, the one that led to the the demand for his sources: State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (2006)
→ For more on Risen and his failed attempt to seek review in the Supreme Court, see FAN 17.1 (June 2, 2014).
→ Re Risen’s latest book, see: Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War (Oct. 14, 2014)