WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury has subpoenaed a reporter for The New York Times in an apparent attempt to force him to disclose his sources in a 2006 book on the Central Intelligence Agency, a lawyer for the reporter said.
James Risen has been ordered to appear before a grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Feb. 7.
Risen's lawyer, David N. Kelley, said the subpoena sought the source of information for a chapter of the book "State of War," regarding a CIA effort to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program.
Kelley told The Associated Press on Friday that Risen plans to fight the subpoena.
"He has an agreement of confidentiality with his sources and he intends to stand by that in the highest degree of journalistic traditions," Kelley said.
Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis told the newspaper that the Times "strongly supports Mr. Risen and deplores what seems to be a growing trend of government leak investigations focusing on journalists, particularly in the national security area."
The Justice Department would not comment on the work of the grand jury that issued the subpoena, citing a pending investigation.
Risen and Times colleague Eric Lichtblau won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for their disclosure of the Bush administration's wiretapping program.
In 2005, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for nearly three months for refusing to identify a confidential source during an investigation into the disclosure of the name of a covert CIA agent. Miller testified after her source, I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, granted her a waiver.
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