New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified before a grand jury Friday, ending her silence in the investigation into whether White House officials leaked the name of a covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame.
Miller, out of jail after 85 days, said, "I was a journalist doing my job, protecting my source until my source freed me to perform my civic duty to testify."
Escorted by her lawyers and New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., Miller met with reporters for several minutes after spending more than four hours inside the courthouse, most of it behind closed doors with a grand jury.
Miller said she agreed to meet with the grand jury after hearing "directly from my source" by telephone and in a letter that she should cooperate with the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.
"I concluded from this that my source genuinely wanted me to testify," she told reporters.
"I served 85 days in jail because of my belief in the importance of upholding the confidential relationship journalists have with their sources," Miller said. "Believe me, I did not want to be in jail. But I would have stayed even longer."
As part of the deal, Fitzgerald agreed in advance that he would limit Miller's testimony to her communications with her source "and that was very important to me," Miller added.
"I know what my conscience would allow and ... I stood fast to that," the reporter said.
Miller's testimony has been characterized by Fitzgerald as key to his investigation into the White House role in the disclosure of Plame's identity.
Although Miller declined to identify her source, The New York Times identified him as Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
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