New York Times Exec Editor Denies Harman Helped Persuade Him To Hold Wiretapping Story
New York Times editor Bill Keller is denying that Dem Rep Jane Harman had any role in persuading him to hold its big warrantless wiretapping expose until after the 2004 elections, a controversial decision that may have altered the election’s outcome and changed history.
The claim that Harman worked behind the scenes to persuade the paper not to run the story was one of many startling revelations in the big CQ Politics piece that is being talked and blogged about today. The story claims that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he knew in 2005 that he could count on Harman to defend Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by The Times, because she had helped talk the paper out of running it in 2004.
If true, that would be a huge deal — it means a Dem Rep may have actively worked to kill a major expose about the Bush administration that, had it run, could have put a Democrat in the White House.
I asked Times spokesperson Catherine Mathis for a response to the claim. She emailed me a quote from Keller:
“”Ms. Harman did not influence my decision. I don’t recall that she even spoke to me.”
If this is right, this deals the story a blow. CQ reports that Harman’s alleged efforts to get the story spiked in 2004 was a key rationale for one of the story’s most explosive charges: That Gonzales knew he could count on Harman’s support for warrantless wiretapping in 2005, and hence got a separate FBI probe against Harman dropped.
But The Times says that didn’t happen.
Update: I got a quote from Keller himself, and have edited the above to reflect that.
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I suppose Keller could be lying but I can’t see a motivation for him to do so. And since when could a member of the minority kill a story anyway? Curiouser and curioser.
SG, my assumption initially was that the voice of Harman, as a respected voice on Intel stuff and as a Dem, might have carried some weight. But I don’t know now.
Does anyone think Keller would admit to holding back the story? Of course he’s going to deny it whether Harman influenced his decision or not.
DJShay
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I don’t think he denies holding the story. As a matter of fact I think its a matter of record that he DID hold the story until after the election.
DJ — Keller has already admitted to holding the story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/opinion/13pubed.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp
g
Having admitted to holding the story – Keller would be honor bound to try to protect a friend? Someone for whom he actually did favors? Hmmmm
Maybe – who knows – this whole thing is curious.
Is there any part of the Busheney debacle that isn’t a giant mess for Obama?
I’m amused by Bill Keller’s use of the “I don’t recall” meme. Has he been taking lessons from Abu? /s
Sorry, but I don’t buy it. CQ Politics has multiple sources backing up their story saying that Harmon played a role. Keller’s denial simply saves his butt from accusations that he can be leveraged.
Timroff
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Name one of CQ’s numerous sources.
Did she contact the reporters prior to publication as Greenwald is writing (we know Lichtblau talked to her afterward, per his book)?
The wiretapping took place in October 2005, a full year before the 2006 elections. How is this a quid pro quo? Is the suggestion that the Israelis were going to ensure a Democratic Victory and give Harman the chairmanship? This whole story stinks of a hit job on Harman.
Doh. Keller’s not going to recall anything so insignificant as Harman getting involved in the NSA story. Seems to me the questions to Keller should be along these lines: What contact did the NYT have with Harman in regards to the NSA story? Surely, the NYT had multiple contacts with Harman about this story. Perhaps she just talked to the reporters. Perhaps she just talked to Keller’s bosses. Whatever.
The point is that more information is probably going to come out about Harman’s contacts with the NYT and letting Keller get off now with a “I don’t recall.” is lame. It’s been clear for years that Keller is in the Katherine Graham school of journalism and believes that reporters and (some) government officials need to work together behind closed doors to make sure the news is properly, um, vetted before readers see it.
I don’t think some people are reading Keller’s statement correctly. He didn’t say if he didn’t recall if Harman influenced his decision. He was pretty direct about that
.
Ms. Harman did not influence my decision
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What he said he doesn’t recall is if she talked to him at all.
.
I don’t recall that she even spoke to me.”
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Its amazing how after a story is reported people won’t even acknowledge when information comes out directly refuting it. The CQ story is based on a pile of anonymous quotes from people no longer in government. Why grant them anonymity? For that matter if the same story had run on FoxNews.com I bet a lot more of us would have reservations. Just because its CQ doesn’t mean they can’t get it wrong too.
Greg
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This is off topic but notice that the Obama administration is no longer calling enhanced interrogation, torture as they previously have and now are using enhanced interrogation. Thats weaksauce man. Robert Gibbs just used it at the daily briefing.
drational: “The wiretapping took place in October 2005, a full year before the 2006 elections. How is this a quid pro quo? Is the suggestion that the Israelis were going to ensure a Democratic Victory and give Harman the chairmanship?”
No, the suggestion is that prospects for the Democrats retaking the House in 2006 looked good enough (post-Katrina, Bush approval below 40% for good and sinking, Dems under Pelosi having beaten back Bush’s drive to privatize Social Security) for Harman to be considering her prospects of re-becoming Intelligence Chair with Pelosi as Speaker. She would have recognized she could use some help, given that the two weren’t the closest of pals.
SG –great catch. Has Gibbs explicitly called it torture?
Greg
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In the past he would refer to President Obama’s executive order as banning torture. Today he said it banned “those techniques”.
Well, if it’s one thing I believe, it’s the NYT when they say they didn’t catapult Bushian propaganda.
“I don’t recall that she even spoke to me.”
To me?
I don’t know much about how the Times is run, but was this decision really all Keller’s to begin with? How much of it was Sulzberger’s?
I’d like to see a denial that Harman spoke to *anyone* in the executive dept of the NYT before considering this to be anything more than a carefully parsed non-denial. After all, the first line is pretty weak too, in that it’s very subjective — only Keller can say what factors did or did not influence his decision. He could have had an all-night bull session with Harman and still claim it didn’t influence his decision. Assuming again that the decision was entirely his to make, which might be true for all I know.
Then what WAS the motivation for Keller’s withholding that story until after the 2004 election?
Just his abiding love for George W. Bush?
It wouldn’[t surprise me in the least if the NYT killed that story at the behest of AIPAC. Whether Harman was the conduit, or someone else, is almost beside the point. The big issue here is that the United States has been thoroughly penetrated by a foreign power, Israel. Not just the government, but the media too.
I don’t know with certainty who’s telling the truth here, but one thing did catch my attention and trigger my BS-meter:
“Ms. Harman did not influence my decision. I don’t recall that she even spoke to me.”
Keller’s first sentence may or may not be true. The second, however, is not very believable. How bad does your memory have to be not to remember whether or not you’ve spoken to a member of Congress? Sure, he’s probably spoken to all sorts of VIPs, but he also probably remembers whether or not he’s spoken to them, even if the context is fuzzy. I work in county government and talk to lots of people in outside agencies and other departments. I might not remember the exact conversations a couple of years later, but I know who I’ve talked to. I definitely would know if I’d been asked to do something like suppress information.
Perhaps I’m being overly suspicious and Keller just expressed himself poorly. But it sounds too much like the way Alberto Gonzales’ repeated “I don’t recall” over and over to me, and who on earth believes HIM?
I don’t know if Harmon spoke to Keller, but Eric Lichtblau (one of the two NYT reporters who broke the NSA story) has long claimed that it was Jane Harmon who attempted to kill the story at his end.
Jane Harman an israeli spy?
shocking!
I am so surprised!
Whenever I think of Bill Keller, I remember his America’s Most Wanting pre-election op-ed of November, 2002 in which he picked Congressional incumbents whose defeat would do the most to make the Hill more “civilized and productive.” His choices? Tom Delay, Dan Burton, James Inhofe, Tom Tancredo, Max Baucus, and Nancy Pelosi. He wrote this of Pelosi: “Last year Ms. Pelosi became the second-ranking House Democrat. Was this based on her intelligence, her legislative acumen, her leadership, her oratory? No. Her colleagues regard her skills as average at best. But she has a gift for raising money. She doled out generous sums to fellow Democrats from her own political action committees. (Until last week her two PAC’s were contrived to circumvent federal spending limits, which of course she professes to support.) Ms. Pelosi didn’t make Congress a self-lubricating money machine, but she has done as much as any sitting Democrat to perpetuate it.” I’ve always wondered about Keller’s motivation in that particular attack, to say nothing of his judgement. It’s made me eye him with a certain wariness.
This is a lie, a non-denial. There’s certainly some stink here.
Key Dem Urged NYT Reporter against Running Warrantless Wiretapping Story
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/key_dem_urged_nyt_reporter_aga.php
So let me get this straight. Lefties think words coming out of a left-wing Times reporter’s mouth mean something? They of all people should know better, as I’m sure Republicans do. A Times reporter would lie for any Democrat. Besides, the part about Gonzales was sheer speculation. Nobody said she went through with it. They only said that MIGHT be why the investigation was killed before she could be exposed.
“According to two officials privy to the events, Gonzales said he “needed Jane” to help support the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about to be exposed by the New York Times.
Harman, he told Goss, had helped persuade the newspaper to hold the wiretap story before, on the eve of the 2004 elections. And although it was too late to stop the Times from publishing now, she could be counted on again to help defend the program.”
Is that the part that’s “sheer speculation,” fascist?
Just read it. It doesn’t deny that she attempted to influence the decision (only that she was not ultimately an influence in the decision). And it does not even deny that she spoke to Keller (only that he doesn’t recall it), even if we accept that is a key question. It is not a denial, period.
The Times itself says:
::Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement Monday that Ms. Harman called Philip Taubman, then the Washington bureau chief of The Times, in October or November of 2004. Mr. Keller said she spoke to Mr. Taubman — apparently at the request of Gen. Michael V. Hayden, then the N.S.A. director — and urged that The Times not publish the article.
“She did not speak to me,” Mr. Keller said, “and I don’t remember her being a significant factor in my decision.”
Shortly before the article was published more than a year later, in December 2005, Mr. Taubman met with a group of Congressional leaders familiar with the eavesdropping program, including Ms. Harman. They all argued that The Times should not publish.::
So she called Taubman in “October or November 2004″ (a fairly important difference to Democrats, I’m thinking Keller is being protective here), she took Lichtblau aside in the hallway of the Capitol in early 2005 to urge him not to run the story, and she met with Taubman again in late 2005 as part of a ‘don’t publish’ Congressional delegation.
Those sound like serious efforts at suppression.