Judge holds veteran journalist Catherine Herridge in civil contempt for refusing to divulge source
Acclaimed investigative reporter Catherine Herridge was held in contempt of court Thursday for refusing to reveal the unnamed sources in a series of 2017 articles on a Chinese American scientist probed by the FBI.
US District Judge Christopher Cooper imposed a fine of $800 for each day that Herridge — who was recently let go from CBS News as part of mass layoffs by parent company Paramount — withholds the names of her source or sources for the Fox News articles penned nearly seven years ago.
The veteran journalist, however, has some time to file an appeal before the fine goes into effect.
She has repeatedly refused to answer questions about her confidential sources and invoked her First Amendment rights in doing so under oath.
The scientist, Yanping Chen, is seeking the identities of those who leaked information from the FBI’s investigation into statements she made.
Chen, who was never charged in the probe, sued the government in 2018 over the leak that she claims was used to “smear her reputation and damage her livelihood.” Herridge’s articles focused on Chen’s ties to the Chinese military as well as privileged information she received about American service members through a professional school she founded in Virginia.
The judge ruled that Chen’s right to know who allegedly leaked the information for the purpose of her lawsuit tops Herridge’s free press rights and responsibilities to her sources.
While Cooper wrote that he “recognizes the paramount importance of a free press in our society,” the court “has its own role to play in upholding the law and safeguarding judicial authority.”
“Herridge and many of her colleagues in the journalism community may disagree with that decision and prefer that a different balance be struck, but she is not permitted to flout a federal court’s order with impunity,” he added.
Herridge’s lawyer Patrick Philbin declined to comment to the Associated Press but has previously said that being forced to disclose her sources would endanger her career and raise national security concerns over the sensitive info — as there is a “serious risk” that Chen “was involved in making information about US military members available” to the Chinese government.
The journalist’s reporting and confidential files in another investigative story she was working on have also been in the news recently.
Herridge’s personal files along with her work laptop were confiscated by CBS News and locked away in the station’s Washington, DC, newsroom immediately after she was laid off.
She had been probing the Hunter Biden laptop scandal at the time. The network returned the files on Monday after mounting pressure from the journalist’s union as well as the House Judiciary Committee.
With Post wires