JUST IN: Catherine Herridge In Hot Water Legally After Obama Judge’s ‘Insane’ Ruling

The federal government is going after another conservative journalist for refusing to reveal the sources behind her shocking 2017 report that uncovered details about an FBI probe of Chinese scientists connected to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The New York Post reports that Catherine Herridge, the veteran investigative journalist who was recently let go by CBS News amid layoffs and restructuring, was found in civil contempt after a judge ordered her to produce the names of sources who leaked information about the FBI’s interrogations of scientist Yanping Chen, who is suing the government.

Under an Obama-appointed judge’s order, Herridge faces a fine of $800 per day every 24 hours that she refused to out her sources. The fine is stayed while Herridge exhausts her legal appeals, and she has repeatedly invoked her First Amendment rights to report on the pandemic’s origins without giving up the names of confidential informants.

Following Herridge’s reporting, Chen sued the federal government for leaking their interrogation of her to try and “smear her reputation and damage her livelihood.” Herridge’s report centered around Chen’s connections to the Chinese communist-controlled military and the sharp crackdown on scientists who attempted to speak out about when and where the deadly coronavirus originated.

The presiding judge previously ruled that Chen’s right to know who leaked her confidential inquisition trumps the First Amendment rights of Herridge.

Writing 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,” wrote US District Judge Christopher Cooper.

“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.

While neither Herridge nor her lawyer have commented on the ruling, attorney Patrick Philbin previously argued in court that exposing sources would have a chilling effect on newsmakers and whistleblowers, and wreak havoc on national security secrets relevant to the location and questioning of Chen and other Chinese scientists.

There is a “serious risk” that Chen “was involved in making information about US military members available,” he has said publicly.

Following her dismissal from CBS, the media behemoth confiscated her laptop and stored it in a lockbox, according to responses given to the U.S. House of Representatives in response to an ongoing probe. Herridge, who had recently been reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, saw her files returned after CBS withered under heavy criticism from her journalists’ union and the House Judiciary Committee.

Scores of conservatives have led the outcry in support of Herridge, with influencer Benny Johnson calling this latest ruling “insane” on X.