Legendary Ex-Fox News Reporter Gets Bad News In Court

Judge Christopher Cooper, a DC federal judge, has ordered CBS senior correspondent Catherine Herridge to reveal who her source or sources were for a number of stories printed about the FBI’s investigation of a Chinese-American scientist, Yanping Chen, according to Just the News. Chen asserted that these leaks violated the privacy act. Herridge relied on a confidential source or sources back in 2017 when she worked at Fox News for these leaks.

Herridge and Fox asserted that Chen has associations with Communist China’s army and had attained the high post of president of the taxpayer-funded University of Management and Technology in Virginia. They asserted that Chen had concealed her past connections to obtain this seat and was possibly using this position to funnel information to the Chinese government. Chen’s husband is the dean of the same university. The FBI had raided the school twice in 2012, yet public taxpayer money continued to flow to the university to the tune of over $6 million through the Department of Defense.

Fox and Herridge have fought this move to unmask their source(s) by arguing that the press is protected under the First Amendment and that the subpoenas to reveal the source(s) had no legal value to them. Judge Cooper, an Obama-appointed judge, came down more on the side of Chen and wrote, “The Court recognizes both the vital importance of a free press and the critical role that confidential sources play in the work of investigative journalists like Herridge. But applying the binding case law of this Circuit, the Court concludes that Chen’s need for the requested evidence overcomes Herridge’s qualified First Amendment privilege in this case.”

The verdict further observed that “The identity of Herridge’s source is central to Chen’s claim, and despite exhaustive discovery, Chen has been unable to ferret out his or her identity. The only reasonable option left is for Chen to ask Herridge herself.”

The court, however, noted that the subpoenas that Chen sought were overly broad but the judge allowed more limited subpoenas that he claimed were central to Chen’s case. The verdict mentioned that Chen had previously tried to unmask the leaker even after deposing 18 current and former governmental officials and obtained 22 declarations from persons with connections to the FBI investigation.

Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Director Gabe Rottman stated his profound disapproval with the verdict and its implications. He said, “While the Privacy Act provides essential protections for the public, using it to breach reporter-source confidentiality poses significant risks to a free press.”