‘She is not permitted to flout a federal court’s order with impunity’: Veteran reporter held in civil contempt for refusal to disclose source

Background: FILE - People take photos of the FBI building headquarters in Washington, Aug. 13, 2022. A federal judge in Washington is weighing whether to hold in contempt Catherine Herridge, a veteran journalist who has refused to identify her sources for stories about a Chinese scientist who was investigated by the FBI but never charged. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File). Inset: Catherine Herridge (via CBS affiliate KCAL News/YouTube screengrab).

Background: FILE – People take photos of the FBI building headquarters in Washington, Aug. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File). Inset: Catherine Herridge (via CBS affiliate KCAL News/YouTube screengrab).

Veteran reporter Catherine Herridge, formerly of Fox News and CBS, has been held in civil contempt by a federal judge and is poised to face a fine of $800 per day for withholding her sources.

The fine will be stayed pending appeal, according to the order. As of Friday morning, Herridge had not yet appealed.

The source Herridge is protecting is tied to reports she wrote for Fox News in 2017 that revealed how the FBI investigated Chinese American scientist Yanping Chen. Chen was under counterintelligence scrutiny for years and investigated on suspicions that she falsified immigration forms when seeking work for a Chinese astronaut program, according to The Associated Press. Ultimately, Chen never faced any criminal charges and the probe into her life ended. Then, a year later, Herridge published her investigative piece on the scientist and the many curious federal investigations into the University of Management and Technology, a Virginia-based school close to the Pentagon where Chen worked as president.

Chen sued the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security in 2018, alleging the agencies leaked her information to Herridge in violation of the Privacy Act.

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