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Time Ordered to Give Internal Documents to Libby
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Because of pretrial confidentiality rules, Walton wrote, "the Court has purposefully excluded what the alteration was."
Ty Trippet, a spokesman for Time magazine, would not comment on Walton's ruling.
The judge, adopting a legal test first developed by the Supreme Court to decide whether President Richard M. Nixon should have to turn over his Watergate tapes to a special prosecutor, ruled that most of the items Libby sought were not relevant to the case, or would not be admissible in court.
Walton repeatedly used the phrase "fishing expedition" to explain why he rejected some of the Libby team's requests.
These included subpoenas for handwritten notes belonging to Miller and Mitchell, Miller's appointment calendar, and telephone records and NBC internal e-mails about "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert .
Walton did find relevant Libby's request for New York Times documents related to other topics, including Miller's requests to her editors to write about Wilson's trip to Niger in 2002, during which he investigated Iraq's purported efforts to buy uranium from that country.
But Walton said he would wait until Miller's testimony at trial to decide whether those documents were admissible and would have to be turned over to the defense. He also said he might reconsider his ruling on some of Mitchell's documents in what he said was the unlikely event she testifies at the trial.
NBC would not comment on the ruling, but Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the New York Times, said, "We are gratified that Judge Walton did not order the Times to produce any editorial materials to the defendant."
