before a grand jury investigating the leak of Plame's identity. Rove spent more than two hours testifying before the panel. 2005 February 2005 15 February 2005: Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Branzburg v. Hayes, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the First Amendment does not exempt Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper from the duty to comply with the grand jury's subpoenas. March 2005 23 March 2005: Thirty-six news organizations file a friend of the court brief on behalf of Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper. Among those organizations filing are The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, AP, Newsweek, Reuters, and White House correspondents, among many others. It was the general position of these news organizations and their reporters that neither Miller nor Cooper should be held in contempt of court for refusing to testify if no crime had been committed (i.e., no covert agent was "outed" in violation of the relevant statutes). As evidence that it is likely that no crime had been committed, the news agencies voluntarily filed a friend of the court brief in which they state on page 5:B. There is Ample Evidence On The Public Record To Cast Considerable Doubt That a Crime Has Been Committed. [Supporting facts and rationale are offered in subsequent pages.] According to the news agencies, there was no need to compel these reporters to divulge their sources because it was unlikely that a crime had been committed. June 2005 27 June: The Supreme Court declines to hear Miller and Cooper's appeal of the February circuit court ruling. 30 June: Norman Pearlstine, Time Inc.'s editor in chief agrees to provide documents concerning the confidential sources of Matthew Cooper to a grand jury. July 2005 July 2005: Michael Isikoff reports in Newsweek that Karl Rove spoke with Matt Cooper days before the Novak story, and that it was Cooper who initiated the call and brought up Wilson and his wife. Cooper later tells GJ that the call had nothing to do with Welfare. 1 July: Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst on The McLaughlin Group, stated: "And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of ... for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury." 4 July: Rove's lawyer, Robert