[MGP-Forum Announce] Conyers, Hall ask Bush administration to withdraw Balco subpoenas of Chronicle reporters

[Bill Densmore]

The chairman and ranking minority member of the House judiciary committee today asked the government to withdraw subpoenas issued to two San Francisco Chronicle reporters whose testimony is sought in the Balco steriod scandal. Committee Chairman U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., told a gathering of the American Society of Newspaper Editors that he and U.S. Rep. Tom Davis had made the request in a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales.

"The subpoenas issued to those reporters and their newspaper seeing confidential source information are troubling both on the specific facts of their case and bcause of the great damage they could cause to our nation's press nad the First Amendment," the letter, provided by Conyers, said. "We call on your to withdraw the subpoenas issued to the San Francisco Chronicle and its reporters, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams."

Conyers also said he also expects bipartisan support in the new Congress "for a federal law which undergirds freedom of the press." He was not specific. 

Conyers spoke to a gathering of about 120 editors and journalists at the National Press Club organized to consider the increase in the number of subpoenas issued to reporters to reveal confidential sources. 



"