Supreme Court Declines To Stop Contempt Fines For Catherine Herridge After She Refused To Disclose Source

The Supreme Court declined Catherine Herridge‘s effort to block a lower court’s $800 per day fine for refusing to disclose the source of reports when she worked for Fox News.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had imposed the fine, having found her in civil contempt after she declined to reveal the source for 2017 stories that reported on a federal investigation of Yanping Chen, a naturalized U.S. citizen who founded the University of Management and Technology in Virginia. 

The stories had to do with Chen’s affiliations with the Chinese military. The FBI investigation examined statements she made on immigration forms about her work in China in the 1980s. Chen was not charged, but sued the federal government, claiming that someone leaked information about her to Herridge and Fox in violation of the Privacy Act.

In its order, the Supreme Court gave no reason for its ruling, but noted that Justice Brett Kavanaugh would have granted Herridge’s request to stay the fines.

Fox News Media said in a statement, “Protecting the confidentiality of journalistic sourcing and the integrity of the newsgathering process is fundamental to a free and functioning democracy. While we are deeply disappointed by the Court’s decision, our commitment to defending these critical First Amendment principles remains unwavering and we will be reviewing our options to further fight this injustice.”

Herridge’s attorney, Paul Clement, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Chen’s attorneys wrote in response to Herridge’s Supreme Court petition, “On five separate occasions—twice in the district court and three times in the court of appeals—Applicant Catherine Herridge has asserted that a qualified reporter’s privilege allows her to shield the identity of her source(s), almost certainly one or more federal officials, who abused their access to protected records and violated federal law to harm Respondent Yanping Chen, an American citizen. The lower courts have resoundingly rejected her position, faithfully applying the First Amendment qualified privilege balancing test that has been the law of the D.C. Circuit and other circuits for decades.”