It might not mean anything at all that Philip Shenon and Judith Miller had some dual-byline stories of a rather shady nature back when he was at the
Times. Plus one really shady one that he did on his own. Because a lot of those stories could have just been part of the hand the newsroom regularly dealt him, because it was withing the purview of his job description to cover that sort of thing, without any other implications attached.
On the other hand, it might mean something. He's been around a lot of blocks. FWIW.
Here's a little precis of the story that I personally consider really shady, plus some context from
historycommons:
On December 3, 2001, New York Times reporter Judith Miller telephones officials with the Holy Land Foundation charity in Texas and asks them to comment about what she says is a government raid on the charity planned for the next day. Then in a December 4, 2001, New York Times article, Miller writes that President Bush is about to announce that the US is freezing the assets of Holy Land and two other financial groups, all for supporting Hamas. US officials will later argue that Miller’s phone call and article “increased the likelihood that the foundation destroyed or hid records before a hastily organized raid by agents that day.” Later in the month, a similar incident occurs. On December 13, New York Times reporter Philip Shenon telephones officials at the Global Relief Foundation in Illinois and asks them to comment about an imminent government crackdown on that charity. The FBI learns that some Global Relief employees may be destroying documents. US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had been investigating the charities. He had been wiretapping Global Relief and another charity in hopes of learning evidence of criminal activity, but after the leak he changes plans and carries out a hastily arranged raid on the charity the next day (see December 14, 2001). Fitzgerald later seeks records from the New York Times to find out who in the Bush administration leaked information about the upcoming raids to Miller and Shenon. However, in 2005 Fitzgerald will lose the case. It is still not known who leaked the information to the New York Times nor what their motives were. Ironically, Fitzgerald will succeed in forcing Miller to reveal information about her sources in another extremely similar legal case in 2005 involving the leaking of the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Scroll up and down the page at the link for more stories tagged "Philip Shenon"! Also,
show me another cat in a sink! Anyway. It's pretty fucking hard to figure what legitimate news-gathering process would lead to a guy calling the target of an ongoing federal investigation the existence of which was then unknown outside the Justice Department to ask them how they feel about the major FBI probe they wouldn't have any way of knowing about if he hadn't asked that.
And equally fucking hard to figure how the public interest was or could have been served by reporting such a story at that stage of the game at all.
I mean, I'm all for maximum transparency and everything. But an investigation isn't news until it's public, barring stuff like a reason to think they're going for a politically motivated prosecution or....You know. Any other type of shenanigan that's along the same general abuse-of-power lines, broadly speaking. For lots of reasons. There might not ever be an indictment, for example. In which case, you'd just be fucking someone innocent up in public for sport, basically.
His reporting might not be all that reliable is what I'm saying. Or it might. I don't know. But he does have a history.
), so you don't know me, but I know all of you. 
