US reporter urges supreme court to halt ruling forcing her to reveal sources or pay $800-a-day fine

More than two years ago, a US district court judge took the extraordinary step of holding the veteran investigative journalist Catherine Herridge in civil contempt, ordering her to pay a steep daily fine of $800 per day unless she reveals her sources for a series of stories she wrote in 2017 for Fox News. Since then, the case has slowly moved through the appeals process, with Herridge dealt a series of defeats . On Tuesday, the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit issued a one-sentence ruling denying Herridge’s plea to stay the February 2024 ruling holding her in contempt, an order made by district court judge Christopher R Cooper. With time running out before the fine might go into effect, Herridge’s legal team is attempting one more legal maneuver to try to stave off the penalty. On Friday, Herridge filed a petition for a stay with the US supreme court. The petition was filed by Paul D Clement, a prominent appellate attorney who has also been retained by Disney to protest the Federal Communications Commission’s investigation of the ABC broadcast The View . John Roberts, the supreme court chief justice, responded to Herridge’s petition by issuing a stay of the appeals court’s rulings to give the other party in the case, Chinese American scientist Yanping Chen, until 1 July to file a response. “We are pleased with the supreme court’s decision to temporarily stay the deeply troubling contempt order,” Fox News said in a statement on Friday. …