Catherine Herridge asks Supreme Court to shield her sources from an $800-a-day fine

Why it matters

The ruling could determine whether federal civil litigants can force reporters to identify confidential sources after exhausting other avenues, with daily fines used to compel compliance.

Veteran national security reporter Catherine Herridge has asked the Supreme Court to review an order requiring her to identify confidential sources or face an $800 fine for every day she refuses. The sanction is paused while the justices consider her petition, The Guardian reported on August 25th. (theguardian.com)

Herridge wrote a series of Fox News reports in 2017 about Yanping Chen, a naturalized US citizen and founder of the University of Management and Technology in Arlington, Virginia. The reports drew on federal records and anonymous sources while describing an FBI investigation into Chen's past and alleged links to the Chinese military. Federal prosecutors declined to charge Chen in 2016. (media.cadc.uscourts.gov)

Chen sued the FBI, Justice Department, Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security in 2018, alleging that government officials violated the Privacy Act by leaking protected information about her. The lawsuit does not name Herridge as a defendant or challenge the accuracy of her reporting. It seeks to identify the official or officials Chen says unlawfully released her records. (theguardian.com)

That distinction has placed Herridge between two established interests: a reporter's promise to protect confidential sources and a citizen's right to seek a remedy when federal employees allegedly disclose private government records.

A six-year search for the source

Chen pursued extensive discovery before subpoenaing Herridge. According to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Chen took 18 depositions of current and former government employees, issued more than a dozen third-party subpoenas and obtained declarations from 22 government personnel connected to the FBI investigation. None identified the source of the Fox reports. (media.cadc.uscourts.gov)

US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that Chen had exhausted reasonable alternatives and that the source's identity was central to her Privacy Act claim. Herridge appeared for a deposition on September 26th, 2023, but refused to answer questions about who supplied the records or when and how she obtained them.

Cooper held Herridge in civil contempt on February 29th, 2024. He imposed the $800 daily fine while initially staying it during her appeal. The judge acknowledged the role confidential sources play in investigative reporting, but found that Chen's need for the information overcame Herridge's qualified First Amendment privilege. (law.justia.com)

The DC Circuit affirmed that ruling in September 2025. Its opinion said the circuit's existing test focuses on whether the requested information is crucial to the case and whether the plaintiff exhausted reasonable alternative sources. Herridge did not contest that Chen had satisfied those requirements. She instead argued that courts should also weigh the public interest in national security reporting against the plaintiff's private interest in disclosure. The appeals court held that its precedent did not permit that broader balancing test once centrality and exhaustion had been established. (media.cadc.uscourts.gov)

The fine is paused, not erased

Herridge separately asked the Supreme Court to halt the sanctions while she prepared a full petition. The justices denied that emergency application on July 2nd. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he would have granted it. (supremecourt.gov)

Herridge then paid the fine for 18 days, sending $800 checks totaling $14,400. Cooper clarified in August that the sanction should remain paused through the disposition of a timely Supreme Court petition, or through the completion of proceedings if the justices accept the case. He also ordered the payments returned. (thedesk.net)

Chen had asked Cooper to increase the sanction on a graduated schedule that could reach $5,000 a day and to prevent Fox News from reimbursing Herridge. The judge rejected that request. Fox, where Herridge worked until 2019, continues to fund her legal representation, according to The Guardian. (theguardian.com)

"The day I disclose, my career is over," Herridge told The Guardian. Her position is that revealing one protected source would make future sources unwilling to trust her. Chen's attorney, Andrew Phillips, argues that federal officials should not escape accountability for allegedly violating the Privacy Act merely because they provided the records to a journalist. (theguardian.com)

The legal gap is narrower than the claim that Washington has no shield law. The District of Columbia does protect journalists' sources, but those local protections generally do not govern federal claims heard in federal court. Herridge must instead rely on the DC Circuit's qualified First Amendment privilege because Congress has not enacted a broad federal shield law. (code.dccouncil.gov)

The Supreme Court petition gives the justices an opportunity to decide whether that qualified privilege requires courts to weigh the public interest in protecting confidential newsgathering, even after a civil plaintiff has shown that a source's identity is essential and unavailable elsewhere. Until the Court acts, Herridge keeps her sources confidential and the $800 clock remains stopped.