Reporter Won’t Name Source of Thomas Article : Press: A special counsel is trying to learn who leaked sexual harassment charges against the Supreme Court nominee, now its newest member.

Risking prosecution in a rare Senate investigation of news leaks, a Newsday reporter refused Thursday to answer hundreds of questions regarding the source of his article last fall on sexual harassment charges against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

The reporter, Timothy Phelps, repeatedly invoked the First Amendment guarantee of press freedom. He was interrogated during almost six hours of questioning behind closed doors by the Senate special counsel, who was assigned to discover how confidential Senate Judiciary Committee information became public.

The newspaper’s editor, Anthony Marro, also resisted efforts by special counsel Peter E. Fleming Jr. to discover how Newsday broke the story of allegations by Anita Faye Hill, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, that Thomas had harassed her.

The First Amendment guarantee of press freedom, most journalists believe, also gives them the right to protect the identities of their sources. Journalists fear that sources often would be reluctant to come forward unless they could count on anonymity.

Without such a promise of confidentiality, Phelps said in a statement: “I might never again be able to tell my readers what their government does not want them to know.”

After the session, Phelps described the process as potentially “intimidating to other reporters. It will have a chilling effect on the job we do.”

Hill’s charges led to explosive public hearings last October in which she and Thomas testified--she elaborating on her allegations in sometimes graphic testimony and he denying them while accusing the Senate of a “high-tech lynching.” He was later confirmed by a Senate vote of 52 to 48, one of the narrowest in history.

Faced with widespread criticism of the Judiciary Committee’s conduct of the sexually explicit televised hearings, the Senate decided to name a special counsel to try to determine how Newsday and National Public Radio reporter Nina Totenberg learned of the charges Hill had made in confidence to the committee.

Like Phelps, Totenberg has said she will refuse to answer questions about confidential sources on grounds that disclosing their identities would dry up vital information the public has a right to know. She has been subpoenaed to appear Tuesday.

As Marro said in refusing to comply with a Senate subpoena for telephone records and internal documents relating to Phelps’ story: “Submitting to the special counsel’s inquisition would damage the credibility of every reporter on the staff of Newsday, because no one could ever trust the newspaper or its reporters again.”

Asked whether he would go to jail rather than name his sources, Phelps replied: “Absolutely.”

It is conceivable, although not considered probable, that Phelps and other journalists who refuse to answer questions during the inquiry will face contempt of Congress charges--a crime punishable by a fine and prison term.

Fleming could recommend charges against those who resist his investigation, but it appears unlikely that any such move would get the backing of a majority of senators. Fleming declined to say what his next step would be.

“This is a leaks investigation, so it’s perfectly appropriate to say I ain’t talking,” Fleming told reporters.

But Robert Warren, an attorney for Phelps and Newsday, said the Senate has not punished a reporter for refusing to disclose a source since the middle of the 19th Century.

The New York Times and the Washington Post published editorials Thursday asking the Senate to drop the investigation on grounds that it represented a dangerous and unnecessary invasion of First Amendment rights.

In an editorial Feb. 5, the Los Angeles Times said that “unleashing ‘thought police’ on press and public for any reason is an Orwellian concept more in line with the failed government of the former Soviet Union than of the world’s leading democracy. Doing so to pacify Republicans upset at the leaks is as dangerous as it is outrageous.”

The Washington Post said the Constitution does not entitle the Senate to demand that reporters disclose their sources in order to enforce the Senate’s rules of confidentiality.

The special counsel, who faces a 120-day deadline to complete the inquiry, also is charged with investigating leaks from the Senate Ethics Committee regarding charges that five senators improperly intervened for financier Charles H. Keating Jr. Paul Rodriguez, a reporter for the Washington Times, has been summoned for questioning today in that part of the investigation. Rodriguez also has said he will refuse to answer questions about his sources.