WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary stay of a civil contempt order against Catherine Herridge in July 2024. The stay halts daily fines while the Supreme Court considers her petition regarding her refusal to reveal confidential sources in a legal case involving scientist Yanping Chen.

US District Judge Christopher Cooper held Herridge in civil contempt in February 2024. Judge Cooper ordered her to pay an $800-per-day fine until she reveals the confidential sources that informed her 2017 reporting on Chen. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit subsequently denied Herridge's request to stay the contempt ruling.

Herridge wrote a series of stories in 2017 detailing Chen's prior service in China's People's Liberation Army. Chen, a Chinese American scientist who emigrated to the United States over four decades ago, operated an educational program in Virginia.

In 2018, Chen filed a lawsuit against the FBI, alleging federal officials unlawfully leaked protected information about her. This lawsuit followed a six-year counterintelligence investigation by the FBI into Chen, which included a search of her home. Chen was never charged with a crime.

Andy Phillips, Chen's attorney, stated: "Both the district and circuit courts have now ruled five times over that Ms Herridge has no privilege to continue to shield the identity of a federal official who broke the law and abused his or her position to cause harm to an American citizen by leaking protected materials." Phillips added: "We are confident that the supreme court will reach the same result." Paul D. Clement filed the petition with the Supreme Court on behalf of Herridge. Chief Justice Roberts gave Chen until July 1 to respond to the petition.

New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail in 2005 for refusing to reveal a confidential source. In 2006, a coalition of news organizations paid $750,000 to settle a lawsuit concerning reporting on an investigation of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.