Experienced journalist set to testify in front of Congress following tumultuous departure from CBS

A longtime investigative reporter who was terminated by CBS News this year will appear as a witness next week at a congressional hearing on matters surrounding press freedom.

Catherine Herridge will testify publicly before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government about her termination on April 11, according to a source with direct knowledge of the plans.

Other witnesses at the hearing will include another longtime journalist Sharyl Attkisson, as well as Mary Cavallaro, the chief broadcast officer at the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists News and Broadcast Department, the source said.

Herridge, a journalist of over 25 years, worked at Fox News until 2019 before becoming a senior investigative correspondent at CBS News. She gained prominence in recent years for her coverage of Republicans’ efforts to investigate the Biden family but was among a batch of employees laid off by the network in February.

Her exit made headlines after several reports indicated that her former employer “seized” her items, including confidential source information, upon her termination.

SAG-AFTRA, a union that represents journalists, issued a statement at the time denouncing CBS News for its “decision to seize Catherine Herridge’s reporter notes and research from her office, including confidential source information.”

“It is completely inappropriate for an employer to lay off a reporter and take the very unusual step of retaining and searching the reporter’s files, inclusive of confidential source identification and information,” according to the union.

The House Judiciary Committee opened an inquiry into the matter, and CBS News responded by adamantly denying that the network seized Herridge’s items and asserting that nothing was unusual about her exit, according to a letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.

Staff from CBS News’s human resources department retrieved Herridge’s personal belongings from her office, such as books, clothing, and awards, to return to her, “but at no time did anyone review any of the files or other materials,” a CBS News representative wrote.

The representative said that because SAG-AFTRA expressed concerns that confidential source information could still be left in Herridge’s office among material that was proprietary to the network, CBS News decided to allow a union representative to pick up the rest of Herridge’s items to deliver to its former employee.

Herridge’s planned testimony before Congress comes as she is also in the midst of appealing a judge’s decision in February to hold her in civil contempt for refusing to unmask the source of a series of reports she did at Fox News on a scientist’s alleged ties to the Chinese military.

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The judge imposed an $800-per-day fine on Herridge until she provides the name of the source who disclosed to her private information about the scientist, but the fine is paused while the appeals process plays out.

In its letter to Congress, CBS News did not address why it terminated Herridge specifically but noted that her dismissal came as part of a decision to lay off 5% of the network’s domestic staff.