It was a wonderful sight to see members of the White House press corps finally getting upset about something, and some reporters were clearly not pleased to have been excluded from Press Secretary Jay Carney’s “deep background” briefing on Benghazi for a hand-selected group of journalists granted the golden ticket. Today, however, brings another revelation that should throw cold water on the press’ love affair with President Boyfriend.
What’s up this time? It looks like Eric Holder’s Justice Department has been secretly looking into the phone records of some Associated Press reporters. Remember when the Left lost it over the idea that President Bush was going through everyone’s library records? Let’s see how the press reacts to this one.
The DOJ "has secretly obtained two months of telephone records of journalists for The Associated Press" http://t.co/hWN3U6ghLs
— Chris Moody (@moody) May 13, 2013
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP.
In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.
AP CEO Gary Pruitt wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding answers for what he calls “a massive and unprecedented intrusion” into AP’s affairs. “There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of the Associated Press and its reporters,” wrote Pruitt.
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Here's the letter from AP's CEO to Eric Holder http://t.co/92D56bjwj2
— Ethan Klapper (@ethanklapper) May 13, 2013
The Justice Department must have had a good reason, right?
Justice Dept snooping on @AP likely related to leak about foiled al-Qaida plot to detonate a bomb on US-bound plane: http://t.co/fUnxkDf3yY
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) May 13, 2013
Time’s Michael Crowley is already warning off those conservatives who might deign to make an issue out of this. The AP doesn’t sound too happy about it, and we’re not aware of it being a conservative organization.
https://twitter.com/CrowleyTIME/status/334048053914902528
White House was originally on defensive for being the SOURCE of the leaks to AP #cans #worms
— Ali Rogin (@AliRogin) May 13, 2013
Perhaps, but one transgression certainly doesn’t preclude the other. There’s room for lots of scandals with this administration.
All right, media: it’s your move.
Time for a secretive WH briefing with hand-selected reporters to discuss DOJ's bugging of their phone calls?
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 13, 2013
This is chilling! This is beyond scary. Help us Supreme Court, you're our only hope.
— Brian Wilson (@BrianWilson997) May 13, 2013
Holder says DOJ obtained AP phone records as part of a spontaneous reaction to a video.
— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) May 13, 2013
Did the AP release a video that got the Department of Justice so upset?
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) May 13, 2013
We told journalists that they'd regret being Obama's bitches. They didn't listen. Oops.
— RBe (@RBPundit) May 13, 2013
Jay Carney at next WH briefing: "I'm ready to take your questions." Every reporter at once: "DUDE WTF?!"
— Chris Moody (@moody) May 13, 2013
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