Free Republic

<p>This is about the best cliff notes version of the Obama regime ever.</p>

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange feels vindicated at the moment that his source, Bradley Manning, goes on trial for handing over hundreds of thousands of pages of sensitive material. The US government eschewed a plea bargain (and Manning’s guilty plea to lesser charges) in order to try Manning for “aiding the enemy.” The prosecution made its opening argument yesterday: In an hour-long opening statement for the prosecution on Monday, Captain Joe Morrow told the court martial that the US army private had been motivated by a craving for “notoriety” that had led him to disregard his extensive training and to...

The Associated Press has uncovered what may become a vast new scandal for the Obama administration: the possibly widespread use of covert email accounts by political appointees, enabling evasion of sunshine laws designed to protect the public. Jack Gillium of AP reports: Some of President Barack Obama's political appointees, including the Cabinet secretary for the Health and Human Services Department, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by The Associated Press. The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery:...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some of President Barack Obama's political appointees, including the Cabinet secretary for the Health and Human Services Department, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by The Associated Press. The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more...

Republican leaders of the House Judiciary Committee on Monday accused Attorney General Eric Holder of having "something to hide," after the Justice Department issued a formal defense of his questionable testimony on reporter surveillance -- a defense Republicans rejected as inadequate. "This response is insulting and further proof that Attorney General Holder refuses to hold himself accountable," Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said. Holder was facing a Wednesday deadline, set by the committee, to explain his May 15 testimony. At the time, the attorney general said under oath he knew nothing of the "potential prosecution" of the press. Days later, it...

Goodlatte and Sensenbrenner asked attorney general to explain May 15 statements to committee on reporter probes; what they got today was "insulting."Leading Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee received an “insulting” response from the Justice Department in response to their inquiry about whether Attorney General Eric Holder perjured himself before their panel last month. Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) asked Holder last Wednesday to explain the investigation of reporters in light of testimony he delivered at a May 15 oversight hearing. In response to a question from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) about using the...

The Internal Revenue Service, already under fire after officials disclosed that the agency targeted conservative groups, faces increased scrutiny because of an inspector general’s report that it spent about $50 million to hold at least 220 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012.The report by the Treasury Department’s inspector general about conference spending is set to be released Tuesday. The department issued a statement Sunday saying the administration “has already taken aggressive and dramatic action to reduce conference spending.” The White House and the agency were on the defensive before the report on conference spending. Agency officials and the Obama...

In their letter, Mr. Goodlatte and Mr. Sensenbrenner asked Mr. Cole to document what day Mr. Holder had recused himself from the investigation; to explain how Mr. Cole learned of the recusal; to say whether Mr. Holder had specifically told Mr. Cole of his intent to recuse himself from the inquiry; and to say whether the recusal was made in writing or memorialized in any manner.

The entire pretext by which the Obama Justice Department justified spying on James Rosen was flimsy enough. They trumped up the notion that they might charge him as a criminal co-conspirator to justify the warrant that allowed them to read his e-mails and access his phone records. This was always absurd, based on ridiculous notions about how Rosen approached his reporting work.

Holder invited members of the media in for a sit-down— some of whom his DOJ had expressly targeted for surveillance under dubious national-security claims, and almost nobody came. The AP, one of Holder’s targets, said no. The NY Post said no. The NY Times said no. CNN said no. Fox News, another target, said no. Even liberal Huffington Post said "no, not if it’s off the record." (Politico, WSJ, Washington Post, The New Yorker, NY Daily News did attend.) Holder had insisted the chat (to “discuss guidelines,” whatever that means) be off the record — which meant that nothing he...

On May 10, the DOJ announced that it had been spying on AP reporters as well as James Rosen of Fox News. These two entities are synonymous when this topic is discussed, yet the only proof provided so far is that the DOJ was spying on James Rosen. Although the media narrative is that the AP was spied on, there's been no evidence to substantiate this. Other than James Rosen at Fox, not a single AP reporter has been named. We already know the IRS was targeting individuals and groups based on their political beliefs. Conservative groups such as the...

Attorney General Eric Holder's plans to sit down with media representatives to discuss guidelines for handling investigations into leaks to the news media have run into trouble. The Associated Press issued a statement Wednesday objecting to plans for the meetings to be off the record. "If it is not on the record, AP will not attend and instead will offer our views on how the regulations should be updated in an open letter," said Erin Madigan White, the AP's media relations manager. The New York Times is taking the same position. "It isn't appropriate for us to attend an off-the-record...

Excerpt: "Eric H. Holder Jr. is arguably the worst attorney general of all time. He obstructed inquiries by the U.S Commission for Civil Rights into the New Black Panther voter intimidation case. He was held in contempt of Congress for his obfuscation of the Justice Department’s Mexican gun-running investigation. However, he may be right about subpoenaing the phone records of Associated Press reporters to investigate leaks of national security information. The Department of Justice wants to know who..."

Washington (CNN) - Attorney General Eric Holder's plans to sit down with media representatives to discuss guidelines for handling investigations into leaks to the news media have run into trouble. The Associated Press issued a statement Wednesday objecting to plans for the meetings to be off the record. "If it is not on the record, AP will not attend and instead will offer our views on how the regulations should be updated in an open letter," said Erin Madigan White, the AP's media relations manager. The New York Times is taking the same position. "It isn't appropriate for us to...

CNN contributor Ryan Lizza digs into the timeline of the Justice Department's investigation of James Rosen. For more CNN videos, visit our site at http://www.cnn.com/video/

Reporters grilled White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday over Attorney General Eric Holder’s seemingly misleading testimony on the Justice Department’s monitoring of members of the press. Referring to Holder’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on May 15, Fox News reporter Ed Henry pointed out that the attorney general claimed he was unaware of any “potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material.” It was later discovered that Holder personally signed off on the search warrant to obtain James Rosen’s personal emails, Henry explained. “Even if the attorney general ruled out that he was going to...

New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson has announced that her paper will not attend an off-the-record session with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the Justice Department's monitoring of reporters, due to the fact that the meeting is to be conducted "off the record."

The Associated Press says it will not attend this week's off-the-record meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder unless the Justice Department decides to change its mind and conduct the meeting on the record. "We believe the meeting should be on the record and we have said that to the Attorney General’s office. If it is on the record, AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll will attend. If it is not on the record, AP will not attend and instead will offer our views on how the regulations should be updated in an open letter," AP spokesperson Erin Madigan said in a...

Rep. Bob Goodlatte is leading a Judiciary Committee probe of Attorney General Eric Holder's actions regarding the targeting of reporters. And he tells Newsmax he is "very concerned" about Justice Department efforts to "harass the news media." The Virginia Republican also reiterates his call for Holder to step down, a demand he first made two years ago during the Fast and Furious controversy. Elected in 1992, Goodlatte has been chairman of the House Judiciary Committee since January. Holder recently testified before the committee that targeting journalists was "not something I've even been involved in." But it's now been reported that...

The Associated Press scandal just keeps getting worse, and we haven't even started yet. AP CEO Gary Pruitt informed staffers Wednesday that the Department of Justice monitored, not one, not twenty, but "thousands and thousands" of phone calls made by reporters and editors. Associated Press president and chief executive Gary Pruitt told staff at a Wednesday town hall meeting that the phone records obtained by the government included "thousands and thousands" of calls in and out of the news organization, according to a staffer who attended. Pruitt said Wednesday that the Obama administration acted as "judge, jury and executioner" in...