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The Justice Department begged a federal judge to not tell Fox News reporter James Rosen that it was tracking his telephone calls and emails in a probe regarding a national security leak. U.S. Attorney Ron Machen argued in 2010 that the traditional 30-day notice period did not apply to Rosen as Justice secretly monitored his Gmail account, according to new exhibits unsealed this week and disclosed by The Hill. “Where, as here, the government seeks such contents through a search warrant, no notice to the subscriber or customer of the e-mail account is statutorily required or necessary,” Machen wrote in...

Holder has already lied under oath. Does anyone think this won’t be another way to just cover everything up? Check it out: President Barack Obama has asked his friend Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate Holder’s unprecedented investigation of a Fox News reporter. Holder approved the Justice Department’s extraordinary 2010 investigation of contacts between a Fox News reporter and a State Department official who has since been charged with leaking classified information, according to NBC. The Justice Department searched the reporter’s e-mails and phone calls under the legal claim that he may have contributed to a crime. The Fox News...

I don’t want to come right out and say that BO is losing it. Butt for a guy who has been regaled for his rhetorical gifts, has raised over $1 billion in campaign funds, and ran a political organization the envy of Tammany Hall, how else do you explain all these things? Tell me, how can someone like Big Guy surround himself with so many incompetent people heading up so many agencies that keep coming up with such “suboptimal outcomes?” For starters: an IRS staffed with senior management who either know nothing, or are unwilling to tell us what they...

Let's break out the old standard: if Barack Obama has lost Al Hunt, he's lost America—or at least the liberal-media part. On today's Morning Joe, discussing the James Rosen outrage, Hunt called President Obama "no better than Richard Nixon" when it comes to the press. He then strongly suggested that Attorney General Eric Holder should go. View the video here.

The Executive Branch is out of control.As Ralph Nader points out, the Obama Administration has been serving as judge, jury, and executioner, even against some U.S. citizens.Obama’s drone policy is of dubious legality, as is the continued practice of kidnapping and imprisoning people indefinitely.He waged his war against Libya without Congressional approval. And now his Administration is overreaching domestically, though it’s unclear how much of this is with his knowledge or green light.The IRS’s witch-hunt of right wing and Tea Party groups is “outrageous,” as Obama himself properly noted. He should fire the person or people responsible. That’s what...

President Obama is a little uneasy with the way journalists have been dragged into the Justice Department’s aggressive pursuit of national security leak investigations. In fact, he has ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a 45-day review of the department’s guidelines on the issue. That bit of news was buried in the middle of the president’s hourlong speech today at National Defense University. “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs,” President Obama said. “Our focus must be on those who break the law.” And then the news: “I have raised these issues with the attorney...

Press Freedom: The president worries about the "chilling effect" of leak investigations as his attorney general signs the warrant labeling a Fox News reporter as a violator of the Espionage Act. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. 'I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable," President Obama said with a straight face in a speech Thursday at the National Defense University. "Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs." Indeed, investigative reporting should not be a criminal offense — just ask Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose digging unearthed...

As of Friday morning, NBC News broadcasts had completely ignored an important scoop from the network's own national investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff that Attorney General Eric Holder personally approved the Justice Department's aggressive investigation of Fox News reporter James Rosen. Meanwhile, both CBS News and FNC provided on-air coverage of the new development. On Thursday's Nightly News, White House correspondent Peter Alexander passed up the perfect opportunity to mention the breaking news as he wrapped up a report on President Obama's afternoon national security speech: "Also today, on the topic of national security leaks, the President said that he's asked...

Reporters Should Just CC Eric Holder on All E-Mails From Now On By Jim Geraghty May 24, 2013 7:23 AM The last Morning Jolt of the week features a look at Lois Lerner, and the cowboy hero that President Obama seeks to emulate, and… Eric Holder: Sure, I’m Cool With Snooping Around in James Rosen’s E-Mails Remember how Attorney General Eric Holder recused himself from the decision to seize the phone records of more than 20 office, home and cell phone lines of Associated Press reporters? (Holder never wrote down his formal recusal, of course, so we have to take...

Shot: President Obama’s speech today: Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs. Our focus must be on those who break the law. That is why I have called on Congress to pass a media shield law to guard against government over-reach. I have raised these issues with the Attorney General, who shares my concern. So he has agreed to review existing Department of Justice guidelines governing investigations that involve reporters, and will convene a group of media organizations to hear their concerns as part of that review. And I have directed the Attorney General to report...

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday. The disclosure of the attorney general’s role came as President Barack Obama, in a major speech on his counterterrorism policy, said Holder had agreed to review Justice Department guidelines governing investigations that involve journalists. "I am troubled by the possibility that leak investigations may chill the investigative journalism that holds government accountable," Obama said. "Journalists should...

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee called in Attorney General Eric Holder to testify last week on the AP reporters scandal. During testimony under oath Eric Holder told Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) that targeting journalists was bad policy and something he’d never been involved in. This is what Holder told Congress: “First of all you’ve got a long way to go to try to prosecute the press for publication of material. This has not fared well in American history… In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved...

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama is facing demands in court to reveal more about the U.S. drone program, despite his speech addressing it on Thursday and his government's acknowledgement a day earlier that four Americans have died in drone strikes. Civil liberties advocates, news organizations and the families of those who died have brought lawsuits in New York, Washington and Oakland, California, challenging the government's refusal to provide information. Now that the drone program's existence has at last been confirmed, government lawyers on Wednesday indicated they would abandon their previous arguments, which did not confirm or deny the drone program....

A damaging Friday news dump before a holiday weekend? Who could have seen that coming? Dump away, Justice Department: The Justice Department said on Friday that officials up to Attorney General Eric Holder vetted a decision to search an email account belonging to a Fox News reporter whose report on North Korea prompted a leak investigation. In a statement emailed to Reuters, the department said the search warrant for the reporter's email account followed all laws and policies and won the independent approval of a federal magistrate judge. We're apparently supposed to feel better about everything because the DOJ "followed...

It’s 4 p.m. ET as I’m writing this. If you had that time plus “deeper complicity for Holder in the Rosen investigation” in the pool, congrats.We already knew that he signed the warrant for Rosen’s e-mails. Now we know for sure that it wasn’t pro forma. President Good Government announced yesterday that he’s ordered the Attorney General to review the DOJ’s guidelines for snooping on reporters. Imagine how dismayed Eric Holder will be when he finds out what Eric Holder’s done. The Justice Department said on Friday that officials up to Attorney General Eric Holder vetted a decision to search...

Unreal. In an explosive new bombshell report, the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza claims that the Obama administration deliberately kept Fox News reporter James Rosen in the dark about the warrant to search through his personal emails. Some new info in the leak case that targeted Fox's James Rosen coming shortly...— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) May 24, 2013

This does not bode well for my future as MOTUS (Mirror Of The United States): That’s right; simply by peering into the mirror, we have met the enemy and, shockingly, he is us. “We are the enemy we have been waiting for” As always, the people responsible for this travesty will be held accountable, so I expect to receive my notice of (paid) administrative leave shortly. Butt wait! I think I’ve found an IRS approved loophole! You can’t really blame an empty chair can you? Good work MOTUS! - if I do say so myself. With a h/t to Clint...

“We have a message for Attorney General Holder over at http://huffingtonpost.com,” read a message from the Huffington Post political Twitter account earlier this evening. The website's home page is one big splash calling for Eric Holder’s exit from the Obama administration, suggesting that the news reported earlier by NBC News was the final straw for liberals who are critical of Obama’s attorney general. NBC News’ Michael Isikoff reported that Holder signed off on the search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator”authorizing seizure of his private emails. The Huffington Post page also highlights Holder’s record...

During friendly questioning from Rep. Hank “I fear that Guam will capsize!” Johnson in Congress last week, Attorney General Eric Holder offered the following statement. In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy. He made that statement before the facts about the sweep on Fox News’ James Rosen were known. Since then, it’s come to light that Holder himself approved the subpoena that, among other things, named Rosen as a criminal co-conspirator.

In 2008 the American Issues Project released an ad tying Barack Obama to domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. “Barack Obama launched his political career with the direct assistance of Bill Ayers.” (VIDEO-AT-LINK) The Obama camp used the DOJ to demand an investigation and prosecute American Issues Project That’s not all… Obama goons threatened 10,000 GOP donors with legal trouble and public harassment if they continued to support Republican candidates. The Wall Street Journal reported, via Jammie Wearing Fool: On Aug. 21, 2008, the conservative American Issues Project ran an ad highlighting ties between candidate Obama and Bill Ayers, formerly of the...

Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday.

Lois Lerner didn’t just take the Fifth. She gave a little speech first saying she had done nothing wrong. That certainly opens her up to some questions, although the extent to which it does is debatable. Imagine the following sequence of questions: 1) Did you do anything wrong? 2) Do you think that it would be wrong to target conservative groups because of their ideology? 3) Did you target conservative groups because of their ideology? Given that Lois Lerner gave an opening statement in which she said that she had not done anything wrong, it would be interesting to see...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama says Attorney General Eric Holder will review Justice Department policy on leaks investigations involving the news media. Obama says in a speech on counterterrorism Thursday he's troubled by the idea that leaks investigations may chill the investigative journalism that he says holds government accountable. In recent weeks, the administration has acknowledged secretly seizing portions of two months of phone records from The Associated Press and reading the e-mails of Fox News reporter James Rosen in separate investigations about the publication of government secrets. The president says the government has to strike the right balance...

Ok, the Fort Hood massacre was dubbed "workplace violence" and thus the families affected by said "violence" won't be fully compensated because the massacre wasn't called an act of terrorism? Check? We can't prosecute the Benghazi attackers because it has been said that we don't have enough evidence to try them in civilian court? Check? Lastly, these 4 Americans who were supposedly killed by drones (according to Holder) were killed without due process? Check? Seinfeld, meet Bizarro World?

Conservatives have alleged that progressives have been engaged in a callous attempt under this plutocratic administration in creating artificial crises so that the plutocracy can abridge citizens' rights. I mean further than they’ve already abridged them. And until now the press has ignored this vast right wing conspiracy theory time after time: Fast and Furious, Solyndra, TARP, HARP, Benghazi, the IRS, Gun Grabbing, Libya, Iran, Syria, Russia, stimulus spending, the Boston Bombing and the phony math on Obamacare. Wisconsin’s Jim Sensenbrenner summed it up during a House hearing on Fast and Furious when he said: "There is really no responsibility...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The IRS hearings today, the Issa committee. Folks, yesterday, after the Apple tax hearings at the Senate, I said, "This is all just a game," and I think this thing that happened this morning with Lois Lerner showing up... Issa basically let her get away with it. She's gone. He looked clueless, like didn't know what was going on, didn't know how to deal with this. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Okay, let me tell you what happened today at the IRS hearings. Lois Lerner, who ran the whole kit and caboodle and was... By the way, this was...

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said embattled IRS official Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights and will be hauled back to appear before his panel again. The California Republican said Lerner’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination was voided when she gave an opening statement this morning denying any wrongdoing and professing pride in her government service. “When I asked her her questions from the very beginning, I did so so she could assert her rights prior to any statement,” Issa told POLITICO. “She chose not to do so — so she waived.” Lerner triggered...

The US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald C. Machen - the man responsible for the aggressive surveillance and phone record scrutiny at Fox News - is also a big donor to the Obama Campaigns. At the time of his appointment, the Washington Post wrote a profile on Machen including this tidbit: Over the years, he has donated $4,350 to Obama's campaigns. He gave $250 to Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in 2003, a year before Obama, then an Illinois state senator, emerged on the nation's political radar, according to campaign finance records.

Justice Seized White House, Fox Phone Records Tuesday, May 21, 2013 08:01 PM By: Todd Beamon The Justice Department seized the telephone records of at least five Fox News reporters and several White House staffers in connection with the 2009 probe into a former State Department contractor who is accused of leaking classified information to Fox journalist James Rosen. The disclosure came in a document filed in the case of the former contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, on October 13, 2011, The New Yorker reported today.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said ATF Agent John Dodson had provided significant information and public testimony on the agency’s handling of the Fast and Furious probe and “was retaliated against by” U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke with the unauthorized disclosure in late June 2011 of an ATF memo the agent had drafted. In the report, the inspector general said Mr. Burke, who resigned after Fast and Furious had become media fodder, provided the memo to Fox News in violation of Justice Department policies — a disclosure that “was likely motivated by a desire to undermine” Mr. Dodson’s public criticisms. The...

If President Obama didn't know about the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, and Hillary didn't know about security lapses in Benghazi, ...— Joseph Curl (@josephcurl) May 21, 2013 ... and Holder didn't know a thing about Justice tapping phones and reading emails of reporters, don't you wonder what ELSE they don't know?— Joseph Curl (@josephcurl) May 21, 2013

Sharyl Attkisson, the Emmy-award winning CBS News investigative reporter, says that her personal and work computers have been compromised and are under investigation. "I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I'm not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I've been patient and methodical about this matter," Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. "I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public."

Senator Chuck Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following statement after an Office of Inspector General Report showed that U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke leaked a sensitive document to the press regarding a whistleblower who had come forward with allegations of gunwalking, that he leaked an internal memo regarding Fast and Furious suspect Jaime Avila to the New York Times, and that he lied to Deputy Attorney General James Cole. The document leaked to Fox News was deemed so sensitive by the Justice Department that it was not provided to Congress, except in a secured room at...

Question: When does a Drudge story become a scandal? Answer: When the MSM says so. Question: When does the MSM say so? Answer: 1) When it involves Republicans; and 2) When it’s about them. (SNIP)   No, you shut up! How else to explain the Media’s sudden interest in the Federal Government’s abuse of power? They weren’t the least bit captivated by Fast and Furious (Gun running to Mexican cartels? No story there), Pigford (Massive fraud at USDA? Pass, story’s got no legs), Extortion 17 (Suspicious downing of helicopter filled with Navy Seals? Lunatic rightwing conspiracy theorists!) or Benghazi...

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) asked Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate election integrity org True the Vote and its associated Tea Party group, King Street Patriots, immediately before the IRS and DOJ began targeting the group in June 2010. Rep. Jackson Lee sent a letter to Holder which alleged that True the Vote was intimidating voters and their election monitors were crossing the line in unspecified “instances” of voter intimidation. The letter went on to directly assert that the “alleged events” were factual and that the True the Vote effort was behind the crimes. The letter offered no documented...

Senator Charles Grassley, who launched the first Capitol Hill investigation of Operation Fast and Furious more than two years ago, today blasted the treatment of a chief whistleblower in the investigation by the former U.S. attorney in Arizona, and subsequent attempts to discredit him by the Justice Department. Grassley released a statement after the Office of Inspector General released a report Monday morning that shows former U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke leaked “a sensitive document” to a Fox News reporter in an attempt to discredit John Dodson, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The IG’s...

The Justice Department’s secret subpoena for AP phone records included the seizure of records for five reporters' cellphones and three home phones as well as two fax lines, a lawyer for the news organization tells NBC News. David Schulz, the chief lawyer for the AP, said the subpoenas also covered the records for 21 phone lines in five AP office lines -- including one for a dead phone line at office in Washington that had been shut down six years ago. The phone lines at four other offices – where 100 reporters worked — were also covered by the subpoenas,...

THREE Fox News staffers were monitored by DOJ. WOW. WOW. WOW.— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) May 20, 2013 Whoa.Drip, drip, drip.Megyn Kelly is reporting that it was not just James Rosen who was targeted by Obama’s Department of Justice. @MegynKelly on @FoxNews now reporting not just Rosen targed by DoJ; 3 Fox News staffers.— Brian Faughnan (@BrianFaughnan) May 20, 2013 Not just one! Three Fox News staffers in DoJ sites reports @megynkelly #fb— johnny dollar (@johnnydollar01) May 20, 2013 Now @megynkelly reporting @JamesRosenFNC, another FNC reporter and producer were targeted by DOJ— Andy Lancaster (@andylancaster) May 20, 2013 Evidently, two...

May 20, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Under President Obama, “justice” is anything but blind. Neither is it deaf. In fact, based on recent revelations, it appears to be watching your every move and listening to your every word. Still, if you happen to be a federal employee, now it’s even listening for your silence. The only thing this Obama White House seems to generate is scandal. Well, here’s yet another to add to the growing list. In addition to the Benghazi cover-up, IRS targeting of political dissenters and the illegal seizure of media phone records, whistleblowers within DOJ have contacted Liberty...

The U.S. Attorney in Arizona violated Justice Department policy by providing Fox News with information apparently aimed at undercutting the credibility of a federal agent who helped reveal the botched arms-trafficking probe called Operation Fast and Furious, the Justice Department's inspector general said Monday. There was substantial evidence in the 2011 incident that then-U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke's motive for disclosing a memo by federal agent John Dodson was retaliation, the inspector general's report said. In testimony to a House committee just two weeks earlier, Dodson had raised serious concerns about Operation Fast and Furious. In Dodson's memo, which was eventually...

joseph curl�@josephcurl8m CIA source says Fox News scandal the "4th Shoe"; says it goes much deeper; says WH also sitting on "something" that has top aides terrified.

A Fox News correspondent was accused in a Justice Department affidavit of being a possible criminal "co-conspirator" for his alleged role in publishing sensitive security information -- in a leak case that takes the highly unusual step of claiming a journalist broke the law. According to court documents, the Justice Department obtained a portfolio of information about Fox News' James Rosen's conversations and visits to the State Department. This included a search warrant for his personal emails. The effort follows that by the department to secretly obtain two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists as part of a...

Judge Andrew Napolitano joined FM Newstalk 97.1 morning host Jamie Allman today to discuss the widening IRS targeting scandal. Judge Napolitano told Jamie that if Obama knew his IRS was targeting conservatives during the 2012 election, and did nothing, it is an impeachable offense. "Now it has become a question of integrity. What did he know and when did he know it? Because if he knew during his campaign that the IRS was targeting his opponents and he did nothing to stop. In other words, he let the IRS do this stuff in order to help him defeat Mitt Romney,...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General published a new report Monday that confirms former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke leaked a document intended to smear Operation Fast and Furious scandal whistleblower John Dodson. The DOJ IG said it found “Burke’s conduct in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to be inappropriate for a Department employee and wholly unbefitting a U.S. Attorney.” “We are referring to OPR our finding that Burke violated Department policy in disclosing the Dodson memorandum to a member of the media for a determination of whether Burke’s conduct violated the Rules of Professional Conduct for the state...

A group against pornography has put Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in its cross hairs, placing him at the top of a list of national offenders at fault for furthering the X-rated industry. Morality in Media’s “Dirty Dozen List” posting on its website calls Mr. Holder the worst of its “top 12 facilitators of porn” in the entire nation. Why Mr. Holder? He closed the Justice Department's Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, Morality in Media said. “Holder’s actions keep the porn industry thriving,” said Patrick A. Trueman, president of Morality in Media, in a Raw Story report. “He not only...

The president and chief executive officer of The Associated Press on Sunday called the government's secret seizure of two months of reporters' phone records "unconstitutional" and said the news cooperative had not ruled out legal action against the Justice Department. Gary Pruitt, in his first television interviews since it was revealed the Justice Department subpoenaed phone records of AP reporters and editors, said the move already has had a chilling effect on journalism. Pruitt said the seizure has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists and, in the long term, could limit Americans' information from all news outlets.

Schieffer to Obama Advisor: ‘Why Are You Here? Why Isn’t the White House Chief of Staff Here?’ By Noel Sheppard Created 05/19/2013 - 1:23pm As NewsBusters reported two weeks ago, CBS’s Bob Schieffer is fed up with the White House’s talking points concerning what happened at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last September. His impatience continued on Sunday's Face the Nation when Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer gave stock answers to questions about the three crises facing the President leading Schieffer to first accuse his guest of taking "exactly the approach that the Nixon administration took" and finally scolding him...

The American people have lost faith in U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., and he must be replaced, a top GOP senator said Sunday. “I lost confidence in the attorney general a long time ago over his cover-up of the Fast and Furious investigation,” said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, referencing Mr. Holder’s role in the infamous gunrunning scheme that went awry and cost the life of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Calls for Mr. Holder’s ouster have grown louder since it was revealed the Justice Department gathered telephone records for at least 20 Associated Press editors and reporters...

CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson did several interviews last week that discussed her investigative work on CBS, especially the Benghazi scandal. On C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Monday, Attkison said the Obama administration has "perfected" delaying public release of information, and reported the White House has "quit talking" to her altogether.

Celia Roady is a lawyer and a partner at Morgan, Lewis and Bockius LLP. Roady is now admitting that she was contacted by Lois Lerner on May 9th. Lerner on the 9th asked Celia Roady to ask the planted IRS question discriminating against conservatives and she agreed. Celia Roady, who released a statement to Fox News says there were no discussion thereafter on the topic of the question. Also, Roady claims that she hasn’t spoken with Lois Lerner about this issue before that May 9th phone call. Finally, Celia Roady says that Lerner did not tell herr how she would...