The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress earlier this month, according to CNN's chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash.
"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," Holder testified before Congress on May 15.
But some are pointing out that the attorney general would have signed off on a search warrant on Fox News reporter James Rosen's personal email account. The search warrant was obtained in part because there was probable cause to believe Rosen had broken a law or acted "at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator."
"The Department of Justice has really overstepped the bounds,"said First Amendment expert Floyd Abrams, author of upcoming book "Friend of the Court: On the Front Lines with the First Amendment."
"Accusing a reporter of being a criminal, of violating the espionage act no less, for doing nothing more or less than asking questions of a government official ... That's usually called journalism, not espionage," said Abrams. . . .
Jonathan Turley has this op-ed in USA Today:
In the end, Holder was the best witness against his continuing in office. His insistence that he did nothing was a telling moment. The attorney general has done little in his tenure to protect civil liberties or the free press. Rather, Holder has supervised a comprehensive erosion of privacy rights, press freedom and due process. This ignoble legacy was made possible by Democrats who would look at their shoes whenever the Obama administration was accused of constitutional abuses.
On Thursday, Obama responded to the outcry over the AP and Fox scandals by calling for an investigation by ... you guessed it ... Eric Holder. He ordered Holder to meet with news media representatives to hear their "concerns" and report back to him. He sent his old sin eater for a confab with the very targets of the abusive surveillance. Such an inquiry offers no reason to trust its conclusions.The feeble response was the ultimate proof that these are Obama's sins despite his effort to feign ignorance. It did not matter that Holder is the sin eater who has lost his stomach or that such mortal sins are not so easily digested. Indeed, these sins should be fatal for any attorney general.From Fox News:
“It seems to me clear that the actions of the department have in fact impaired the First Amendment,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said earlier this month. “Reporters who might have previously believed that a confidential source would speak to them would no longer have that level of confidence.” . . .
On the other side of the aisle, liberal pundit Bill Press has joined in the call to remove Holder, tweeting that he should be fired.
Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor, said what makes the recent criticism different from the Republican-led grilling over Fast and Furious, which was linked to the fatal shooting of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, is the bipartisan outcry.
“You're starting to see Democrats join Republicans to call for (Holder's) resignation,” Trippi said. “Whenever you see both sides doing that, it means there's real trouble. It doesn't mean he's in trouble of having to be forced out or resigned yet. It means it's a lot more serious than other events he's had to take on.” . . .
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