phone probe

Jill Abramson, executive editor of The New York Times, appeared with The Washington Post‘s Bob Woodward and The Daily Beast’s Daniel Klaidman on CBS’s Face The Nation. Abramson on the DOJ’s leaks investigations: “In all of these cases I think the important thing is there’s supposed to be a balance between the needs to prosecute leakers and a free press. And it appears that in the pursuit of these cases … that balance doesn’t seem to have been applied inside the department.”

Attorney General Eric Holder expressed concern on Thursday about how the Department of Justice has handled recent media investigations at an off-the-record meeting with leading representatives of the press, according to those who were present.

The New York Times and the Associated Press have refused to attend a meeting this week with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss guidelines for journalists in leak investigations. Jill Abramson, the Times‘ executive editor, cited the Justice Department’s request that the discussion be kept off the record as a reason for not attending.

The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Attorney General Eric Holder lied under oath during his May 15 testimony on the Justice Department’s surveillance of reporters.

President Obama told the country that he didn’t want to criminalize reporting, and that he was going to ask his Justice Department to make sure not to do that anymore. To that end he is going to convene a panel, and urge the passage of a shield law. The question is, what will he do about Attorney General Eric Holder?

News Corp. said on Monday it is still reviewing whether it has any record of a notification from the United States government involving a subpoena for a Fox News reporter’s phone records.

Leonard Downie: “The Obama administration’s steadily escalating war on leaks, the most militant I have seen since the Nixon administration, has disregarded the First Amendment and intimidated a growing number of government sources of information — most of which would not be classified — that is vital for journalists to hold leaders accountable.”

The Obama Justice Department seized the phone records of numbers that are associated with White House staffers and, apparently, with Fox News reporters, according to a document filed in the case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. Kim is a former State Department contractor accused of violating the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking classified information to James Rosen, a Fox News reporter. The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia has seized records associated with two phone numbers at the White House, at least five numbers associated with Fox News, and one that has the same area code and exchange as Rosen’s personal-cell-phone number.

The Justice Department’s seizure of phone records for journalists at the Associated Press is hurting the agency’s ability to gather news, the wire service’s President Gary Pruitt said on Sunday.