The Isikoff Files

Video: DoJ seizes AP phone records in leak investigation dragnet

Open in new window

2. Closed captioning of: DoJ seizes AP phone records in leak investigation dragnet

   Advertise | AdChoices

   >> thanks to you at home, as well, for staying with us for the next hour. on one of those news days where a lot of very big news broke only to be stepped on by the next big thing breaking a few minutes later. today, for example, a maintain into custody in detroit after a pressure cooker was found in his luggage at the detroit airport . he reportedly gave authorities a jumble of different stories explaining why he had this pressure cooker . pressure cookers , of course, were used to make the two bombs that blew up at the boston marathon less than a month ago so you could understand why authorities might be asking. the man detained in detroit was traveling under a saudi passport , which reportedly had a page ripped out of it. he's expected to be charged tomorrow with knowingly using an altered passport and making false statements to the authorities about the aforementioned pressure cooker . we'll have more on that story if and when we learn anything more about that.

   >>> in philadelphia today, a jury found dr. kermit gosnell guilty. the revulsion of what went on in the clinic is universal, but the media coverage of his trial was polarizing. anti-abortion activists tried to make gosnell -- while the world has described him as a kind of back alley butcher they are trying to keep women safe from by protecting the right to access safe and legal abortion services.

   >>> the new prime minister will be the old prime minister, the man in charge when pakistan became a nuclear power in the first place. he also tried to establish sharia law the last time he was in power. he was so hated there the military coupe that overthrew him was kind of seen as a relief even though it was a military. president obama spoke with david camer cameron, they each only took one question, but for each of them, it was one big long compound question with lots of dependent subparts. president obama did expound at some length at some exasperated length on how excited he sees republicans as being about the benghazi attack and the subsequent investigations.

   >> if this was some effort on our part to try to down play what had happened or tamp it down, that would be a pretty odd thing that three days later we end up putting out all the information that, in fact, has served as the basis for everybody recognizing this was a terrorist attack and that it may have included elements planned by extremists inside of libya. who executes some sort of cover-up or effort to tamp things down for three days? so the whole thing defies logic. and the fact that this keeps on getting churned out has to do with political motivations.

   >> president obama also saying today that the e-mails leaked on friday that showed the revision process for the administration's original talking points on benghazi, those revisions, those e-mails, that information had been released to congress months ago. congressional committees , he said reviewed them several months ago, concluded that in fact there was nothing afoul in terms of the process we used, but then suddenly three days ago, this gets spun up as if there's something new to the story. the president concluded by saying there's no there there. we'll have more to come this hour and the other story, the irs story that the president also reacted to very strongly and with very sharp language. all ahead this hour. but this is one of those news days when the news was breaking like waves in the ocean. just one thing after the other. the largest late breaking wave of news today was about the associated press. it is a story that both broken by the "associated press," and it is a story about them, as well. in what seems to be an unprecedented action, the department of justice has written to the "associated press" informing them that the justice department has been spying on their reporters. in a big widespread open-ended way in the "a.p." got no notice about until receiving the letter. specifically the justice department says it secretly obtained two months worth of phone records for more than 20 "a.p." phone lines. includes the main a.p. numbers in washington , d.c. and hartford, connecticut, as well as the a.p. officer for reporters who cover the house of representatives . and it covers the work phone numbers and the personal phone numbers for five "a.p." reporters and their editor. now, there's no indication that the justice department housed the recorded content of those phone calls . but what they've got, apparently, at least, the incoming call numbers, the outgoing call numbers, and the duration of each call. now, in response to this notificati notification, the "a.p." sent a scathing letter to eric holder . there can be no justification for an overbroad, these reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the news gathering activities undertaken by the a.p. during a two-month period, provide a road map to the news gathering operations and disclose information about "a.p.'s" activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know. the "a.p." demands, quote, you immediately return to the records the department subpoenaed and destroy all copies also ask for an immediate explanation as to why this extraordinary action was taken and a description of the steps the justice department will take to mitigate its impact on "a.p." and its reporters. now, in its letter to the "a.p." that started this, that provoked that response, the justice department did not explain why it sought the news organization's records . did not give details or justifications for targeting the "a.p." let alone in a broad way. we do know these were the reporters and the editor whose records were seized by the justice department . and connecting the dots, we know that these five reporters and that one editor all contributed to an "a.p." blockbuster report last year. that the cia had infiltrated an al qaeda plot to blow up an airliner. the bomb was a more advanced version the so-called underwear bomber attempted to use on christmas day in 2009 . here was nbc news reporting at the time.

   >> this is a remarkable success for the intelligence agencies of the united states and its allies. and here's why. they managed to insert a critical informant into the very heart of the terror group that's considered the number one threat to the united states . al qaeda 's offshoot in yemen .

   >> reporter: administration and intelligence officials say by the time this most recent plot was in its final planning stages, the u.s. and its allies were able to follow it in detail. what the terrorists in yemen did not know at the time these officials say is that the person they chose to be the suicide bomber was actually an informant, someone who had agreed to cooperate with an ally intelligence service . members of congress declined to be specific but praised the cia and the overseas counterparts.

   >> this was incredibly good intelligence work. this is intelligence at its best.

   >> after the al qaeda operatives turned over the finished bomb, the informant than drove it safely out of yemen where it was eventually turned over to the united states .

   >> that was part of the "nbc nightly news" broadcast on this subject about a year ago. that was one day after the "a.p." published the big scoop. now, the "a.p." did not report that specific point that the cia apparently had an infiltrator inside al qaeda . they what? right? the "a.p." was first to report that the cia disrupted this bomb plot. that would seem like good p.r. for the administration, right? except that the al qaeda bomb plot that was foiled was supposed to go down on the one-year anniversary of the death of osama bin laden . eight days before that anniversary, the white house press secretary jay carney had been very reassuring that there was nothing to worry about concerning that anniversary.

   >> at this time, we have no credible information that terrorist organizations including al qaeda are plotting attacks in the u.s. to coincide with the anniversary of bin laden 's death.

   >> and then ten days later, the "a.p." reports, actually, quote, the cia thwarted an ambitious plot to destroy a u.s.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of osama bin laden . and now the "a.p." reporters and editor who broke that story as well as the whole headquarters in new york and washington and hartford connecticut have all been subject to an unprecedented broad, weeks long spying effort by the justice department that they were not told about until after the fact and we've never really heard of anything like this before. within the last hour, the white house denied prior knowledge of the justice department 's investigation saying, quote, other than press reports, we have no knowledge of any attempt by the justice department to seek phone records of the "a.p." we are not involved in situations as they are handled independently by justice, any questions about an ongoing investigation should be directed to the department of justice . is this legal? can you say in an uncomplicated way this is legal? is it unprecedented? when do we get an explanation and from whom should we expect it? joining us now is michael isokoff, thank you for being with us.

   >> good to be with you, rachel.

   >> what are justice department officials telling you about why they didn't tell the "a.p." about these phone records about them spying on "a.p." reporters and editors and news headquarters until after the fact? until after they'd already done it?

   >> well, what they are doing is pointing to justice department guidelines or at least select portions of justice department guidelines saying that they will not notify news organizations if doing so would pose a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation. in other words, tipping off the "a.p." to this probe would allow them to tip off their sources and jeopardize the probe. now, that can be interpreted in a number of different ways, but the most ominous for at least the sources of the "a.p." or suspected sources here would be that they're close to bringing a criminal case . but what's really remarkable about this -- this disclosure today is it is not unprecedented for the justice department to secretly get the phone records of reporters. we've seen it in a number of cases over the last few years, a number of criminal cases , the "new york times" reporter had his phone records and credit card records and bank records all secretly subpoenaed. what's remarkable here is the sweeping nature of this, the dragnet approach. it's not a select subpoena for a particular journalist who they suspect got information from a particular source. this was a subpoena for more than 20 phone lines over two months, a two-month period, multiple "a.p." offices, new york , washington , the "a.p." office, capitol hill , home records , cell phone records , that's why you have some press watchdog groups tonight and freedom of the press groups saying this is positively nixonian. they have not seen a precedent for this in decades.

   >> on that issue of how widespread this dragnet was, as you put it, doesn't that affect whether or not this is legal? don't justice department rules upon this sort of thing say that things have to be targeted as narrowly as possible in order to protect the freedom of the press? that's why i'm wondering whether or not we've crossed over from bad taste in political intimidation into illegality.

   >> well, there are justice department regulations on this who -- which do state these subpoenas for news organizations should be crafted as narrowly as possible for a limited period of time. and that's what the "a.p." in that extraordinary letter it wrote to attorney general holder today saying seems to be flouted here. but they're regulations, they're not laws. and this is a criminal investigation and they do have the absolute legal authority to do this any way they want. but they would have to explain why they're not following their own guidelines and regulations.

   >> who do you expect that explanation to come from? obviously the white house statement tonight makes it seem like everyone should direct their questions to eric holder . is that who you expect will have to explain this? who do you think --

   >> well, it is very interesting because there's a lot of confusion about who answers this. holder appointed last june two u.s. attorneys to conduct two high-profile leak investigations. this being one of them, the u.s. attorney in washington , d.c. and there's another one involving the iranian computer virus being handled by the u.s. attorney in maryland, rod rosenstein. what's not clear is holder's own role. because holder testified shortly thereafter that he himself had been interviewed for this investigation as that fbi director bob muller and as we've since learned john brennan because they all had prior knowledge of this -- of the matter that was -- the information that had been leaked. so it would be highly unusual for the attorney general to have been interviewed in investigation and then play an active role. earlier today i had a justice department official tell me that holder had been recused himself in this investigation. i've been trying to confirm that myself all night and have not gotten a clear answer. i was told i would get one by the tile the show has aired. i have not gotten it yet. it is unclear who exactly approved this. if holder was, it could have been another high-level official, the acting deputy attorney general, head of the criminal division . we don't know who exactly approved it and we haven't gotten clear answers from the justice department tonight.

   >> and if it turns out it is a clear flouting of justice department , as you say regulations on how broad these kind of subpoenas can be, then it'll be all the more important to find out who gave the okay. michael, thank you for helping us figure this out. appreciate it.

   >> thank you.

   >>> we've got lots more to come, including what president obama today called outrageous. he called it outrageous and called it outrageous twice. that's next. [

   Show transcript