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posted by takyon on Friday June 15 2018, @06:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the same-game,-different-team dept.

Trump's targeting of a New York Times journalist, explained by experts

The Trump administration took its war with the media to the next level this week when federal authorities seized years of phone records from New York Times reporter Ali Watkins as part of a federal investigation into leaks of classified information.

Watkins, who previously worked for BuzzFeed News and Politico, had a three-year relationship with James Wolfe, a former Senate Intelligence Committee aide who was arrested on Thursday and charged with lying to federal agents investigating the classified leaks.

The seizure set off alarm bells about the relationship between the administration and the media. The Department of Justice under Obama took phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors, named a Fox News reporter an unindicted "co-conspirator" in a leak case, and prosecuted multiple cases involving whistleblowers and leakers. So is what Trump doing more of the same? Or is a president who routinely bashes the media and threatens to jail leakers finally turning his rhetoric into reality?

"It's deeply alarming that the Trump administration has decided to build off of the worst of the Obama legacy on leak investigations and reporter-source protection," said Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North America program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

See also: The Justice Department Deleted Language About Press Freedom And Racial Gerrymandering From Its Internal Manual

Also at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Emptywheel, and Fox News.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday June 15 2018, @08:18PM (1 child)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday June 15 2018, @08:18PM (#693685) Journal

    and of course all the "progressives" (probably including you) decided this was perfectly ok

    I literally just said it wasn't.

    the only people worried that Obama did this was Fox News,

    That is a blatant lie. Every journalistic organization in the US protested that move.

    Associated Press/CNN [cnn.com]
    USA Today [usatoday.com]
    New York Times [nytimes.com]
    Washington Post [washingtonpost.com]

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +4  
       Informative=3, Touché=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday June 15 2018, @08:46PM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday June 15 2018, @08:46PM (#693700) Journal

    Ssssshhhh, don't upset Frojackoff with logic and reality and facts when he's on a tear. He needs his daily dose of Narrativium. It's either that or he bottles it all up and the next thing you know he's sniping people from a clock tower with his dick in his off hand and his pants on his head...

    ...which, to be fair, differs from the usual case only in that he'll be armed and outdoors...

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...