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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.
Also at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Emptywheel, and Fox News.
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(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday June 16 2018, @02:23AM (6 children)
I think I already explained that. You first disclose to the official channels setup for exposing government wrongdoing. Like I dunno, perhaps the GODDAMNED UNITED STATES SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE. You fuckers keep eliding that little detal in all this sanctimonious bullcrap. This guy was working security for the United States Senate Intelligence Committee investigating all of this purported "wrongdoing" when he leaked selected details to the NYT whore.
Show me the quilled down words about a "4th branch.." It is right there with the Right to an Abortion, in your (and the Proggie members of SCOTUS') imagination. So you fail Constitution 101. No prize will be awarded. Good Day Sir.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 16 2018, @04:51AM (4 children)
The New York Times and other media outlets are official channels set up by the First Amendment for this purpose as well.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Saturday June 16 2018, @05:36AM (3 children)
Citation needed. Show me where Pinch and his foreign investors are the official designated arbitrator for whether classified information should be splashed on the front page of the NYT to juice their ad revenues and serve their un-American political activity?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 16 2018, @11:52AM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @12:43AM
Khallow i vant believe this but jmorris makes you look downright reasonable. Is this some shell game from you foreign cyberspooks?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday June 18 2018, @04:33PM
Them goal posts got a new turbo. The ownership of the paper does not matter, unless they break other laws.
Did you know that the owner of Fox was Australian?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday June 16 2018, @07:05AM
Isn't that dangerously close to telling an infamous brutal dictator that one of his men may not be fully committed to freedom and justice for all?