WASHINGTON: US Attorney General Eric Holder said yesterday that he had recused himself from the Justice Department’s controversial decision to secretly seize telephone records of the Associated Press.
Instead, the decision to seek phone records of one of the world’s largest news-gathering organisations was made by the deputy attorney general, Holder said. Jim Cole currently holds that position.
The seizure, denounced by critics as a gross intrusion into freedom of the press, has created an uproar in Washington and led to questions over how the Obama administration is balancing the need for national security with privacy rights.
Holder said he recused himself from the matter to avoid a potential conflict of interest because he was interviewed by the FBI in connection with the investigation into the unauthorised disclosure of classified information.
The seizure of AP telephone records appears connected to a criminal probe into information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an Al Qaeda plot to detonate a bomb on an airplane headed for the United States. Holder, speaking at a press conference yesterday, said the unauthorised information put the American people at risk and required “very aggressive action.”
He said he did not have specific knowledge about the formulation of the subpoena for AP telephone records, but he said he does not believe there was any wrongdoing.
“I’m confident that the people who are involved in this investigation ... followed all of the appropriate Justice Department regulations and did things according to DOJ rules,” Holder said, speaking at an unrelated press conference on Medicare fraud.
The AP has said it was informed last Friday that the Justice Department had gathered records for more than 20 phone lines assigned to the news agency and its reporters.
The records covered April and May of last year, and were obtained earlier this year, the AP said. It described the seizures as a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into news-gathering operations.
“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters,” AP Chief Executive Gary Pruitt said in a letter sent to Holder on Monday.
An AP story on the records seizure said the government would not say why it sought them. But it noted that US officials have previously said the US Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia was conducting the criminal investigation into the May 2012 AP story.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said during a press briefing yesterday that President Barack Obama sought to balance support for a free press with the need to investigate leaks of classified information.
“The president believes that the press as a rule needs to have an unfettered ability to pursue investigative journalism,” Carney told a news briefing. REUTERS
