◼ Attorney General Eric Holder signed off on a controversial search warrant that identified Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “possible co-conspirator” in violations of the Espionage Act and authorized seizure of his private emails, a law enforcement official told NBC News on Thursday. - Michael Isikoff, National Investigative Correspondent/NBC News
Holder previously said he recused himself from the AP subpoena because he had been questioned as a witness in the underlying investigation into a leak about a foiled bomb plot in Yemen. His role in personally approving the Rosen search warrant had not been previously reported.
◼ AG HOLDER PERSONALLY AUTHORIZED FOX NEWS SURVEILLANCE - John Hayward/Human Events @Doc_o
It’s going to be hard for Attorney General Eric Holder to deploy his standard-issue Incompetence Defense to get out of this one. He can’t claim he never saw the paperwork when he’s signature is all over it. Unless maybe he’s going to drop the Sergeant Schultz routine and go for the Colonel Henry Blake gambit, and claim some Radar O’Reilly type at the Justice Department slipped the papers under his pen without telling him what he was signing.
How long would it have taken Eric Holder’s exhaustive review of the Fox News surveillance outrage to discover that Eric Holder was behind it, if a source hadn’t spilled the beans to NBC News? Does NBC News get bugged now?
Maybe Holder will put himself on paid administrative leave, just like key IRS scandal figure Lois Lerner, who was reportedly given that brutal punishment after refusing to resign today. He recused himself from the Associated Press investigation, without filling out the legally required paperwork. But he didn’t want to recuse himself from going after Fox News, eh?
After a bit of embarrassed silence, the Justice Department declared that everybody from the Attorney General on down thinks that freedom of the press is just gosh-darn wonderful, and they wouldn’t dream of doing anything to stifle it...
◼ NBC: Eric Holder signed off on criminal investigation of Fox News’ James Rosen - Twitchy
Remember when Obama said he's troubled by Rosen story and asked Holder to review agency's guidelines? Turns out Holder was responsible.
— Sunny (@sunnyright) May 23, 2013
◼ Huffington Post: Time for Eric Holder to go - Charlie Spiering/Washington Examiner @charlesspiering
◼ Huffington Post joins the wingnuts, turns on Eric Holder - Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion
◼ BREAKING: DOJ Confirms Holder Personally "Vetted" Rosen Warrant - Guy Benson/Townhall
One stunner after the next. The Justice Department wanted to "repeatedly" monitor Rosen's personal emails for a "lengthy period of time" -- years possibly -- in order to track his "contacts with other government officials" beyond the source at the center of the North Korea leak investigation. In other words, they wanted to troll Rosen's contacts and news-gathering methods indefinitely. And the Attorney General of the United States didn't just sign off of it. He personally "vetted" it. That would seem to preclude relying on the "I don't read my own memos" excuse of which Holder is so fond. Good thing the president has put Eric Holder in charge of investigating the alarming things Eric Holder has done.
◼ Yup. Eric Holder Perjured Himself. - The Right Sphere
