CNN’s Barbara Starr Condemns ‘Sheer Abuse of Power’ by DOJ Secretly Obtaining Her Emails: ‘Genuinely Horrified by What Happened’
CNN correspondent Barbara Starr was one of the journalists whose records the Trump Justice Department secretly tried to obtain, and on Monday she penned an op-ed decrying it as a “sheer abuse of power.”
Starr was unaware of these efforts until May 2021, when CNN general counsel David Vigilante — who was under a gag order — told her about it.
“I am genuinely horrified by what happened,” Starr writes. “Covering wars and threats to national security often means uncovering what the government doesn’t want us to know to find out essential truth. The press corps won’t be stopped in that quest. Our First Amendment rights are non negotiable.”
She calls it “an abuse against the free press in this country, whether you are a television network correspondent or a reporter at a small town newspaper uncovering wrongdoing,” and says President Joe Biden’s statement this will not happen under his administration is “a promise of limited relevance.”
Unless new protections are codified, this could all happen again to any journalist. Secret proceedings, gag orders so CNN attorneys can’t speak to me, and eight reporters being swept up in investigations with no explanation — these are not part of a free press in the United States…
Even if you don’t like the news media, take notice: Secret Justice Department proceedings against the free press affect everyone in this country. That is what I would hope Merrick Garland takes away from this entire sorry affair.
The communications of reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post were similarly targeted. Representatives for all three news outlets are meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland Monday.
