White House press secretary Jen Psaki was questioned Monday about President Joe Biden’s comments on the DOJ obtaining journalists’ phone records.
Reports in the past few weeks revealed that the Trump Justice Department obtained phone records of Washington Post reporters and a CNN correspondent in leak investigations.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Biden Friday about it, and he said, “I will not let that happen.”
So Psaki was asked directly during Monday’s briefing about whether this is a policy that the president has communicated with Attorney General Merrick Garland about.
“I don’t have any private conversations to read out,” Psaki responded. “What I can convey is that the president spoke clearly that he won’t allow the abuse of power to intimidate journalists and he is alarmed by the reports of numerous abuses of power regarding how the previous administration used the powers of the Department of Justice, and thought it was right to speak out.”
When pressed more directly on if the DOJ is “aware that they are not to seize the records of reporters,” Psaki just said Biden believes “that we should always be refining and improving our approaches.”
Last Friday Psaki was questioned for talking about following a “Holder model” on such investigations, when the DOJ under Eric Holder obtained journalists’ records.
You can watch above (the relevant part starts at the 42:55 mark), via the