AP CEO: Justice Department Seized ‘Thousands And Thousands’ Of Phone Call Records
According to a report in The Huffington Post, Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt revealed to his staff that the Department of Justice’s sweeping subpoena of AP telephone communications was more expansive than previously known. Pruitt told staffers during a Wednesday town hall telephone meeting that “thousands and thousands” of calls to and from a variety of AP offices had been obtained by the government.
An unnamed AP staffer told the Huffington Post that Pruitt said the Obama administration had acted as “judge, jury and executioner” in the effort to seize AP’s phone records.
The AP revealed on May 13 that the DOJ seized two months of telephone records for 20 separate phone lines. The AP said that the seizure compromised AP’s independence and revealed how journalists within the reporting organization collect information from sources both on and off the record.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that Attorney General Eric Holder plans to meet privately and off the record with journalists to discuss his department’s targeting of the AP and Fox News Channel investigative reporter James Rosen.
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