A Justice Department official insisted Wednesday that Attorney General Eric Holder has a “long-standing belief that protecting and defending the First Amendment is essential to our democracy.” That’s hard to reconcile with the department’s wide-ranging wiretapping of Associated Press editors and reporters last year.
Also hard to reconcile is President Barack Obama’s decision to assign the investigation into that appalling Justice Department overreach to Mr. Holder. And this week’s offer by the attorney general to news agencies to discuss how his department should handle leaks investigations — but only “off the record” — was simply laughable.
Huffington Post’s Washington bureau chief, Ryan Grim, put it well to CNN: “A conversation specifically about the freedom of the press should be an open one.”
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