House Judiciary investigating whether Holder lied under oath -- The Hill

[bsteadman]

House Judiciary investigating whether Holder lied under oath

The Hill
Jonathan Easley
5/28/2013

Excerpt:

The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Attorney General Eric Holder lied under oath during his May 15 testimony on the Justice Department’s (DOJ) surveillance of reporters, an aide close to the matter told The Hill.

The panel is looking at a statement Holder made during a back and forth with Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) about whether the DOJ could prosecute reporters under the Espionage Act of 1917.

“In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material -- this is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy,” Holder said during the hearing.

However, NBC News reported last week that Holder personally approved a search warrant that labeled Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen a co-conspirator in a national security leaks case.

The panel is investigating whether NBC’s report contradicts Holder’s claim that he had not looked into or been involved with a possible prosecution of the press in a leaks case.
.................................................. ...

View the complete article at:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...#ixzz2UbsFSCqr

[bsteadman]

The Perjury Rap Sheet of an Attorney General -- FrontPage Magazine, Arnold Ahlert

The Perjury Rap Sheet of an Attorney General

FrontPage Magazine
Arnold Ahlert
5/29/2013

Excerpt:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder remains in the eye of a largely self-inflicted storm. The House Judiciary Committee is initiating an investigation into whether Holder lied under oath when he testified before the Committee on May 15th regarding the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) seizure of Fox News reporter James Rosen’s emails. Furthermore, in a revelation likely to add weight to that investigation, The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza reports that the DOJ essentially went “judge shopping” to procure a search warrant to access Rosen’s files.

The Committee is examining an exchange Holder had with Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA). Johnson was concerned the DOJ could prosecute reporters under the auspices of the Espionage Act of 1917.

Johnson: ”But we certainly need to protect the privacy of individuals, and we need to protect the ability … of the press to engage in its First Amendment responsibilities to be free and to give us information about our government so as to keep the people informed.”

Holder: “Well, I would say this. With regard to the potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, that is not something that I’ve ever been involved in, heard of or would think would be a wise policy. In fact, my view is quite the opposite.”

Not quite. Last Friday, NBC News reported that the DOJ promised to review its policies regarding the seizure of information from reporters, even as it acknowledged that the search warrant issued for Rosen’s material was approved “at the highest levels” of the Department, including “discussions” with Holder.

This is not the first time Holder has “misled” Congress. Documents obtained in 2012 by Judicial Watch, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, revealed that top political appointees at the DOJ were intimately involved in the decision to drop the voter intimidation lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party (NBPP). That information conflicts with Holder’s testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies on March 1, 2011. “The decisions made in the New Black Panther Party case were made by career attorneys in the department. And beyond that, you know, if we’re going to look at the record, let’s look at it in its totality,” Holder contended.

The DOJ had initially refused to turn over the documents, contending they didn’t show “any political interference whatsoever.” Judge Reggie B. Walton in Washington, D.C. District Court disagreed. Allowing the release of the documents on July 23, 2012, he declared that they “reveal that political appointees within DOJ were conferring about the status and resolution of the New Black Panther Party case in the days preceding the DOJ’s dismissal of claims in that case[.]”

Sworn testimony given by Holder during the Fast and Furious gun running scandal was even more suspect. On May 3, 2011, he told a Judiciary Committee he had only recently learned about the operation. “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks,” he told Committee Chairman Darryl Issa (R-CA). Yet internal DOJ documents obtained by CBS News the following October revealed that Holder had been sent briefings on the operation as early as 2010. For that statement, as well as his stonewalling of the investigation — aided and abetted by an executive order issued by President Obama preventing critical documents from being released — Holder earned a contempt of Congress citation in June 2012.
.................................................. .....

View the complete article at:

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-...orney-general/