The Justice Department held a press conference Tuesday afternoon that was ostensibly scheduled to address an investigation of alleged Medicare fraud, but as soon as Attorney General Eric Holder stepped up to the podium, there was only one topic on reporters’ minds: The news yesterday that the Justice Department probed two months’ worth of Associated Press phone records as part of an investigation into national security leaks from government officials to the news media.
But Holder said he actually was recused from overseeing the investigation after he was interviewed as a witness last year. Still, he gave the investigation his backing.
“This is is among the most serious—top two or three—I’ve ever seen,” Holder said, adding that such a description is “not hyperbole.”
The investigation was launched after the AP published a story May 7, 2012 about a bomb plot in Yemen foiled by the CIA. Although the AP held off running the article for several days after top U.S. officials cited security concerns, it prompted an outburst from congressional Republicans wanting to know how national security information made it into public view. In response, Holder named two U.S. attorneys—Ron Machen of the District of Columbia and Ron Rosenstein of Maryland—as special prosecutors.
Holder was among those interviewed in the ensuing investigation. “To avoid any potential appearance of a conflict of interest, the Attorney General recused himself from this matter,” a Justice Department statement released earlier today reads.
But at the press conference, Holder defended the investigation that eventually led to Machen’s investigators obtaining reporters’ phone records, saying he is “confidant that the people involved in this” followed Justice Department guidelines.
Those guidelines state that subpoenas directed toward the news media are to be drawn up “as narrowly as possible” and then only after direct negotiations with the targeted media organization. The Associated Press only found out last Friday that its phone records had been probed.
