Trump DOJ Investigated Internal Leaks By Obtaining Journalists' Phone Records

from the that's-not-how-this-is-supposed-to-be-done dept

Donald Trump liked to use the "Deep State" as a rhetorical punching bag. Whenever he stuck his foot in his mouth or found himself under investigation for abusing his powers, he claimed the "Deep State" just couldn't handle having such a strong truth-teller in the Oval Office. But he apparently liked the "Deep State" enough to allow it to go after his personal enemies, even as he portrayed himself as a warrior against the excesses of federal power.

Trump's primary enemy was the press. According to Trump, there was also a massive media conspiracy determined to oust him from power -- one that was headed by "failing" mass media figureheads like the New York Times and the Washington Post. The latter was often conflated with Amazon -- the apparent enemy of the United States Postal Service (until the USPS became an enemy by delivering mail-in votes). This wasn't just Twitter posturing. Apparently, Trump (and the agencies under his control) believed the newspaper was a threat the government should neutralize by mobilizing the "Deep State" powers he repeatedly criticized.

Documents obtained by the Washington Post show the DOJ directly targeting journalists' phone records in an apparent attempt to shield Trump from accusations of being BFFs with a foreign government's officials during its attempt to sway an American election.

The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained Washington Post journalists’ phone records and tried to obtain their email records over reporting they did in the early months of the Trump administration on Russia’s role in the 2016 election, according to government letters and officials.

In three separate letters dated May 3 and addressed to Post reporters Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller, and former Post reporter Adam Entous, the Justice Department wrote they were “hereby notified that pursuant to legal process the United States Department of Justice received toll records associated with the following telephone numbers for the period from April 15, 2017 to July 31, 2017.” The letters listed work, home or cellphone numbers covering that three-and-a-half-month period.

The DOJ has rules for targeting journalists. It generally agrees that it shouldn't, but a lot of times it actually believes it should, despite the First Amendment implications. Journalists and their sources are granted a whole lot of Constitutional protection but sometimes the federal government prefers to serve its own interests. Sniffing out leakers and whistleblowers is one of those interests the government tends to elevate above Constitutional concerns.

Now that it's being called out for its unconstitutional bullshit, the DOJ is getting pretty defensive about its meddling in First Amendment affairs. According to the DOJ, this incursion was a serious thing it would only do when it's super-serious about something.

"While rare, the Department follows the established procedures within its media guidelines policy when seeking legal process to obtain telephone toll records and non-content email records from media members as part of a criminal investigation into unauthorized disclosure of classified information,” said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the Justice Department. “The targets of these investigations are not the news media recipients but rather those with access to the national defense information who provided it to the media and thus failed to protect it as lawfully required.”

Well, if it's an internal investigation, try to keep it internal. Nothing really justifies going after reporters because it's easier or more efficient than targeting government employees who might be well-trained in subterfuge. If an investigation can't be closed without using the First Amendment as a doormat, perhaps the investigation should be abandoned. There are more important things for the DOJ to do than seek out people who turned over information to journalists. There are plenty of people willing to turn things over to foreign adversaries and maybe the DOJ should consider limiting itself to investigating leaks that harm more than a president's reputation.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 4th amendment, adam entous, doj, donald trump, ellen nakashima, greg miller, intimidation, journalism, surveillance
Companies: washington post

Devin Nunes Files Another SLAPP Suit; Sues The Washington Post Again

from the suppressing-speech dept

Devin Nunes is one of the most vocal supporters of Parler, regularly insisting that he supports Parler because Parler supports free speech (of course, as we've highlighted, Parler blocks users quite frequently, contrary to its marketing claims). Of course, Nunes is a free speech hypocrite. As we've highlighted over the last few years, he seems to have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to suing the media and various critics for their free speech, in a variety of SLAPP lawsuits -- with no clear answer yet on who is actually paying for these lawsuits designed to stifle and suppress free speech.

Earlier this year, Nunes sued the Washington Post and reporter Shane Harris in the Eastern District of Virginia. That case was was transferred to the federal district court in DC where it continues to move forward (slowly). Now Nunes, with his regular lawyer Steven Biss, have sued the Washington Post yet again, this time with reporter Ellen Nakashima. Once again, it was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia, meaning that the Washington Post is likely to go through the same process again to try to transfer the case to the DC court.

Like so many Nunes/Biss SLAPP suits, this one is... bad. At issue is the news from right after the election that a Trump loyalist and former Nunes staffer had been made the NSA's General Counsel apparently over the objections of the NSA's own director. This has raised a bunch of alarms for a variety of reasons -- and is seen as evidence that for all of the bullshit talk of "the deep state" being out to get Trump, he's spending his last couple months in office trying to construct his own deep state.

It was Ellen Nakashima at the Washington Post who broke the story of the Ellis appointment, and that's the article that Nunes is now suing over. The lawsuit -- somewhat laughably -- argues that two sentences in the article are defamatory. Neither are defamatory. These are the two sentences:

“In March 2017, [Michael Ellis] gained publicity for his involvement in a questionable episode involving Nunes, who was given access at the White House to intelligence files that Nunes believed would buttress his baseless claims of the Obama administration spying on Trump Tower”

“News reports stated that Ellis was among the White House officials who helped Nunes see the documents — reportedly late at night, earning the episode the nickname ‘the midnight run.’ [Three White House officials tied to sharing of intelligence files with Devin Nunes]

The filing nitpicks at both of these statements, but has a difficult time alleging false statements of fact, which is kind of necessary for there to be defamation. For example, with that second statement while the WaPo article talks about the alleged midnight run, Nunes first says it "never happened." But then almost immediately admits that he did, in fact, go to the White House -- it just wasn't at night. Whether or not the meeting was at night or "when the sun was out," as Nunes claims, is not defamatory. Even more to the point, the WaPo article highlights that its citing "news reports" and that the nighttime aspect of the meeting was "reportedly" what happened, and noting (accurately) that others have referred to this as "the midnight run." In other words, the article appropriately hedged those points and highlighted that it was covering what others were saying.

And then there's this: even though the Washington Post was basing this statement on "news reports" Biss/Nunes tries to argue that those news reports somehow don't count, because they were from the NY Times which is "well-known for spreading false statements." I kid you not.

Upon information and belief, one of the “News reports” referred to in the Article is a “report” manufactured by New York Times reporters Adam Goldman, Matthew Rosenberg and Maggie Haberman, well-known for spreading false statements and defamation on behalf of anonymous “sources” at the FBI and State Department.

This is conspiracy theory fan fiction masquerading as a lawsuit.

There is basically no attempt to get over the actual malice standard necessary for any of this to be defamation of a public figure. The complaint tries to twist some minor potential inaccuracies into evidence of knowledge that the statements were false, but that is not at all supported by the complaint. It argues, ridiculously, that she should have known certain statements from Rep. Adam Schiff should not be trusted because Schiff and his staff "had an axe to grind against Plaintiff and a reason to lie." What? That is not at all how the actual malice standard works.

This is yet another ridiculously weak complaint that is hard to see as anything other than yet another nuisance SLAPP suit from an incredibly thin-skinned Devin Nunes who has now sued multiple media outlets and reporters (not to mention a satirical cow). For all his talk about supporting free speech and being against the suppression of speech, these lawsuits suggest that no one in Congress is more engaged in the blatant suppression of speech than Devin Nunes.

Once again, these kinds of intimidation tactics by lawsuit are exactly why we need a federal anti-SLAPP law (and why Virginia needs to get its act together early next year and pass the anti-SLAPP bill it almost passed earlier this year).

Filed Under: 1st amendment, defamation, devin nunes, ellen nakashima, free speech, slapp, steven biss, virginia
Companies: washington post