Lawfare Archive: The Justice Department, Congress and the Press

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4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

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Summary

From June 15, 2021: A spree of stories has emerged over the last week or so that the Justice Department under the prior administration obtained phone and email records of several journalists, several members of Congress and staffers, and even family members. It has provoked a mini scandal, calls for investigation, howls of rage and serious questions. To discuss it all, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Gabe Rottman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, former FBI agent Pete Strzok, Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic and Berkeley law professor and Lawfare contributing editor Orin Kerr. They talked about what we really know about these stories and what happened in these investigations. Was it all legal? Was it legitimate? How should it be investigated and by whom? And what does it mean that none of the prior attorneys general or deputy attorneys general seem to remember it?

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0:00.0	The following podcast contains advertising.
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0:46.3	Right now.
0:52.3	EDF.
1:22.4	Change is in our power. I'm Ben Green, intern at Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare for December 21, 2004.
1:37.3	Earlier this month, the Office of the Inspector General, or OIG, released a review of the Department of Justice's issuance of compulsory process to obtain records of members of Congress, congressional staffers, and members of the news media. A report summarizing the OIG's investigations into whether the Justice Department violated its own policies when it obtained text and phone
1:44.9	records of two members of Congress and 43 congressional staffers in 2017 and 2018, following
1:51.6	the publication of articles in CNN, The New York Times, and the Washington Post that contained
1:56.8	classified information. For today's archive episode, I selected an episode from June 15th,
2:03.0	2021, The Lawfare Podcast, the Justice Department, Congress and the Press, in which
2:09.0	Benjamin Witters sat down with Gabe Rotman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the
2:12.9	Press, former FBI agent Pete Stroke, Lawfare senior editor Quinter Jurassic, and Berkeley Law Professor and Lawfare Contributing Editor Oren Kerr.
2:22.5	The group discussed the Justice Department communication records controversy as it first emerged, including what happened in these investigations, the legality and legitimacy of the demand orders, how it should be investigated and by whom, and what it means
2:35.1	that none of the prior attorneys general or deputy attorneys general seem to remember it.
2:48.4	I'm Benjamin Wittes, and this is the Lawfare podcast, June 15th, 2021.
2:56.0	A spree of stories has emerged over the last week or so that the Justice Department,
	...

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