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| In this Sunday, May 19, 2013, photo provided by CBS News, Gary Pruitt, the President and CEO of the Associated Press, discusses the leak investigation that led to his reporters' phone records being subpoenaed by the Justice Department on CBS's "Face the Nation" in Washington. Pruitt says DoJ's seizure of AP journalists' phone records was "unconstitutional", and that the secret subpoena of reporters' phone records has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- The president and chief executive officer of The Associated
Press on Sunday called the government's secret seizure of two months of
reporters' phone records "unconstitutional" and said the news
cooperative had not ruled out legal action against the Justice
Department.
Gary Pruitt, in his first
television interviews since it was revealed the Justice Department
subpoenaed phone records of AP reporters and editors, said the move
already has had a chilling effect on journalism. Pruitt said the seizure
has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists and, in the
long term, could limit Americans' information from all news outlets.
Pruitt told CBS' "Face the Nation" that the government has no business monitoring the AP's newsgathering activities.
"And
if they restrict that apparatus ... the people of the United States
will only know what the government wants them to know and that's not
what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the
First Amendment," he said.
In a separate
interview with the AP, Pruitt said the news cooperative had not decided
its next move but had not ruled out legal action against the government.
"It's
too early to know if we'll take legal action but I can tell you we are
positively displeased and we do feel that our constitutional rights have
been violated," he said.
"They've been
secretive, they've been overbroad and abusive - so much so that taken
together, they are unconstitutional because they violate our First
Amendment rights," he added.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the government needs to stop leaks by whatever means necessary.
"This
is an investigation that needs to happen because national security
leaks, of course, can get our agents overseas killed," he said.
Republican
Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the
government should focus on those who leak sensitive national security
matters and not on journalists who report on them. The Texas Republican
said his committee should hold hearings on how the Justice Department
obtained phone records
from AP reporters and editors.
"What
confuses me is the focus on the press, who have a constitutional right
here and we depend on the press to get to the bottom of so many issues
that we, as individuals, cannot," Cornyn said.
Cornyn
said the Justice Department's actions were part of a pattern for
President Barack Obama's administration to quiet its critics.
"It's a culture of cover-ups and intimidation that is giving the administration so much trouble," Cornyn said.
He
also renewed his call for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign,
citing the contempt citation the House of Representatives voted against
him last year for refusing to turn over documents in a failed government
gun smuggling sting.
White House senior
adviser Dan Pfeiffer said the president "has complete faith in Attorney
General Holder." He also insisted the White House was not involved in
the decision to seek AP phone records.
"A cardinal rule is we don't get involved in independent investigations. And this is one of those," Pfeiffer said.
Although
the Justice Department has not explained why it sought phone records
from the AP, Pruitt pointed to a May 7, 2012, story that disclosed
details of a successful CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb
plot around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of
Osama bin Laden.
The AP delayed publication of that story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security.
"We respected that, we acted responsibly, we held the story," Pruitt said.
Pruitt
said that only after officials from two government entities said the
threat had passed did the AP publish the story. He said the
administration still asked that the story be held until an official
announcement the next day, a request the AP rejected.
The
news service viewed the story as important because White House and
Department of Homeland Security officials were saying publicly there was
no credible evidence of a terrorist threat to the U.S. around the
one-year anniversary of bin Laden's death.
"So that was misleading to the American public. We felt the American public needed to know this story," Pruitt said.
The AP has seen an effect on its newsgathering since the disclosure of the Justice Department's subpoena, he said.
"Officials
that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal
course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they're a little
reluctant to talk to us," Pruitt said. "They fear that they will be
monitored by the government."
The Justice
Department secretly obtained two months of personal and work telephone
records for several reporters and editors, as well as general AP office
numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main
number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.
"It was sweeping and broad and beyond what they needed to do," Pruitt said.
He
objected to the "Justice Department acting on its own being the judge,
jury and executioner in secret," saying the AP would not back down.
"We're not going to be intimidated by the abusive tactics of the Justice Department," he said.
McConnell and Pfeiffer were interviewed on NBC's "Meet the Press." Cornyn appeared on "Face the Nation."
