President Joe Biden says he won’t allow the Department of Justice to seize journalists’ phone records and emails, calling the practice “wrong” in a significant departure from his predecessors.
“Absolutely, positively, it’s wrong. It’s simply, simply wrong,” he told a reporter Friday at the White House
His comments come as CNN reported Thursday that the Trump administration Justice Department secretly obtained the 2017 phone records of one of their correspondents, the latest revelation of an apparent leak investigation aimed at identifying a journalist’s sources that was launched during the last administration.
The Washington Post also disclosed that the Justice Department had last year seized phone records belonging to three of its journalists who covered the Russia investigation.
When asked if Biden would prevent his Justice Department from seeking reporters’ phone records, Biden responded: “I won’t let that happen.”
His comments, however, seem to contradict those made earlier by White House press secretary Jen Psaki when asked how the administration viewed the practice of obtaining journalists’ records. Psaki suggested that the Justice Department would use the “Holder model,” a reference to Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder.
Under Holder, the Justice Department announced revised guidelines for obtaining records from the news media during criminal leak investigations, removing language that news organizations said was ambiguous and requiring additional levels of review before a journalist could be subpoenaed, but it did not end the practice.
In 2013, the Justice Department secretly obtained records of a number of Associated Press journalists in a leak investigation.
Biden to mark St. Patrick’s Day, praise Good Friday accord
President Joe Biden is marking St. Patrick’s Day as he recommits the U.S. to the Good Friday Agreement, which has come under increasing stress following the United Kingdom s exit from the European Union
Biden, the latest president of Irish decent, is set for a virtual meeting Wednesday with Ireland’s prime minister, Taoiseach Micheál Martin
The president is expected to attend Mass near his family home in Wilmington, Delaware, before returning to the White House to partake in St. Patrick’s Day celebrations toned down due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden and Martin’s virtual bilateral meeting — Biden’s third with a foreign leader since he took office eight weeks ago — will be followed by the presentation of an engraved bowl of shamrock, which has been sent ahead to Washington It ensures that a tradition that began in 1952 will continue uninterrupted, if modified by COVID-19 concerns.
The White House says Biden will also drop in on Vice President Kamala Harris’ meeting with Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill in a show of support for the Good Friday Agreement.
Signed in 1998, the Good Friday Agreement helped end sectarian violence that had raged for three decades over the issue of Northern Ireland unifying with Ireland or remaining part of the U.K.
The U.K.’s Jan. 1 exit from the EU has created new tensions over trade and travel at the Irish border. Just Monday, the EU said it was starting legal action against the U.K., arguing that the former member does not respect the conditions of the Brexit withdrawal agreement and is violating international law by unilaterally extending a special trade system at the land border that was set up as part of the Brexit divorce deal.
