Thread: Justice Department: Sharyl Attkisson Was ‘Out of Control’

Justice Department: Sharyl Attkisson Was ‘Out of Control’

Emails show Obama admin reaching out to CBS to squelch reporting

Sharyl Attkisson

BY: CJ Ciaramella
November 21, 2014 9:40 am

A Department of Justice public affairs official called CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson “out of control” for her coverage of the Fast and Furious scandal, and even called her editors at the broadcast network to complain, emailsobtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch show.

Former Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler complained that Attkisson was “out of control” in a 2011 email to White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz. Schmaler wrote that she was going to call CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer and Attkisson’s editor to complain.

Schultz replied: “Good. Her piece was really bad for the AG.”

Attkisson’s adversarial reporting on the Obama administration allegedly led to tension between her and CBS executives. She resigned from the network in 2014, and has since released a book,Stonewalled, which describes what she alleges were the Obama administration’s efforts to block and discourage her reporting, including hacking her computer.

The emails were some of the more than 10,000 that the Justice Department released to Judicial Watch on Thursday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The Obama administration originally claimed executive privilege over the tranche of emails related to Operation Fast and Furious, a botched DEA sting that resulted in thousands of guns crossing over the Mexican border and into the hands of drug cartels.

“Judicial Watch’s tenacious lawsuit has led to the first public disclosure of Fast and Furious documents at the heart of the historic contempt citation against Attorney General Eric Holder,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said in a statement.
“These documents, many of which are heavily blacked out, withheld for over two years by President Obama, are a road map [of] the Obama administration’s Fast and Furious cover-up and deadly lies. “

http://freebeacon.com/issues/justice-department-sharyl-atkisson-was-out-of-control/

AG Office Contacted CBS to Rein in Sharyl Attkisson. Don’t Believe It? Read the Email For Yourself.



BY CHRIS MARTIN (1 DAY AGO) | ELECTIONS, POLITICS



Back in 2011, CBS-TV reporter Sharyl Attkisson had been reporting extensively on the “Fast and Furious” operation which began in 2009. Theoperation, which was overseen by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice, involved letting weapons dealers sell guns illegally to suspected straw buyers.

Instead of arresting the buyers, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms allowed them to go free in the hopes of “following” those guns back to the Mexican drug cartels who were using them to commit acts of violence.

But this “gunwalking” tactic backfired, when U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed in December of 2010 in a shootout with cartel members who were armed with these illegally-purchased guns.

Attkisson was trying to report on the Fast and Furious scandal, but claimed that the Obama administration was urging CBS to quash her stories about the topic (as well as others which made the White House uncomfortable). Naturally, many people viewed these claims as outlandish and paranoid. But as it turns out, Attkisson, who later resigned from CBS, was right.

This week, Judicial Watch received some 42,000 pages of documents that it had requested from the DOJ through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Last month, the Obama administration had previously claimed that the documents pertaining to Fast and Furious could not be released because of executive privilege, despite a federal judge’s order to do so.

On page 518 of the documents (which are on display on Judicial Watch’swebsite), there’s an October 4, 2011, email exchange between AG Eric Holder’s number one press aide, Tracy Schmaler, and White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz.


Image credit: Judicial Watch

The two are talking about Attkisson’s recent reporting on Fast and Furious. Schultz says:

“Her piece was really bad for AG.”

And Schmaler’s damning reply:

“I”m also calling Sharryl”s editor and reaching out to [CBS news correspondent Bob] Scheiffer. She’s out of control.”

It’s quite possible that more scathing evidence of media censorship by the Obama administration will emerge in the coming weeks, once all of the documents are perused. But this email strand gives additional credence to Attkisson, who details more allegations in her just-released bookStonewalled.

Among them are tales of being screamed at by Schultz, broadcast of her Benghazi stories being held until after the 2012 election, and later being undermined by her former CBS colleagues.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/11/206017-ags-office-contacted-cbs-rein-sharyl-atkisson-dont-believe-read-email/

So suppressing free speech is added to the fray of the Obama Legacy and CBS submits to it?! Unbelievable.

and since when were American reporters supposed to be "under control" of government?

W

Sharyl Attkisson is a brave patriot!!