the a.p. believes this story prompted the secret investigation the cia uncovered a plot to bomb a u.s. bound airliner a plot originated in yemen and was carried out by. the arabian peninsula by reporting this al qaeda was put on notice that the cia had an inside look at their activities be a piece as the justice department did not say why they needed the information but says among the nearly two dozen telephone records collected at least five of them were from reporters working on the story in question this was a very serious. very serious leak and a very very serious leak. i've been a prosecutor since one thousand nine hundred six and i have to say that this is among if not the most serious it is even the top two or three most serious leaks that never see it put the american people at risk and that is not hyperbole eric holder announced today that he was recusing himself from this a.p. investigation the prominent news agency condemned the government's actions in a letter to holder yesterday as

the "a.p." got no notice about until receiving the letter. specifically the justice department says it secretly obtained two months worth of phone records for more than 20 "a.p." phone lines. includes the main a.p. numbers in washington, d.c. and hartford, connecticut, as well as the a.p. officer for reporters who cover the house of representatives. and it covers the work phone numbers and the personal phone numbers for five "a.p." reporters and their editor. now, there's no indication that the justice department housed the recorded content of those phone calls. but what they've got, apparently, at least, the incoming call numbers, the outgoing call numbers, and the duration of each call. now, in response to this notification, the "a.p." sent a scathing letter to eric holder. there can be no justification for an overbroad, these reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the news gathering activities undertaken by the a.p. during a two-month period, provide a road map to the ne

>> the a.p. thing is a scandal. >> the idea that he we're giving the administration the benefit of the doubt. >> bill: i'm not giving the benefit of anything. >> you are saying it's not a scandal it is a scandal. >> wild morning with both the left and the right challenging me. we will show you what happened and analyze the growing pressure on president obama. this is about getting to the truth so people can be held accountable and we can prevent this from happening again. >> what does senator rubio think about what makes the baby mushy in philadelphia, there is another doctor under scrutiny. is it legal will have the story. caution. you are about to enter the no spin zone. the factor begins right now. >> hi, i'm bill o'reilly. thanks for watching us tonight. analyzing the side show. that is the subject of this evening's talking points memo. with president obama calling the benghazi controversy a side show yesterday. it is instructive to look at public opinion on the issue right now. according to t

what we know is what the a.p. has told us what the letter from the justice department informed them. that 20 phone lines were monitored, these are the personal and cell phone numbers of some reporters, these are also office phone lines and the gentle phone numbers, the phone numbers of the "associated press" offices in new york and hartford, connecticut. it's perfectly legal for the government to do this. it's done it before. but there are two things here that are unusual, andrea. one is the number of reporters involved. and secondly, the breadth of the number of lines that were, the subject of this record requirement from the government. >> pete, my understanding is just alluded to of the fisa laws, the terms of engagement, if you will. they've done this before. this administration has been much more aggressive than past administrations in going after reporters involving national security. they've used this and expanded it. we've seen what happened with the "new york times" and others. in the past it's been indivi

the a.p. is calling this a massive and unprecedented intrusion into their constitutional right to report the news. nbc's tom costello is standing by in our d.c. bureau with more on this. tom, good evening. >> reporter: hi, brian. this is, in fact, a late-breaking story with the associated press moving this throughout the afternoon. it talks about the fact that this is an unprecedented breach and that it impacts the activities of the a.p., the primary news wire for the united states. this centers around an investigation into who leaked information to the a.p. in may of 2012 about a cia operative in yemen who helped prevent an al qaeda plot to bring down a u.s.-bound airliner with a bomb. the obama administration was furious about that leak,

the a.p. d seized these records? >> the government told the a.p. they seized the records because it's required to do so under the department of justice guidelines. if they seize records without prior notice, they are obligated to let the press know in no more than 90 days and that's what happened here. >> when were the records seized? >> i'm sorry? >> when were the records seized? >> well, we don't know exactly, greta. the notice given on friday basically said we are telling you pursuant to the regulations that we've seized the records of these 20 phone lines. we don't know. sometime in the last 90 days because they were required to give notice within 90 days. but whether it was three months ago or last month, we don't know. >> do you have any sense whether it was to seek information or to intimidate? do you have a gut sense as to what this was? >> well, you know, i i take the department of justice at their word when they said it's part of a leaks investigation. they had done a number of other

on the a.p., the a.p. ought to be brought in front of the justice department for breaking the espionage act for leaking that information. on the irs, that is just terrible, horrible, ridiculous scandal and should be dealt with. but i think the other two, when you keep saying these are all scandals, the a.p. thing is not anywhere near a scandal for me. >> why do you think he's such a fantastic communicator? let me give you a few examples. on the benghazi piece, because they weren't transparent at the beginning, they have dealt with a nine-month-long process and now the media's giving birth to the story. on the second one, on the irs piece, no one told the president until friday that this was happening even though jay carney says the white house was notified two weeks ago. then the president put out a very strong statement but only after the media coverage five days later. statement very strong. just because he can say a sentence well, i don't think that makes him a great communicator. >> maybe from the stan

the a.p. y now. he recused himself under that story. it seems under that rationale he should recuse himself from every story, because the press is going to cover it. >> i know a lot of people in the press, i talk to the press all the time, therefore i can't be part of it. >> we'll get to holder's reaction. let's reverse them here. let's start with a14 this is the a.p., the d.o.j. has sort of seized phone records from a number of a.p. employees in relation to the story the a.p. broke about a terror plot. we're not concerned about the terror plot. we're concerned about the leak. that's what the obama administration cares about. near i can tell, that's all they care about. holder recuses himself and therefore can't answer any questions. makes you wonder why he went to the press conference in the first police. >> i don't know the facts there. you'd have to refer to the letter that the deputy attorney general prepared. everyone's seen it in draft form. that will be for the deputy attorney general an

on the a.p. y we were discussing earlier with the counsel from the associates press, i know that you have some experience of being gone after by an administration because of your reporting. didn't you get -- didn't you get sort of nixon burglarized during the nixon presidency? >> yes. long story, but it turned out i didn't know at the time. our home wasburg rides by people that turned out to be part of the plumbers' operation, the know tore yougs plumbers' operation, didn't know it at the time, and it was a long time figuring out who did it. there are those who to this day said, no, it really wasn't that. but it was. our home was broken into. but this became common during the nixon administration. people's homes were broken into. doctor's offices were broken in to to get information, tapping telephone lines, tapping people's telephone lines, very noncommon. when people say well, watergate wasn't that big a deal. watergate is shorthand for a widespread criminal conspiracy led by the united states h

the a.p. called the spying on reporters a massive unprecedented intrusion, for which there can be no possible justification. with a brand-new spying on reporters scandal churning around in washington, suddenly, two of the people we most likely to ask strongly-waorded about that question, were on the tv at the same time. it was almost enough to break cable news. jay carney and eric holder may have been synced up when it comes to answers about the strongly-worded questions about spying on the a.p. because they said essentially the same thing. they both denied knowing anything about it. really. take a listen. >> we are not involved at the white house in any decisions made in connection with ongoing criminal investigations. as those matters are handled appropriately by the justice department. >> i'm not familiar with all that went into the formulation of the subpoena. i was recused from that matter. >> i know what you're thinking -- i suspect what you're thinking because i was thinking the same thi

the "a.p." rk at the places whose phone numbers and phone records were seized by the justice department. >> kathleen, the origins of the investigation have to do with a story that the "a.p." broke on a plot in yemen that originated in yemen, correct? >> we're not entirely sure about that, but that's our best guess. >> but at the time that that story ran, it ran after the associated press cooperated with the government's request to delay the story, is that correct? >> that is correct. >> when did you find out from the department of justice, from the government that these records were subpoenaed that the justice department was eavesdropping on reporters? >> we got a very brief e-mail friday afternoon from the u.s. attorney and the district of columbia saying that they had these records of these 20 phone lines. >> and did it outline in that notification to you? did it outline the time frame in which they were eavesdropping on reporters? >> april and may of 2012. >> that vague? >> yep. >> kathleen, y

the a.p. is, of course, a nonprofit organization and it is relied on by everyone else in the media. when you're considering the implications of that, going after the a.p. in particular is in some ways more probable matic than going after some other institution. the a.p. has pointed out aggressively that the big problem with this is how broad and sweeping it was. chris: why did they do the big sweep? >> the initial republican desire was to catch the white house in revealing this secret that our closest ally had an agent inside al qaeda and yemen. john brennan in a background conference call with journalists had let this out. it turned out that wasn't where the information came from. john brennan was doing this because of the a.p.'s reporting, pounding on the white house, and they were terrified that this agent in place would be compromised, may be killed. that was what was going on. this began really as an attempt on the white house. chris: let me get this straight so people understand this. th

between the a.p. story and the irs story, which do you think is a bigger problem for the white house? >> boy, that's a hard choice. as a reporter, i'm tempted to say the a.p. story. but as a political analyst i'm going to say possibly the irs story, just because everybody understands taxes. everybody understands the idea that the irs has to somehow maintain its independence, its impartiality and its systemic, systematic nature. we're in the classic situation of asking the question who knew what and when. what did they know and when did they know it. so you can't really tell until you see what kind of capillary action there is here from the irs and the doj on these two stories to the white house. that's the game now, that's why a third of the hill -- i'm surprised, what's happened to the other two-thirds? what's wrong with the other two thirds? i mean the rjs are doepublicans cup runneth over. >> jonathan, we didn't have enough time to include the jon stewart clips in our open. he's sort of maybe the wo

i want to start with the a.p. story. e obama administration has been trying to cap leaks of classified information and has prosecuted six people for leaking secret material. do you think the justice department went too far in what they were doing with the secret subpoena? >> you know, i think there's an awful lot of facts that this still have to be determined. but what you can say with absolute certainty at this point is this is an administration that has a culture that runs through stop signs. that doesn't understand that there are boundaries that the constitution means something. that seizing these documents from folks who are trying to report on the administration strikes at the very heart of our democracy and transparency. this is an administration that now has demonstrated that politics play into just about every activity they're involved in. there's very little effort put into managing and putting in proper constraints so that these really dangerous things don't happen in our country. >> meanwhile, sir, in washingto

coming up with the news buzzing about the a.p. phone records scandal there is still more to uncover do the department of justice even need its own standards with the subpoenas they process to do the phone tracking will answer that question ahead. and silence is golden but it's another story in federal court gerald koch is an anarchist subpoenaed to testify before the federal grand jury and he's decided not to cooperate now he's facing the threat of jail time we'll have more details on the case from new york in just a moment. we're now at one the one hundred day mark for the guantanamo bay hunger strike critics continue to question the obama administration's lack of action in closing down the detention facility and then just look at how the strike is progressing and its future possibilities in just just a few moments. it's thursday may sixteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm going lopez and you are watching r t well it has been a bad it week for the obama administration it seems the curse of the second term might have finally settl

and instead of telling the a.p. and giving them a chance to challenge it, the a.p. wasn't told until friday. a year after the fact. this can be seen as violating the first amendment freedom of the press and the fourth amendment, protecting against unreasonable searches. the a.p. calls it a massive and unprecedented intrusion. add go, there can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone, communications, of the a.p. and its reporters. these records reveal communications with confidential sources across all the news gathering activities. provide a road map to the operations and disclose information about a.p.'s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know. the man in the hot seat is attorney general eric holder. this is what he had to say just over an hour ago. >> this was a very serious leak. it put the american people at risk. and trying to determine who was responsible for that i think required very aggressive action. we've investigated cases on the basis of the facts. not as a result of a policy t

with news buzzing about the a.p. phone tracking scandal there's still more tell uncover did the department of justice even meet its own standards with the subpoenas they process to do the phone tracking will answer that question in today's show. and it's thursday and that means it's a trip to the digital world in tonight's tech report we'll talk about apps that can protect your privacy or help you boycott certain products certain the circuits and bits of your digital privacy coming up. it's thursday may sixteenth eight pm in washington d.c. lopez and you are watching our t.v. while the hunger strike out the guantanamo bay detention facility is now entering its one hundredth day and still there is no end in sight of the one hundred sixty six people being kept at that detention facility one hundred two of them are reportedly participating in the strike to various degrees for a look back at the last one hundred days political commentator sam sachs reports. this is gone tom obey settled on a picturesque caribbean island.

we have the a.p. oena investigation and the irs investigation and benghazi which we've been talking about for many months now. i believe it is appropriate the department of justice in investigating, this appears to be contained within the irs. >> well, i look at this a little bit differently. i look at nothing but political -- he's a political appointee. he's done everything this protect obama here heretofore. if you look at the specific cases that i mentioned, he has not shown an ability to be objective and discerning of in getting involved with anybody in the administration. i think we need outside counsel to come in and give an object i have, discerning eye to this. your thoughts. >> this administration should not be trusted to investigate itself. whether benghazi or the account ability review board, who did a tremendously poor job in exposing everything that went on or whether it's the current a.p. scandal and we are still trying to find out who within the department of justice authorized it. the c

the u.s. that same day a.p. reporter adam goldman spoke to the newshour's kwame holman about the decision to publish >> you had been in discussions with the u.s. government about holding the story and decidetog. the government did not want this story reporedolleagues and i learned about this plot as it was unfolding. and we agreed for national security reasons that we would not publish once those concerns passed we decided today that the public had a right to know that the u.s. had thwarted what we considered to be a very serious plot against aviation. >> woodruff: the justice department has not confirmed that story is the focus of the investigation and the white house, jay corny would not give specifics. >> i can't comment on the specifics but i can tell you the president feels strongly that we need a -- the press to be able to be unfettered in its pursuit of investigative journalism. he is also mindful of the need for secret and classified information to remain secret and classified in order to protect our nati

the a.p. e the story on may 7 2012, and they acknowledged they had some discussions with the government about publishing or not publishing. the government wanted the a.p. to hold off. they said they held off for a few days but decided to publish when the obama administration was going to reveal this thwarted plot anyways. there was discussion about whether they should publish or not publish. what we saw in the seizure of records is it is basically pitting those two months, april and may and is targeting several to reporters who worked on the story and editor of the story. >> bill: just the washington bureau or across the board of a.p.? >> they've targeted phone lines in the washington bureau including the phone line that the a.p. uses in the house of representatives. they targeted the new york office and surprisingly, the hartford office and all i can figure out from that is one of the reporters who co-wrote the story used to work in the hartford office years ago. i don't know if that's exactly

the a.p. says the government secretly collected phone records of reporters during a two-month period last year and it questions whether that was related to a probe into leaks of the details of a foiled terror plot last year. joining me is constitutional first amendment attorney, floyd abrams, author of "friend of the court" on the front lines with the first amendment. welcome to you. i've got to say, this whole transparency thing with the president is crumbling, isn't it, because first of all -- let's go back two weeks. the whole guantanamo bay issue rumbles on, a place he said he would shut down but didn't. then we have benghazi, where we have apparently 12 corrections in terms of talking points. then we have the irs targeting tea partiers and people who use the word patriot or say they want to improve their country, and now we have this. we have the justice department targeting a.p., the associated press. what do you make of all this? how transparent is this? because it seems to me to be pret

. >> the phone records and the a.p. case, the notification spoke to phone records because the justice department's internal regulation speaks to phone records them don't speak to e-mail records. based on your briefings, either at the time or now that it has all come out, can you say whether journalists' e-mail records including contents of e-mail records that may have been older than six months were accessed as part of this investigation? >> again, you would have to refer to the letter that the deputy attorney general prepared. it actually is i think from what i understand, i've only seen it in drafts. it is pretty specific about, to times, dates in which things were acquired, what actually was acquired but it is all in the letter the attorney general sent back to the a.p. >> this is the first time we've had a chance to speak to you since the boston marathon bombing. any evidence so far that the attacks received, the attackers received some training and or support from russia? >> that investigation is ongoing. i don't wa

coming up on "morning joe," we'll get more on the a.p.'s response, with executive editor kathleen carole. >>> president obama stayed out of the irs scandal until yesterday. the president addressed the agency's role in targeting organizations with the words tea party in their name and some others that had conservative ideologies. the president came out saying that behavior is not acceptable in his administration. >> if, in fact, irs personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on, and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, that's outrageous. and there's no place for it. and they have to be held fully accountable. we'll wait and see what exactly all the details and the facts are. but i've got no patience with it. i will not tolerate it. and we'll make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this. >> now, the agency says the scandal was limited to low-level workers at a cincinnati field office. but now "the washington post" is reporting at least two irs officials based in washington, d.c. were also invo

what can you expect president obama snooping on the a.p. is like a husband keeping tabs on his wife. why don't you trust me. after all that dirt i dug up, you still don't love me. but it's on a.p. for trusting obama. left's golden rule, all is permissible but i need not tolerated you which is why you can target the tea party. sadly the a.p. knows what that is like. so we've got three scandals a flurry of corruption that has heads spinning faster an load of wet laundry. if there was profession that cover such events we can dream but today journalists love obama. they are like the memphis mafia, to keep elvis presley happy and that ended well. each scandal is a flied bacon and peanut butter sandwich. it's not so bad when the heart of the administration finally gives out. >> andrea, what happened to no drama obama. this guy is lifetime channel mini series. when this is s in going to stop? >> andrea: i like lifetime mini series. watch what mini series. you said spinning laundry. how about spinning dirty laundry that isn't getting clean. this isn

didn't just collect the phone records from the a.p. newsroom it also tracked personal call logs and records from the house of representatives press gallery well today r.t. correspondent was walt went to capitol hill and brings us more on the story. the controversy between the government and a major media organization continues i have to say that this is among if not the most serious it is within the top two or three most serious leaks never seeing attorney general eric holder justifying the department of justice spying on reporters from the associated press since holder has recused himself to avoid a conflict of interest he points his finger at the deputy attorney general what appears to be contrary to to the law and standard procedure. well again there are exceptions to some of the rules that you pointed out and i. i have faith in the people who actually were responsible for this case that they were aware of the rules and that the followed and a letter to the associated press the deputy attorney general james cole insists that obtainin

so specifically with the a.p. piece, if the a.p. compromised an active terror operation that helped the terrorists that is something that needs to be investigated. the government's first job is to keep us safe. >> eric: a.p. held off better part of full week, they held back. also, white house didn't seem to have problems when it was about leaking the bin laden kill that ended up on the front page of the "new york times." >> leaks that put us in jeopardy and tip off terrorists are unacceptable. it wasn't acceptable when the bush administration did it with valerie plame. >> why not ask them. tell the people they are doing this. look where we going with this. while they are doing this, the irs have big push to have people's electronically filed. they want your medical records electronically submitted as well, too. all this information is out there. while the world is advancing technologically they are taking advantage of us. >> eric: they want more information, then to administer our health care. and then this the way not for profit st

the a.p. for doing what they themselves was doing is leaking. they want to be exclusive to themselves and willing to violate the law or bend the rules. there is a process to questions. i have talked to multiple people at a.p.. they were not notified as the law required. they been and had the obama administration been deft at handling, this they violated the provision. >> it's clear cal, that the white house, a.p. was going to on blow the story on what the white house was going announce. that may be the source. >> that is exactly right. to follow up on with a jim was saying, there was an agreement to hold this story, the story the foiling of an al-qaeda plot for five days. they had a quick meeting on monday. the a.p. said it was going to publish anyway even though the administration was going to announce this the next day. administration goes ahead, c.i.a. goes ahead, they violated security here and we're going to investigate using that as a pretext when they were going to release the informatio

is he even disenchanted about the a.p. >> the president has to come forward and share why he did not alert the press that they were going to do this. he has to tell americans, including me, what was this national security question. >> bill: all right. joining us now from washington ace reporters james rosen and carl cameron. so you believe the president is in trouble on his home field, cammeron. do you believe that he is in serious trouble? not temporary trouble, serious trouble? >> i don't know if it's serious yet. but to varying degrees he has lots of trouble. among democrats the president is not running for re-election next year and they are. and they don't want to be explaining this constantly. even senate majority leader harry reid yesterday was ticked off about the irs and a.p. scan tells. that doesn't mean he is going to stop pushing the obama agenda. upset about the collection of the a.p. phone records that doesn't mean they will start treating taking responsibility, and frankly firing people. if he does that, well

. >> let's speak a moment about the a.p. situation. gary pruitt was on "face the nation" yesterday, his first television interview. in listening to hill, he explained how powerfully and invasive this was. let's watch. >> i think it will hurt journalism. in fact we're already seeing some impact already officials that would normally talk to us, and people we talk to in the normal course of news-gathering are already saying to us -- that they're a little reluctant to talk to us. they fear that they will be monitored by the government. >> we know that your colleagues, two of your colleagues, who i know of at least, david sanger have already been investigated, those are cases still pending. and now today we learn that james rosen, our colleague at the state department correspondent from fox news, was investigated years ago on the question of reports he was filing on north korea. this administration has had a posture of investigating that goes well beyond what the bush administration had done. >> yeah. and the argument that the administration

it's very hard to separate the a.p. story from the rest of it.ate all of it is possible blunder bus by accident it could be a blun derbuss by intention. it has an affect in how it is operated ends up you are causing trouble. it is the arrogance of power. >> paul: we've got stop here. we'll take one more break, hits and misses of the week. [ male announcer ] research suggests cell health plays a key role throughout our lives. one a day men's 50+ is a complete multivitamin designed for men's health concerns as we age. it has 7 antioxidants to support cell health. one a day men's 50+. ♪ 6. ♪ >> paul: time for our hits and misses of the week. first to you. >> well, this is hit to the third circuit court of appeals that was second court to say obama recess appointments, non-recess appointments to the national labor relations board. court said they were unconstitutional. so they are invalidity vietnam, 200 decisions by the board could be overturned. so the board is carrying on as nothing matter but it's time to rethink. >> they took a huge step forward

is he even disenchanted about the a.p. story. >> the president has to come forward and share why he did not alert the press that they were going to do this. he has to tell americans, including me, what was this national security question. >> bill: all right. joining us now from washington ace reporters james rosen and carl cameron. so you believe the president is in trouble on his home field, cammeron. do you believe that he is in serious trouble? not temporary trouble, serious trouble? >> i don't know if it's serious yet. but to varying degrees he has lots of trouble. among democrats the president is not running for re-election next year and they are. and they don't want to be explaining this constantly. even senate majority leader harry reid yesterday was ticked off about the irs and a.p. scan tells. that doesn't mean he is going to stop pushing the obama agenda. upset about the collection of the a.p. phone records that doesn't mean they will start treating taking responsibility, and frankly firing people. if he does that

the a.p. from third parties and the numbers that a.p. may be dialing in an effort to identify the source of the leak. again, what is one of the worst crimes against this country, particularly when we're trying to fight terrorism. it was exactly done by the letter of the law. this is exactly what the doj rules provide for. and the folks that are complaining about this either just don't understand the law, don't understand the gravity of what this investigation involved, or are conveniently changing their positions right now because they're the very people that urged the attorney general to take a very strong position and leave no stone unturned. >> they absolutely did. professor peterson, the attorney general was less questioned than scolded just moments ago. the esteemable louie gomert cautioned that the -- >> we go after christian groups like billy graham's group. we go after franklin graham's group. then we're hands off when it comes to possibly offending someone who has been radicalized as a