we begin with the justice department's aggressive records to retreat reports of cnn reporter barbara starr. let's bring in senior justice correspondent evan perez, and chief media correspondent brian stelter. evan, take us thus what happened here. >> alisyn and victor, until now we haven't been able to tell this story. until just a short while ago, this has been sealed under a federal court order, preventing cnn's lawyers from telling the story of what happens a months-long protracted legal for months, belonging to cnn's pentagon correspondent barbara starr. this was a fight going on in secret over months. it continued even while a judge told the justice department that, quote, their reasoning was speculative and stun -- unanchored. it begins in july of 2020, when the justice department -- when cnn's legal department receives an order from a judge, from the justice department saying that they want two months of barbara starr's e-mail records from 2017. now, this includes at the time a gag order that prevented david vigilante, our lawyer, from discussion this issue with a limited number of

he couldn't even tell barbara starr because of the unprecedented department of justice gag order that they had imposed on him. so he had to litigate this with the government in the dark without being able to share with frankly his clients and we never [ no audio ] >> they were calling for a meeting with the doj even before we learned about the gag orders. so what is on agenda on monday with the attorney general? >> so, it is a simple goal. it is to protect the freedom of the press now and in the future. i don't think it is -- i think it is interesting today, this very day is the 50th anniversary of the "new york times" publication of the pentagon papers, june 13th, 1971. what our goal is tomorrow is to make sure that the pentagon papers and other stories of extraordinary public interest could be published in the future. so our job is to protect that and to protect journalists. >> do you expect garland to be forthcoming? for example, we don't know why the trump doj was going after barbara starrs or what leak they were pursuing. do you expect the doj now to tell us is that. >> we don't

cnn was forbidden from -- conferring with barbara starr about it.a gag order applied to a news organization, is an absolute shock and an absolute affront to the first amendment. we're learning about it today because the gag order has finally been lifted. there are going to be aftershocks from this wolf. this is something almost unprecedented in american media history. >> do we know what trump's team was looking for? >> we still do not know what the investigation was about. we know starr and cnn were not targets. we know this was a leak investigation. we don't know what they were looking for. >> as you say correctly, this was unprecedented. cnn wasn't the only media organization that trump's justice department had targeted, right? >> that's right. "the new york times" revealed a few days ago that it, too, was placed under a gag order and in a similar situation where the top lawyers and executives could not tell the newsroom that the government was going after their data. look, spying on journalists in the united states has been going on for years. th

we know in barbara starr's circumstances, we know that she was not a target of an investigation.aining -- why can't the justice department explain the circumstances around this more? >> certainly the justice department could explain it if they want to. there's nothing prohibiting that. but the justice department likes to hold on to its ability to conduct secret investigations. sometimes you're investigating intelligence matters, sometimes you're investigating mob figures. and for instance, if you're looking at their bank records or other kinds of records, you certainly don't want them to know that you're doing that as you're putting the case together. but of course in the situation that we have here where journalists like barbara starr and other people who kind of work for the public interest we always hope, unlike mob figures, they're being treated pretty much the same way. and you know, the cnn example is a great example. counsel to cnn, david vigilante, was issued a subpoena, and he was gagged, the subpoena said he couldn't even tell barbara starr or others at the network that

i speak for a lot of people at cnn when i haeard this happened to you, i thought, our barbara starr? i never thought of you going through something like this. >> well, brianna, i had exactly the same thought. me? really? >> it's incredibly surprising. barbara, i do hope we get some answers on this, and i really appreciate you being with us. our cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr this morning. >> the best in the business. >> yes. >> bar none. >>> all right, this morning british prime minister boris johnson plans to announce the restrictions will be delayed. the rules will now remain in place for another four weeks. cnn's elizabeth cohen joins us now. we see this, and it is of concern, right? because the uk had been doing so well. >> they had been doing so well. just like the u.s. has been doing relatively well over the past couple of months. and then this variant first thought of in india kind of swept in. let's talk about the u.s. for a minute. in the u.s., the uk variant swept in and pretty quickly became the dominant variant, and now we're starting to see the variant that indi

he couldn't even speak with barbara starr. they went nowhere. the case didn't reach resolution until biden administration came in. joining me now, he wrote about this on cnn.com. david, hello to you. it is fascinating. i was reading it and my jaw was dropping. you did not know what the government wanted, when the doj first came forward with this gag order. you were blocked at every opportunity, trying to understand what was going on. so you still have no idea what this was all about? >> i really don't. we can guess. you can try to work your way backwards by looking at what was covered in barbara's emails and on cnn at that time. the truth is they were under no obligation to tell us and they were completely unwilling to share any information. that was a shape because it could have helped us narrow the search and make it easier to protect what we felt was protectable and work with them but there was no interest in cooperating on their part. >> i want to reiterate. this was a months long legal fight. you were under this gag oefrl you were for bidde

specifically in a quest to get ahold of phone and email records for cnn pentagon correspondent barbara starr-month pursuit launched by bill barr and former president donald trump and frankly as a journalist it's shocking. i want to bring in cnn's evan perez. what is stunning here is how far the justice department tried to not only obtain barbara's emails, but to keep this all out of the public eye. >> no, look, the gag order under which the cnn lawyers' legal team were under and which they couldn't tell barbara, they couldn't tell most people, they only could tell, you know, the president of the network and a few of the lawyers involved and then to continue this over a period of months through two judges, begins in july of 2020 when the cnn lawyer first gets a demand from the justice department signed by a judge that says that they want two months of email records belonging to barbara from back in 2017 as part of a leak investigation. we don't know what the investigation is about. it goes over a period of months during which cnn is trying to get them to narrow this including pointing out tha

right after we found out that barbara starr was caught up in this. meaning she was out doing reporting and doing her job and her phone and email records were obtained. kaitlan, you asked president biden about this very subject. because you were able in an informal moment to ask him about this problem and he said it is never going to -- not going to happen under my watch. is that why this is all changing now? >> i think it certainly plays a major role. i don't think we could say it is the primary reason that this happened but it does not appear that the white house was on path to change the policy given what we found out on friday night to the gag order to "the new york times" because all of that was happening after merrick garland was confirmed as the attorney general, months after president biden has taken office and they had not taken any changes to change the policy or drop the effort to get the emails. so that is why we asked president biden about it. he was leaving a room and after we found out that barbara starr emails they had tried to obtain

pentagon correspondent barbara starr has a look back at his life. >> let us never forget what this greattion is about. >> donald rumsfeld holds the distinction as both the youngest person to ever serve as secretary of defense and second oldest to serve in the position. he was defense secretary for president gerald ford in the 1970s and president george w. bush in the early 2000s. >> he's going to be a great secretary of defense again. >> reporter: it was his second stint in that role that would define what donald rumsfeld was most phknown for. d >> we have daytaken a series of measures to determine who is responsibility. >> reporter: rumsfeld was inside the pentagon when it was struck by a hijacked plane. he rushed to help evacuate the injured until his security team begged him to go back inside. soon, rumsfeld would lead the war on terror. in the coming years he of saw two conflicts, the iraq war and operation enduring freedom in afghanistan. >> we're in a sense, seeing the definition of a new battlefield in the world. 21st century battlefield. it is a different kind of conflict. >> rep

this includes barbara starr and other news organizations. let's get the latest from cnn's laura jarrett. you know, laura, i know sometimes these things can blend together. it's important to note this is different. this is a new level. >> that's right. brianna. it turns out reporters weren't the only ones targeted by trump's justice department and didn't know it. the lengths that the justice department went to help the former president and his quest to get to the bottom of stories he didn't like now far more serious than previously known. democratic lawmakers, their staff, and families are the latest in the hunt for leakers. a new report overnight reveals as trump fumed over contacts between trump associates and russia, behind the scenes the doj subpoenaed apple to hunt down the data for those stories. they sought information from more than 100 accounts include those of now intel chairman adam sc schiff, according to sources at cnn. >> i can't say that it was extraordinarily broad. people having nothing to do with, you know, the intelligence

barbara starr, the u.s. that they think the iranians are up to no good. >> reporter: good evening, jake. the fent gone is letting it be known they are watching these iranian ships closely. one of the ships is the biggest war ships, a floating command base, if you will, and there's satellite imagery that now shows that that ship has seven small attack craft on the deck. those are the kind of boats that the iranians have used for years to harass u.s. military shipping in the persian gulf. this war ship carrying the little ships making its way around the tip of africa. iranians say and are being believed they will make their way to venezuela. that could be a big problem. nobody knows if these -- this boat has the missiles, tore peed o torpedos but has the potential of putting that iranian weapons capability into this hemisphere and that is something that the pentagon does not want to see. what they really want is for the iranians to get the message, turn around and go back home. no indication right now that ira

let's get straight to cnn barbara starr who is live at the pentagon. se images coming out very quickly showing the world what the biden administration ordered on the iraq/syria border overnight. airstrikes by a u.s. f-15s and 16s against sites two in syria and one in iraq that were used, the administration says, by iranian-backed militias that were conducting drone strikes in iraq against u.s. troops. now, this has been going on for some time, those drone strikes. a lot of concern that eventually they'll wind up killing u.s. forces and then you'll have a much more serious problem for the administration to have to respond to. so, not a total surprise that they went after these sites. they've been keeping an eye on them. these are operational and weapon storage sites on this border. now, the militia movements are saying four of their fighters were killed. iran a bit muted so far saying this is destabilizing in the region. but the administration convinced that it had to send the message that they need to back off. these drones are dangerous for u.s. forces

barbara starr reporting from the pentagon. thank you very much. >>> in an upcoming book, bill barr admits then president trump's allegations of election fraud were baseless and that barr knew that. he told jonathan carl in this book that comes out in november, quote, my attitude was it was put up or shut up time. if there was evidence of fraud, i had no motive to suppress it. but my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. it was all b.s., we realized from the beginning it was just b.s. let's bring in our senior political analyst david gurgen. good morning to you. >> good morning, poppy. >> this comes from a former attorney general bill barr who went along with trump's big lie in many respects in that interview with wolf blitzer, pointing to unfounded claims of fraudulent ballots coming from other countries, et cetera. and then we saw what happened on january 6, the insurrection. should he get credit now for saying what the truth is? >> he gets a tiny amount of credit. but he also gets a scorching amount o

doj went to the courts and said we have to make sure the people we subpoenaed barbara starr, eric swalwelle phone kompanys, apple you can't tell them that require a special court order. doj going into courts and say please keep it secret. why was that done, renewed several years? that's the next big question. >> as we learned in addition to journalists members of congress and staffers and families. now we learn about don mcgahn. how broad is this the things we don't know? >> this is a question for merrick garland how many other cases are there? there could be many other cases still under gag orders. gag orders could expire in two weeks, six months. if oom meeting with geroux merrick garland i'm telling you need to do a review, look for gag orders imposed in any case relating to congress or media. we need to to revisit if the gag orders aren't necessary. go back, ask the judge to lift the gag orders. we need to know quickly. >> how do we get the answer sns. >> two ways. first of all, the justice department inspector general announce the it's opening an investigation. that's important. but r

barbara starr is live for us at the pentagon with the latest. >> reporter: well, good day, fredricka.g two sites. one inside of iraq. these are sites that the u.s. said were being used by iranian backed militias and the big concern is they have been launching drone strikes against u.s. forces inside of iraq and a lot of concern about how to detective these drones and keep u.s. troops safe. so the u.s. calling this strike last night, precision defensive a deterrent, that was the military goal here. to deter these militias from carrying out these strikes. these iranian-backed militias have been a thorn in the side of the u.s. for sometime inside of iraq and one of the peculiarities is they operate quite freely by all accounts and the iraqi government does not have a lot of control over them. so the u.s. felt as it watched some of the drone strikes by them in recent weeks, that it was time to push back, send a message both to the militias and to iran that the biden administration will take action. fred. >> barbara starr, thank you so much. >>> also developing today, north koreans are rep

we begin with the justice department's aggressive records to retreat reports of cnn reporter barbara starrpondent evan perez, and chief media corresponden

the idea of apple to secure data from people like congressmen and also reporters like our own barbara starr, the idea that he would actually try to have the doj be complicit in fishing expeditions to promote a big lie is really par for the course at this point in time. but it's absurd to think, and of course, we're very glad about, is that there was pushback here, don. imagine if people had been more receptive and said, okay, the top person has told us what to do, therefore we must oblige. the pushback is really restorative for people thinking about their credibility and integrity in the department of justice in many ways. >> listen, the pressure campaign went higher. i want to go back to the e-mails, okay? it went higher than the trump white house assistant. his then chief of staff mark meadows is involved in this. he sent an e-mail asking the acting a.g. rosen to look into claims of voter fraud in georgia saying, quote, can you have your team look into these allegations of wrongdoing? again, this is coming from the white house chief of staff. it was obvious to everyone how desperate trump

is including our colleague barbara starr, the members of congress, eric swalwell, adam schiff and evenident trump. it is not, it appears, any sort of national security issue. don mcgahn had all the clearances. he was someone associated with news stories in question, the mueller investigation that were very damaging for the president. so you could see how he would go after mcgahn for possibly leaking to the "new york times." that's not what these investigations are supposed to be about. they're supposed to be about national security, not partisan advantage. that's what these appeared to have in common. >> all right. i'm with you. you talked about it. you mentioned don mcgahn. these subpoenas are adding up. don mcgahn, schiff, swalwell, staffers on the hill, news outlets including cnn. i mean, it is an unprecedented abuse of power. >> it is so bizarre. it is indicative. don mcgaunl is the white house counsel at the time he is being secretly investigated by the justice department. the white house counsel has access to absolutely all the secrets in the united states government. how could h

. >>> plus, cnn's barbara starr will join us live, speaking out for the first time after she found outjustice department went after her records. n't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psst! psst! all good new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a short list of quality candidates from our resume database. claim your seventy five dollar credit, when you post your first job at indeed.com/home. i felt awful because of my psoriasis. i was covered from head to toe with it. it really hurt. then i started cosentyx. okay, thanks... that was four years ago. how are you? see me. cosentyx works fast to give you clear skin that can last. real people with psoriasis look and feel better with cosentyx. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms, if your inflammatory bowe

trying to ensure the protection of, say, an adam schiff or an eric swalwell, or our own colleague, barbara starrpeople doing things within the realm of duties. so if they're not going to protect those people against these privacy violations or against other acts against them, that would be inconsistent. you'd have to answer to that. >> thank you both. make sure you buy elie's new book out today, "hatchet man." you look for it in stores or wherever you buy books. i want to bring in now congressman raja krishnamoorthi. congressman, thank you. i appreciate you joining us. the scope of what trump's justice department was trying to do is astounding. in addition to chairman schiff, congressman swalwell told me just last hour that his records were seized. do you know how many other members got their data seized? >> i don't. what we do know is that apparently bill barr, i guess, reinstituted his investigation of house committee members, democrats mind you, after he came into office in 2019, i believe. >> so can you clarify something for us? clarify if the committee knows if more than two members had dat

administration waged a months-long secret court battle to get records from my colleagues, cnn's barbara starr. mark meadows sent five emails to the then-acting attorney general trying to pressure him to investigate ridiculous claims of election fraud. we heard new audio of rudy giuliani pressuring ukraine to investigate joe biden. this is all recent. this is all just within the last couple of days, weeks. it's shocking. we thought it was bad. but we didn't even know the half of it. we have a lot more ahead tonight on the story. we will dig in more. and this story is coming as we are also getting some stunning revelations about the january 6th insurrection. that's when those -- look at your screen -- violent trump-supporting rioters stormed the united states capitol trying to stop the certification of the vote. the fbi director christopher wray says virtually none of those rioters were on their radar before the attack. >> as far as individuals under investigation, now that we're close to 500 arrests into the matter, you may be surprised to learn that, in fact, almost none of the individuals ch

when they got cnn correspondent barbara starr's email and phone records, we don't know the outcome ofinvestigation necessarily. we also don't know if cnn or "the washington post" were ever under a gag order. we do not know. there's a lot unclear here but it is significant, a milestone now for press relations, and it all matters, fred, because the viewers at home hope and want reporters to be advocating for them, getting the news, talking to sources. that's our job and the government should not be infringing on that job. >> significant there was such a policy, significant now that it's been ended. brian stelter, thank you so much. >>> coming up next -- americans are being offered everything from free childcare to winning a million bucks, even a free beer if you get vaccinated for covid. how is that going to work? our next guest will explain. (man) so when in doubt, just say, "let me talk to my manager." next, carvana's 100% online shopping experience. oh, man. carvana lets people buy a car-- get this-- from their couch. oh, how disruptive. no salesman there to help me pick out the car

that would be consistent with trying to ensure the protection of adam schiff or eric swalwell or barbara starr. people doing things within the realm of their public duties in the case of elected officials to perform their obligations. if they won't protect against these privacy violations or against other acts against them. that would be inconsistent and have to answer to that. >> thank you both. the new book is out, hatchet man. and you can look for it in stores or wherever you buy books. i want to bring in now congressman. the scope of what the justice department was trying to do is astounding. in addition to chairman schiff, congressman swalwell told me last hour that his records were seized. do you know how many other members got their data seized? >> i don't. what we do know is that apparently bill barr, i guess, reinstituted his investigation of house committee members. democrats after he came into office in 2019, i believe. >> so clarify if the committee knows that more than two members or just schiff and swalwell? >> i don't know. and i have not heard any more information. at this poin

records from journalists at several major news organizations including our colleague cnn's bar barbara starr. president biden is meeting with world leaders at the g7 summit where they're expected to focus on the global economy, working together there also to fight the pandemic. stand up to adversaries such as russia. our cnn justice correspondent joins me now on the main story this morning and that is revelations about investigations under trump's justice department. tell us the scope of the records that were sought and who exactly was targeted. >> this was wide-ranging, jim. you know, put simply, this was really a roundup of records from former president trump's biggest adversaries, the two that we know of so far, house intelligence committee democrat and the current chairman, these are democrats trump has repeatedly railed against. and, in fact, the former president repeatedly said that congressman schiff in particular should be investigated since he led the russia investigation in his committee. so now we know the fbi in fact subpoenaed apple in april -- sorry, february 2018 for data, not

it's important that barbara starr and katelyn have the right to do the work you need to do and not fearing that the doj was going to go into someone's e-mail accounts, personal phones, certainly not without being able to tell the journalist that. so we are hopeful changes are going to be structural and in writing, and we'll see if that happens. hopefully it will. >> i'm grateful for these reminders of how important the legal department is. two newsrooms. katelyn, bottom line, you couldn't do your job without drew. >> not at all. and the stories we've been able to tell because of the efforts of cnn to go to court to fight for access, that really has been so important in coverage of court, because the video -- we can't be in dcourt, all we can o is try to recreate this as best we can, and video is an essential point of that. >> drew, katelyn, thank you both for teaching us. >> thank you. >>> cnn is showing an important two-hour documentary tonight. it starts at 9:00 p.m. eastern on cnn. >>> but first, carlson tucker's reporting. why won't fox support his reporting? ed a new wireless plan for

at least part of the pattern we saw with barbara starr is, a leak investigation under the as spis of the espionage act is perpetuated with zero propensity, instituted by this president and the institution by people appearing to do his bidding according to comments made up through the attorney general and down through the bureaucracy. that's a more deeper problem. at least as far as when we saw robert mueller getting rolled to some extent by the attorney general because he was trying to do things by the book, you have a polarization with this issue as well. and that corruption needs to be dealt with deep investigations but not create the impression that somehow both sides have contributed to it. >> let me disagree with you a little bit, john. i supported the fbi during the russia investigation. the things that came out about manufacturing evidence to go to -- this fundamentally even changed the support of the fisa court to the fbi. in all of those moves -- >> do you think that's equivalent to this? >> it was shocking to me. >> yes, but do you think it's equivalent to this? >> eeer bei

reported had their phone and email records obtained, including our own grubauer correspondent, barbara starr. so, this ig investigation will dig into these issues about whether doj under attorney general sessions or attorney general barr whether it complied with its own policy and procedures. there's that on the doj side. that on the other side, in congress, chuck schumer and dick durbin are announcing jeff sessions and bill barr to testify under oath. they issued this statement. former attorneys barr and sessions and other officials involved must testify before the senate judiciary committee under oath. if they refuse, they are subject to being subpoenaed and compelled to testify under oath. in addition, the justice department must provide information and answers to the judiciary committee, which will vigorously investigate this abuse of power. we have reached out to former attorney generals barr and sessions and have not heard back. sources told us jeff sessions was not involved in any of these subpoenas related to the house intelligence committee. as you'll remember, he made a broad recus

. >> barbara starr with the latest for us.. >>> residents near the building collapse now fearing for the safety of their homes. just ahead, we'll speak with a husband and wife who live in the sister tower to the one that collapsed in surfside. keeping your oyster business growing has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. in ways big and small, the world has changed. but our commitment to getting you safely out in it? that never will. ♪ ♪ up to one million dollars. that's how much university of phoenix is committing to create 400 scholarships this month alone. if you're committed to earning your degree, we're committed to making it accessible. because we believe everybody deserves a chance. and sometimes one chance is all it takes to change everything. see what scholarship opportuniti

four journalists at "the times" as well as three journalists at "the washington post" and one, barbara starrn saturday, the justice department reversed course and announced it is changing its policy and will no longer force media companies to hand over source information as part of leak investigations. on sunday, "new york times" reporter adam goldman appeared on cnn's program "reliable source." his phone records were seized by both the obama and trump administrations. >> it certainly is disappointing, but i was not rprised. some of the same prosecutors who were involved in seizing my phone records earlier this year and unsuccessfully trying get my emails were involved in secretly obtaining my phone records in 2013 when i worked at the associated pre. this office, the was attorney's office in d.c. has a history of trampling on the first amendment. that is what i was not surprised. they treat the media, they treat newspapers like drug gangs. amy: in late may, president biden spoke out against the seizing of records from journalists at the very time when "the new york times" was still under a

and phone, metadata of democrats on the intel committee as well as journalists such as our own barbara starrll of these folks and don mcgahn, former white house counsel. so, what do you want the -- i mean, the department of justice has now said they will look into this. they will investigate it. what do you want to see changed by the department of justice? >> i think there has to be firewalls. i think there has to be a further deep dive before you can even begin to investigate without a thorough basis that a criminal act or that there has been evidence of a leak from a member in another branch of government. the doj must have further layerings of that. the only thing they had, as we can tell, is an intimidating call from the president and/or his agents. the interesting thing is, he was investigating comey and mcgahn, who happened to be, really, under his jurisdiction. so, there can not be a staff level that maybe the actions by that staff are directly related to directions from the white house. there has to be documentation of the attorney general, whoever it might be, hand print on this, an

is that, if you look at the people who were targeted, the journalists, including our colleague, barbara starrand even don mcgahn. what they, all, have in common is they created political problems for -- for president trump. it's not, it appears, any sort of national-security issue. don mcgahn. you know, had all the clearances. but he was someone who had -- who was associated with news stories in connection with the mueller investigation that were very damaging for the president. so, you could see how he would go after mcgahn for possibly leaking to "the new york times." but that's not what these investigations are supposed to be about. they're supposed to be about national security, not partisan advantage. and that's what these appear to have in common. >> all right. i'm with you. so -- but let's talk about it. i mean, you mentioned don mcgahn. these subpoenas, jeff, i mean, they are adding up. the list of subpoenas adding up. done macgahn. schiff, as you said. staffers on the hill. news outlets, including cnn. i mean, it -- it -- it -- it is an undpreprecedented abuse of p, no? >> well, it's

preventing cnn from telling barbara starr the government wanted her records. he projected everything he seemed to be doing, onto someone else. the media. the democrats. his opponents. his predecessor. and attorney general barr. well, he played cutesy with semantics. >> attorney general barr, has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? >> um, i wouldn't -- i wouldn't -- >> yes or no? >> could you repeat that question? >> i will repeat it. has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? yes or no, please, sir. >> um, the president or anybody else. >> seems you would remember something like that, and be able to tell us. >> yeah, but i'm trying to grapple with the word suggest. i mean, there have been discussions of -- of matters out there. that they have not asked me to open an investigation. >> perhaps, they've suggested? >> i don't know. i wouldn't say suggest. >> hinted? >> i don't know. >> inferred? you don't know? >> well, her

and we learned more about the gag order put on cnn during a months-long legal battle over barbara starr'sail records, and it was only at the end of that, that cnn learned, fighting them again over a period of months, that the justice department had also seized some of her private information, some of her private emails, data, some of her phone number data. it was extraordinary week at the justice department. >> it just runs the gamut. a series of revelations about what went on during the trump administration and the lingering effects even now. talk about all the different targets we're seeing here. >> well, the commonality here is the president's perceived enemies list. obviously, these are two of the congressmen who trump believed were targeting him, were helping spread the stories about trump and russia connections during the height of the mueller investigation. of course, cnn, he said, was one of the enemies of the people along with "the washington post" and "the new york times." and, you know, this is -- what this tells you is what the atmosphere was at the justice department. as the

supposedly -- well, we don't know in some cases why there were these court orders to get the records of barbara starrcnn and "the washington post" and now we fiend out there's meta data searches for members of congress. >> gag orders. >> and it stinks. >> it stinks, it does, it does. what the attorney general is saying is i really didn't know about this. >> that's an immaculate leak investigation. >> and what he said to politico on the record was, you know, i was getting criticized by cabinet members and members of the intelligence community about the department not having done anything on leak cases so i wanted to make sure they were being pursued. >> right. >> okay. but what if the leak case involved the chairman of the house intelligence commit or another member at least of the out intelligence commit. shouldn't the attorney general have had tomorrow information about that, about where they were going on these leak case. publically the president of the united states accused a am schiff of leaking, he know that. he did that many times so the question is how could he not have known when he appointed

now, barbara starr, our pentagon correspondent,ing who was one of the targets in this investigation, is calling for new protections. what do you want the attorney general to do, exactly? >> first thing is, we need to know all of the information. that involves not only the attorney general, this attorney general -- i think the attorney general has to look at all of the ways to not just strengthen the law but we need prohibitions in place so this does not happen. finally, the attorney general has done a great job of challenging many of the department's -- the previous administration's decisions in court, but there have been a couple of high-profile cases where he has continued what the trump administration was doing. whether it was e.g. carroll or challenging the judge's order on that. i think i understand the desire for continuance, but i think at this point, there is so much there that we need the attorney general to be as aggressive as he can in ferreting out all of these things the trump administration did and, you know, countering them and fixing them for the future. >> beyond wha

house intelligence democrats, cnn reporter barbara starr and new york post reporters and twitter. this is the group that trump administration and apparently the department of justice at the time believed were in some way the enemy and so twhent after them. again, going after the personal connections which is extraordinarily rare, erica. and so the questions now moving forward for the department of justice is attorney general merrick garland going to review this? if there is a policy in place now that would have allowed for that, is that going to change moving forward? sth. >> yeah. a lot of questions. and a lot of them from merrick garland. manu, next hour democrats on house intel are set to be briefed on this by chairman schiff. have we heard any tidbits about what he is going to tell them? what more we know about the meeting? >> this is the first time that a lot of members are learning about what happened here when the news broke last night. speaking to a number of the members on the committee, a lot of them simply do not know whether or not their records were seized. because th

and that, you know, for people at cnn whose, you know, personal specifically barbara starr, her personalf these data sweeps, it's really the veering into the personal lives that is so alarming and something that surely will come up in this meeting later with merrick garland. >> today's date is the 50th anniversary of the pentagon papers. in 1971. >> i'm sorry, i said 40th. >> you were with us on the new day show. >> i'm sorry, i need another coffee. yes, the 50th. >> we appreciate you. you've been doing an excellent job keeping things straight. >>> carrie cordero held various positions at both the department of justice and the office of national intelligence, the perfect person to have this conversation with, carrie, a new level of wow, what we are learning, first it was members of the media, then democratic lawmakers and now white house counsel reportedly at a time when trump was unhappy with don mcgahn. what does this signal to you? >> so, as a former national security lawyer, ana, i do think about these different cases differently. i don't lump them all together. so if the justice dep

the ones that targeted "the washington post" reporters, reporters from "the new york times" and barbara starr from cnn, there was a gag order placed. so that prevented apple from being able to notify the customers in this case, members of congress, that the justice department had obtained their data until very recently in may is when they first were notified by apple after the expiration of the gag order. the scale, again, is extraordinary. adam schiff, one of the members who was targeted here, talks about that scale. listen. >> i can't go into who received these subpoenas or whose records were sought. i can't say that it was extraordinarily broad. people having nothing to do with the intelligence matters that are at least being reported on. it just shows what a broad phishing expedition it was. >> and, jim, just to button this up. it begins in february 2018. the gag order is renewed three times and curiously enough, this all comes to an end just days before joe biden becomes president. that's when it appears, according to the records and according to our sources that the justice department j

the doj secretly demanded and in some case obtained reporters records as well, among them cnn's barbara starr, all dogly reporting on the trump white house. >> joining us cnn legal analyst ellie honig, also author of "hatchet man: how bill barr corrupted the justice department" which seems extremely timely this morning. so grit to have you this morning. when i first woke up and saw this news i thought, okay, it should be the staff of the congressmen, but, no, it's the actual congressmen themselves and their children at least one minor child that we know about. have you ever seen anything like this before? >> no, laura, i was a prosecutor for 14 years. this is completely unprecedented. deeply wrong is really the most straightforward way to put it from a prosecutor's perspective. let's be clear about what happened here. the u.s. department of justice used its subpoena power, it's power to order private entities to turn over evidence. they subpoenaed phone companies, apple and another company, to get the personal private phone records of not just members of congress, adam schiff, eric swalwell,

when you saw "the post" journalists and barbara starr, what was the reaction inside the paper to thissed by any stretch. i mean, first of all, we'd seen it with the other news organizations, but second of all, i mean, look, we all lived the four years of, you know, as betsy said, you know, the constant attacks, the tweeting, you know, the name-calling, et cetera. we knew exactly where donald trump stood, and frankly, knew where his justice department stood. i mean, i think, you know, the really interesting question going forward is, joe biden is caught between two principles, both of which are an attempt to distance himself from trump, right? on the one hand, the principle is, he wants to distance himself from the enemy of the people. he wants to portray himself as a friend of journalism, as a friend of accountability as opposed to the way donald trump acted, but he also has said repeatedly, joe biden has said that he doesn't want to interfere with the justice department. he wants to take a hands-off, let the justice department investigate where they, you know, where they think they n

leak investigation that was trying to snoop on the phone and email records of cnn correspondent barbara starre was an attempt to get a hold of her email records because the governor -- government wanted to know who she was emailing in 2017. here we are in 2021 finding out the government was imposing these extreme measures on news media lawyers, it really is almost unprecedented. i understand in cases of national security and state secret that these measures are sometimes used, the gag orders are sometimes applied, but to hear about a gag order against a new york times and cnn is outrageous, it has been widespread condemnation from media advocacy groups and we know that next week, next monday, representatives from cnn and your kind and washington post will meet with merrick garland to talk about the rules of this road. president biden has vowed that secret snooping on journalists will not happen under his administration. host: that meeting with merrick garland, if you are in that meeting, what question would you put to the attorney general? guest: we need to know more about the past, we need t