The Washington Post is reporting that the Justice Department took extraordinary steps to investigate Fox News reporter James Rosen for possible leaks of classified information about North Korea:”It used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails.”
Context is everything. The very same month Justice’s probe into Rosen’s story began, the Obama administration’s war on Fox News began. As NRO’s Eliana Johnson has reported:
In June of 2009, the president complained about a “certain cable network” devoted entirely to attacking his administration. Four months later, former White House communications director Anita Dunn in 2009 said of Fox, “We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” adding, “We don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.” The administration went on to try to exclude Fox from the network pool that covers the White House, making a recent appointee — pay czar Kenneth Feinberg — available for interviews to every network but Fox. When the other networks refused to conduct the interview until Fox was included, the White House relented. But the verbal assault continued, with Obama telling Rolling Stone magazine in 2010 that the network represents a point of view that is “ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world.”
The public war that the Obama administration waged against Fox News was ugly enough. Perhaps with the Washington Post story we are now seeing the tip of the iceberg regarding the administration’s private war against Fox News.