A Department of Justice document dump to government watchdog Judicial Watch, made public yesterday, shows former DOJ Spokeswoman and Holder Flack Tracy Schmaler talking to the White House about "out of control" investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. Attkisson was covering Operation Fast and Furious for CBS News at the time.
An email was sent by Schmaler to White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz on October 4, 2011 and shows she planned to call Attkisson's editor and longtime CBS anchor Bob Scheiffer to get a handle on her reporting.
Emails also show Schultz responding to Schmaler with, "Good. Her [Attkisson] piece was really bad for the AG.”
The specific story by Attkisson that Schmaler and Schultz are referring to was about memos showing Holder was briefed about Operation Fast and Furious nearly one year before he claimed he'd heard about the program under oath in front of Congress in May 2011.
Keep in mind that in 2011, when this email exchange occurred, the White House had denied any discussion about Operation Fast and Furious with the Department of Justice. This email not only proves they were jointly targeting Attkisson, but working together to mitigate the scandal. At one point during her pursuit of Fast and Furious Attkisson was screamed at by Schultz, who used profanity, over the phone.
It seems top brass over at CBS gave into DOJ pressure. Attkisson left CBS News last year after 20 years of working at the outlet, citing difficulty in getting stories critical of the Obama administration on the air.
In addition to going directly to the bosses of reporters for intimidation purposes, during her tenure Schmaler regularly worked with far left smear machines like Media Matters to attack other reporters and DOJ whistleblowers.
Internal Department of Justice emails obtained by The Daily Caller show Attorney General Eric Holder’s communications staff has collaborated with the left-wing advocacy group Media Matters for America in an attempt to quell news stories about scandals plaguing Holder and America’s top law enforcement agency.
Emails sent in September and November 2010 show Schmaler working with Media Matters staffer Jeremy Holden on attacking news coverage of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation scandal.
Holden attacked former DOJ Civil Rights Division attorneys J. Christian Adams and Hans von Spakovsky on Sept. 20, 2010 for what he called an attempt “to reignite the phony New Black Panther Party scandal.”
Throughout the email exchanges TheDC obtained through the FOIA request are numerous examples of Gertz and other Media Matters staff sending the full text of Media Matters blog entries attacking the DOJ’s political opponents in the media.
Among others, Gertz sent Schmaler attack pieces he wrote about Townhall Magazine’s Katie Pavlich, who also authored a book on Operation Fast and Furious; Breitbart.com writers Joel Pollak and Ken Klukowski; Fox News Channel’s William LaJeunesse, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Megyn Kelly, Martha MacCallum, Bill Hemmer, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity; Sipsey Street Irregulars blogger Mike Vanderboegh; DirectorBlue blogger Doug Ross; National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy; and this reporter.
Under a court order, DOJ turned over 42,000 pages of Fast and Furious documentation to Judicial Watch last week. The documentation was held for years under President Obama's claim of executive privilege. Because of the vast amount of information, Judicial Watch is asking the public for help reviewing them and with looking for evidence of wrongdoing and corruption.
Attkisson recently published a book, Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington, about her experiences.
Is this how you envision your tax dollars being spent? White House press flacks targeting press who report on them? http://t.co/1ZwdKJ4yiw
— Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) November 20, 2014
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