The defeated bill would have required approval from a federal court before reporters’ phone records were subpoenaed. Darrell Issa, who condemned the AP subpoena Monday, was one of only 21 House Members to vote against the bill.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa.

Via: Cliff Owen / AP

Late Monday afternoon, the AP broke the news that months worth of its telephone records had been divulged in response to a broad government subpoena. The Department of Justice issued the subpoena to the AP's telephone company, without notifying AP itself, as part of the criminal investigation of a national security leak. Investigators obtained the call logs of numerous AP reporters and editors for a period spanning April and May of 2012 as a result of the subpoena. Last Friday, the DOJ delivered a letter to the AP revealing the subpoena and the records that had been obtained as a result.

The Department of Justice told NBC News that it had acted "consistent with DOJ regulations" in obtaining the call logs. The applicable regulations do permit the DOJ to subpoena the phone records of a news organization without prior notice only if the DOJ determines that such prior notice would pose "a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation" and the Attorney General approves.

Almost immediately, the story drew an outraged response from Congress. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa issued a statement slamming the administration. "This is obviously disturbing," Issa said. "Americans should take notice that top Obama Administration officials increasingly see themselves as above the law and emboldened by the belief that they don't have to answer to anyone. I will work with my fellow House Chairmen on an appropriate response to Obama Administration officials."

Issa didn't mention that he voted against a measure that would have protected the AP from the DOJ's subpoena in 2007. Issa was one of 21 House members who opposed the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, a measure that would have forbidden federal investigators from compelling journalists to give evidence without first obtaining a court order. The bill included a section that specifically forbid subpoenaing journalists' phone records from "communication service providers" to the same extent that the law protected the journalists themselves.

Despite Issa's "No" vote, the bill overwhelmingly passed the House 398-21. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, another California Republican who criticized the DOJ and the President in the wake of today's news, voted for the bill. It was defeated, however, by a Republican filibuster in the Senate the following year.

"I would say the odds are Republicans killed media shield today," Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy said at the time. The Senate bill garnered 52 supporting votes, including five Republicans who broke ranks with their party, but the bill's supporters needed 60 votes to overcome the Republican filibuster.

Monday, Senator Leahy raised doubts in measured tones about the AP subpoena. "The burden is always on the government when they go after private information – especially information regarding the press or its confidential sources. I want to know more about this case, but on the face of it, I am concerned that the government may not have met that burden. I am very troubled by these allegations and want to hear the Government's explanation," he said.

An excerpt from the last Senate version of the Free Flow of Information Act containing the general media shield provision. "Covered person" is the bill's term for a journalist.

Via: gpo.gov

An excerpt from the last Senate version of the Free Flow of Information Act specifically addressing subpoenas to telephone companies for journalists' records.

Via: gpo.gov

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Russia has arrested an official at the American Embassy in Moscow on suspicion of working for the CIA.

Via: AP

An American diplomat at the embassy in Moscow has been arrested in Russia and accused of being a CIA agent, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

Ryan Fogle, the third secretary in the political section of the embassy, was detained by Russia's counterintelligence service, who have said that they caught him trying to recruit a Russian agent.

Russia Today, the Kremlin-sponsored outlet, has multiple photos of Fogle being arrested and also the tools with which he was allegedly conducting his tradecraft: wigs, a flashlight, sunglasses, stacks of cash, and a map and compass. RT also has a copy of the letter which Fogle allegedly gave to the agent he tried to recruit, which gives instructions on how to initiate contact and offers him $100,000 for his cooperation.

Via: AFP / Getty Images

A spokesman for the State Department didn't immediately have comment on the situation and a CIA spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Michael McFaul, the American ambassador to Russia, declined to comment on the incident during a Twitter Q&A today, saying "no" to a questioner who asked if he could confirm that it had happened.

CBS reporter Margaret Brennan reported that McFaul has been summoned to come into the Foreign Ministry tomorrow to talk about the alleged spying.

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Group tied to white nationalism enters immigration fray. Not what reform opponents needed after Heritage flap.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham is the first target of a new broadcast ad campaign from an anti-immigration reform group with reported ties to the white nationalist movement.

The minute long radio ad campaign by ProEnglish, comes at a particularly bad time for opponents of comprehensive reform: last week the Heritage Foundation was forced to sack a researcher for his racially tinged comments about Latinos and there are growing questions about the anti-reform movement's connections to radical population growth groups.

And with the Senate considering comprehensive reform legislation now, the group's ad — which features a Spanish-speaking "illegal immigrant" character "thanking" Graham for "for not requiring him to learn English in exchange for amnesty" — could further complicate the efforts of more more mainstream conservatives.

But at least for now, the group isn't backing down.

"ProEnglish will run the ad in South Carolina for as long as it takes to get the message out," said spokesman Phil Kent. In fact, Kent said the ad campaign might expand beyond South Carolina.

"If we feel if this is successful we may target senators in other states," he said.

Graham isn't responding to the message of the ad.

"South Carolina remains the central battlefield in the fight over immigration reform," said Kevin Bishop, a Graham spokesperson.

ProEnglish is led by Robert Vandervoort, who caused a stir in 2012 when he was invited to speak at a CPAC immigration panel despite his "past ties to the white nationalist group Chicagoland Friends of American Renaissance," as it was described in contemporary media reports. American Renaissance warns against "Multiculturalism and the War Against White America" and "The War on White Heritage" on its website.

Ardent reform opponents steer clear of Vandervoort. Republican Kansas Sec. of State Kris Kobach — architect of the controversial immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama — distanced himself from the ProEnglish leader after appearing on the CPAC panel with him.

The group shrugs off critics who call it racist. "As for dishonest opponents, we choose to ignore smears and lies," Kent said.

Watch hordes of TV journalists compare the AP & IRS scandals to Watergate.

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KMOV’s Larry Conners says “the IRS has been pressuring me” since his April, 2012 interview with the president. “Can I prove it? At this time, no.”

WASHINGTON — A Missouri reporter is wondering if the IRS came after him after he asked President Obama tough questions in a White House interview last year.

From the Facebook page of KMOV's Larry Conners:

Shortly after I did my April 2012 interview with President Obama, my wife, friends and some viewers suggested that I might need to watch out for the IRS.
I don't accept "conspiracy theories", but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me.
At the time, I dismissed the "co-incidence", but now, I have concerns ... after revelations about the IRS targeting various groups and their members.
Originally, the IRS apologized for red-flagging conservative groups and their members if they had "Tea Party" or "patriot" in their name.
Today, there are allegations that the IRS focused on various groups and/or individuals questioning or criticizing government spending, taxes, debt or how the government is run ... any involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, or social economic reform/movement.
In that April 2012 interview, I questioned President Obama on several topics: the Buffet Rule, his public remarks about the Supreme Court before the ruling on the Affordable Care Act. I also asked why he wasn't doing more to help Sen. Claire McCaskill who at that time was expected to lose. The Obama interview caught fire and got wide-spread attention because I questioned his spending.
I said some viewers expressed concern, saying they think he's "out of touch" because of his personal and family trips in the midst of our economic crisis.
The President's face clearly showed his anger; afterwards, his staff which had been so polite ... suddenly went cold.
That's to be expected, and I can deal with that just as I did with President George H. Bush's staff when he didn't like my questions.
Journalistic integrity is of the utmost importance to me. My job is to ask the hard questions, because I believe viewers have a right to be well-informed. I cannot and will not promote anyone's agenda - political or otherwise - at the expense of the reporting the truth.
What I don't like to even consider ... is that because of the Obama interview … the IRS put a target on me.
Can I prove it? At this time, no.
But it is a fact that since that April 2012 interview ... the IRS has been pressuring me.

Conners did not immediately respond to inquiries from BuzzFeed.

Part one.

Part two.

Immigration changes would be “far, far worse than Obamacare,” says King. And that’s saying something.

Rep. Steve King

Via: Pete Marovich / Getty Images

As the Senate Judiciary Committee marks up the bipartisan "Gang of Eight's" attempt to rewrite American immigration law, another gang across the Capitol — striking as much for its small numbers as for the intensity of its views — organized its own effort to stop the Senate bill.

"You all know how badly I despise Obamacare. I have spent years of my life fighting against Obamacare," the group's leader, Iowa conservative Steve King, said. "It's terrible, it diminishes the destiny of America. But if I have to choose, if it came down to this: if there was an offer that you are going to get one or the other and you have to choose one, I would take Obamacare and try to live with that than ever accept this amnesty plan. Because the amnesty plan is far, far worse than Obamacare because we can't put it back in a bottle."

King and five other House conservatives argued that Republicans have been swindled into thinking that immigration reform must pass this year for the survival of the party. They anticipated that the opposition to the plan would grow as the bill moves through the Senate. King said he is deeply concerned that the House would pass several small bills and then go to conference with the Senate, a procedural maneuver he warned could mean an eventual up or down vote in the House without amendments, passing by virtue of strong support from Democrats.

"I'm incredulous with the conclusion that they drew when they woke up the day after the election," King said. "They didn't have any data to work with…this is a huge boon for Democrats. They have known that for a long time."

King has long been critical of immigration efforts that could eventually grant citizenship to illegal immigrants.

Mo Brooks, a congressman from Alabama, cited the numbers found in a recent (and widely criticized) Heritage Institute study that projected the cost of the bill to be $6.3 trillion.

"America cannot afford to open a massive immigration floodgate any more than it can afford an amnesty plan rewarding illegal conduct while adding $6.3 trillion to it's already dangerous and exploding national debt," he said.

All of the men said they felt strongly that legal immigration was a good thing but current laws were not being properly enforced.

"If the rule of law is not observed then you have chaos. No body behind me or anyone who supports our position wants a closed border," said Rep. Louie Gohmert. "Immigration is a life spring, it brings additional life and rejuvenation to this country. But we have to make sure we don't get overwhelmed by those who want to destroy us."

It was difficult, however, to miss the fact that King had only rallied six members of a very conservative Republican caucus Tuesday (Reps. Lamar Smith and Lou Barletta were slated to attend but could not be there). When asked by BuzzFeed why he thought that more conservatives weren't speaking out against the Senate bill, Rep. John Fleming said he hoped his fellow partisans would come around.

"The script has already been written by the media that for some reason we have to pass amnesty to survive as a party," Fleming said. "The last time we passed amnesty it was under a Republican president and it didn't seem to win many hearts and minds to vote Republican. I think people will start to ask 'If that didn't work before, do we really want to get on that train?"

Rep. Steve Stockman, a Texas conservative, predicted that sentiment against the immigration reform bill would steadily grow as more people speak out against it.

"They have a gang of eight, we are going to have a gang of millions, the people are stronger than the gang of eight," he said.

The decision of the National Council of Justice could be appealed to the Supreme Court. Same-sex couples in some parts of the country already can marry, but this decision would apply nationwide.

A newly married same-sex couple celebrates with champagne after their wedding ceremony in Campinas on March 21, 2013.

Via: Nacho Doce / Reuters

Same-sex couples could soon be able to marry throughout Brazil, following a national judicial panel's decision that government offices could not deny same-sex couples' marriage licenses.

"The [National Council of Justice], the body that oversees the operation of the institutions of justice, ruled Tuesday that the notaries in Brazil must register marriages between persons of the same sex," according to a translation of an Associated Press article on the decision. "With [this] determination, notaries can not deny homosexual couples orders for marriages ... according to the Council in a statement."

An Agence France-Presse report notes that the decision, made by the National Council of Justice, which oversees the Brazilian judicial system and is headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, could be appealed to the Supreme Court. But, with the chief justice on the panel, it was not immediately clear if an appeal was likely.

The AP report notes that some Brazilian lawmakers have attempted to advance marriage equality measures over the past decade but that the legislature's "powerful evangelical bloc of legislators" stopped the passage.

Same-sex marriage is already legal in some Brazilian jurisdictions — including São Paulo state, which has a population of more than 40 million people and is roughly the same size as Argentina.

The country's top court previously ruled that same-sex couples have the same domestic partnership rights as heterosexual couples. Couples that have registered their domestic partnerships have since successfully gone to court to "convert" those unions into marriages.

A new rule that went into effect in São Paulo in March meant same-sex couples there could skip the step of going to court in order to marry, and the National Council of Justice's decision would appear to expand the application of that change to the entire country.

The news of the DOJ phone-grab story broke at 4:26 p.m., but it wasn’t discussed on MSNBC until 7:37 p.m.

If you were relying on MSNBC as your sole conduit for news yesterday afternoon, you learned about the economy in the U.K., you definitely understood that President Obama has "no patience" for reports that the Internal Revenue Service targets conservative groups, and you discovered, along with Chris Matthews, that the Hardball host has met his match when it comes to overpowering an opponent with nonstop loud words coming out of one's face.

What you didn't know was that yet another political scandal was breaking all over the internet and slowly unfolding to the audiences of the other two major cable news networks. The scandal, of course, was the news that the Department of Justice had undertaken an unprecedented gathering of Associated Press employee phone records. The news was immediately described by journalists as "chilling" and even as the "first legit" Obama scandal by liberal pundit Markos Moulitas. But it would take over three hours to reach MSNBC viewers after breaking on Twitter.

So what took so long? An MSNBC spokesperson told BuzzFeed, "In cases like this we are more interested in getting the story right rather than just getting on the record with it. As demonstrated tonight, we wait to do thoughtful, thorough reporting — which both Chris Hayes and Rachel [Maddow] did tonight." This is true. Chris Hayes managed to bring up the report during a discussion about the IRS scandal, calling the news "deeply troubling," and Rachel Maddow dedicated almost her entire first block to the story.

But what about the other opinion shows? If Chris Hayes could briefly inject the topic into a preplanned segment, why couldn't Chris Matthews have done the same during the two blocks dedicated to discussing the IRS story? If there was ever a time for Martin Bashir, Chris Matthews, and Al Sharpton to stand up and claim objectivity, this was it, and all three failed miserably.

To get an idea of how excruciating it was to wait for MSNBC to deliberate on the importance of this massive political scandal, I've created the timeline below:

At 4:26 p.m., the Associated Press announces to Twitter that the government seized telephone records for lines assigned to their journalists.

Source: @AP

Mentions of "AP" on Twitter immediately skyrocket past "IRS" and "Benghazi."

Source: analytics.topsy.com

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“Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.”

Ronald Reagan was the presidential master of YOLO.

Like that time he thought about hunting out the window of Air Force One.

Source: reagan.utexas.edu

When he let himself be photobombed epically by a 6-year-old.

Source: reagan.utexas.edu

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To “avoid a potential appearance of a conflict of interest … I recused myself,” says the attorney general of the DOJ investigation into the Associated Press.

Via: Molly Riley, File / AP

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that he recused himself from a DOJ investigation into the Associated Press that resulted in the collection of months of the news agency's phone records.

Pointing to an FBI interview in which he participated in the leak case, Holder said that in order to "avoid a potential appearance of a conflict of interest ... I recused myself." The decision to pull AP's records was made by the U.S. attorney in Washington and the deputy attorney general, Holder said.

Holder refused to comment on the unprecedented decision during a press conference Tuesday afternoon. But he defended the DOJ's decision, insisting that he was "confident that the people involved in this ... followed all applicable Department of Justice regulations."

The AP reported Monday afternoon that the DOJ had pulled phone records — including on personal phones — of reporters in multiple bureaus, apparently as part of an investigation into national security leaks that the DOJ is conducting.

The unprecedented collection of those records set off a firestorm of criticism from the press and members of Congress.

The blind Chinese dissident who escaped to New York broadens his critique of the Chinese government in Oslo. His family is being persecuted, he says.

Chen Guangcheng with General Secretary of Norwegian Amnesty International Jon Peder Egenaes.

Via: Scanpix / Reuters

OSLO, Norway — Chen Guangcheng began his activist career fighting over specific issues like disability rights and the one-child policy with the Chinese government — the latter of which resulted in his house arrest and eventual escape from China. But the blind activist has cast his net wider now that he's in America, becoming more of a symbol of the global human rights movement than ever and attacking the Chinese Communist Party on a broader scale.

Chen, accompanied by his wife Yuan Weijing and two translators, has been bombarded with well-wishers and reporters during his stay at the Oslo Freedom Forum, a human rights conference. Of all the dissidents and activists at an event full of them, Chen's story is the most widely known and also one of the most exciting — the house arrest, the nighttime escape, the new life in America. And while his departure has ended his influence in China for the moment, Chen has become a model for global dissidents who want the level of support he's received from abroad, plus the platform he's created for himself.

"There is nothing to fear from a washed-up ruling power that has lost its moral, legal, and ethical foundations," Chen told a rapt audience at the Christiania Theater in central Oslo on Tuesday.

Chen recited a litany of abuses his family has suffered at the hands of the Chinese authorities, most recently the beating of his brother by two "thugs" who pulled up beside him in a black car, beat him up, and then waited around and watched as the police came, Chen said.

Chen accused China of reverting to harsh Cultural Revolution-era tactics.

"The legal system has converted back to the Cultural Revolution era, when party officials were accountable to no one," he said.

His rhetoric was at times lofty. "Anything is possible in this world," he said. "China will undergo a transformation, and we must turn our attention from party officials to the people. People are the true actors in the life of a nation and society."

In a wide-ranging interview with BuzzFeed, Chen said he hasn't changed focus — it's just that the outside world is finally paying attention to his full message.

"I don't think much has changed for what I'm interested in," Chen said through a translator. "It's just that it was perhaps just a small fraction that was known to the outside world."

"The protest I did against the one-child policy is the best-known case," he said, "but I was always working on a lot of different subject matters like migrant workers, environmental issues, disabled rights. A wide array of issues."

Chen said he is settling well into his life in New York, and he hopes to eventually be able to visit China.

"The party won't be in power forever, and people will be able to travel," he said. "Then it wouldn't be an issue for me to travel back to China."

Chen said he believed the recent attacks on his family in China were related to his outspokenness now that he's free of the regime's clutches in America.

"They've always been persecuting my family, it's just even worse these days," Chen said. "I think they're in a state of madness. They're really trying to stop me from being outspoken and disclosing the truth about China, but I can say for sure they'll never get what they want."

"This is not just one single event. They're not just targeting my family," Chen said, citing other activists who have been jailed or beaten.

"I'm in touch with a lot of them, and it's a prevailing phenomenon in China," Chen said. "Most of the activists, their families are being threatened, and a lot of them are already accustomed to this. Those of them are still getting adjusted to that, it bothers them."

The Chinese government has promised to investigate Chen's claims that his family has been recently targeted, but there's no evidence so far that they've done so. The State Department has said it is concerned over the incidents, and Secretary of State John Kerry sent a written letter of protest to the Chinese foreign minister. But the United States seems unlikely to make a big deal out of it.

Chen called for the U.S. to tweak its policy toward China.

"What needs to be done is the decoupling of trade and human rights issues," Chen said. "America now is trying to shy away from these issues by being very ambiguous on its stance. That needs to be changed and they need to be up front about this."

He argued that the U.S. needs a "long-term approach" for dealing with other countries in light of human rights abuses.

And he's suspicious of China's recent moves on the international stage, including its attempt to insert itself in the Middle East peace process.

"China's been doing this, but very subtly, since a long time ago," he said. "That's a technique China employs to gain a voice and spread its opinion."

BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith moderates two conversations on the politics of immigration.

A discussion about immigration featuring Mario Lopez, President, Hispanic Leadership Fund; Clarissa Martinez, Director of Immigration & National Campaigns, National Council of La Raza; Mickey Kaus, Journalist, Pundit, Author of The End of Equality; Alex Nowrasteh, Immigration Policy Analyst, Cato Institute. Moderated by BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith.

A discussion on the politics of immigration featuring Luis G. Fortuno, former Republican governor of Puerto Rico, and Joaquin Castro, Democratic congressman from Texas. Moderated by BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith.

Both panels were filmed in Washington, D.C. on May 14, 2013.

Belo Corp. says what Larry Conners wrote “has nothing to do with our company or our television station. And we don’t condone that type of personal opinion being represented as a company or station opinion.”

WASHINGTON — KMOV anchor Larry Conners is in trouble with his bosses Tuesday after he accused the IRS of targeting him over an interview he conducted with President Obama last year.

"Any issue he has with the IRS are personal issues. They have nothing to do with our television station KMOV or him as a journalist," Mike Valentine, vice president for content at Belo Corp., told BuzzFeed. "As a news anchor, he owes a duty to our viewers to report in an unbiased manner. His Facebook post and his Twitter posts, as a result, were inappropriate. And we don't condone personal posts that jeopardize the journalistic nature of our business. It's really that simple."

Conners wrote on Facebook Monday claiming that the IRS had been "pressuring" him in the months following his April 2012 interview with Obama. Valentine said the Facebook post was a bad move. Conners ducked interviews on the post Tuesday, citing a corporate order.

"What he wrote has nothing to do with our company or our television station," Valentine said. "And we don't condone that type of personal opinion being represented as a company or station opinion."

Asked if Conners would face disciplinary action over the post, Valentine said he doesn't comment on personnel matters.

“The truth is, we have to get this straight, and they’re gonna have to get it straight, and there are going to be hearings until they do.”

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld arrives at the 46th annual Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas, April 3, 2011.

Via: Sam Morris / Reuters

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that the Obama administration picking a battle with the press was a "risky thing to do," predicting there would be many hearings in the future. Rumsfeld was appearing on conservative talk show host Dana Loesch's radio program to promote his new book, Rumsfeld's Rules, which was published Tuesday.

"That's always been a rule, to be careful — you don't want to have the truck back up over you. Once you start doing that, it's difficult," Rumsfeld said, responding to a question from Loesch about whether it was "kind of bad to pick a bad fight with people who buy ink by the barrel." Rumsfeld added, "On the other hand, the president has to do what he thinks is right, and if he feels he's been wronged, I suppose he's got to say so. But it is a very risky thing to do."

Rumsfeld said the Obama administration was in a "complicated" position, dealing with several crises.

"I think it's very complicated for them, because they now have things coming at them from every direction. Dealing with a crisis — and they've got several at once — is really exhausting for people, and you're kind of prone to make another mistake once you've made one. The 'climb, conserve, and confess' good advice if you're lost like that is to just take a deep breath, step back, and just say the truth. The truth is, we have to get this straight, and they're gonna have to get it straight, and there are going to be hearings until they do."

Here's the audio of the exchange:

View Video ›

Via:

Carney says Obama’s agenda is still on track despite a bad couple weeks.

View Video ›

WASHINGTON — President Obama is still governing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters Tuesday.

Asked two questions about how three big stories — Benghazi, the IRS, and the AP phone records — were affecting the president's ability to get things done, Carney said the push for a budget deal and comprehensive immigration reform are still on track.

"The president is focused on what he believes the American people expect from him and from their leaders in Washington and you have seen that and you will continue to see that in the days and weeks and months ahead," Carney said when asked if the scandals were affecting Obama's legislative ability.

The three stories have gripped Washington, leading to the promise of investigations from Congressional committees and public criticism of the White House from both Republicans and Democrats. Carney said there's no "siege mentality," however.

Obama will continue "working with Congress as you've seen over the last weeks and months, to see if we can find common ground on reducing our deficit in a balanced way that will help the economy grow," Carney said. He added that the White House is still working to "achieve what will hopefully be a bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill that this president can sign into law."

"We are focused on these fundamental issues that the American people sent this president to this office twice now to focus on," he said.

DOJ officials stand by the decision to pull phone records for the nation’s largest wire service.

Via: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Deputy Attorney General James Cole defended DOJ's seizure of two months worth of Associated Press phone records, telling the news service that the decision to pull the records complied with Department rules and was necessary to protect national security.

In a letter to AP President Gary Pruitt, Cole insisted that, "We strive in every case to strike the proper balance between the public's interest in the free flow of information and the public's interest in the protection of national security and effective enforcement of our criminal laws. We believe we have done so in this matter."

On Monday the AP reported that in an unprecedented move, DOJ had pulled its phone records as part of an investigation into national security leaks. Cole's letter was first reported by the Huffington Post.

But Cole did not provide any rationale for the secret subpoena that was used to pull phone records in multiple bureaus, as well as the personal records of AP reporters and editors. The only justification Cole gave in the letter was that "in this case, the Department undertook a comprehensive investigation, including, among other investigative steps, conducting over 550 interviews and reviewing tens of thousands of documents, before seeking the toll records at issue."

Under Department rules, DOJ can seize a news outlet's phone records using a secret subpoena, but only after exhausting other avenues of investigation and only if requesting them from the outlet could jeopardize the investigation.

Earlier in the day, Attorney General Eric Holder had echoed the letter, telling reporters that based on his relationship with Cole and others involved in making the decision, he was sure nothing improper had been done. "Based on the people I know [it] was done in accordance with DOJ regs," Holder told reporters.

Meanwhile, the Standing Committee of Correspondents, which represents daily news reporters including the AP on Capitol Hill, is preparing it's own formal complaint to DOJ over the scandal. Committees representing other parts of the media on Capitol Hill are also considering sending similar complaints to DOJ.

As part of its record sweep, DOJ pulled phone records for lines used by AP reporters in in the House of Representatives.

View Entire List ›

The law, allowing same-sex couples to marry, takes effect Aug. 1. Minnesota is the 12th state, plus DC, to recognize marriage equality, following on the heels of passage in Rhode Island and Delaware.

Via: @MN4allfamilies

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“Sometimes with the spotlight constantly on it as an issue can make it tougher,” says Rep. Castro.

Via: Barbara L. Salisbury/MCT

WASHINGTON — Rep. Joaquin Castro and pro-immigration reform policy analysts said Tuesday that the recent flurry of scandals dogging the Obama White House wouldn't distract from the immigration effort — in fact, they said, it could even actually help.

While the Senate's so-called gang of eight pushes forward with a comprehensive immigration reform bill, President Obama has had his hands full with the continued fallout from the attacks last year in Benghazi and, more recently, with controversies surrounding Internal Revenue Service practices and the Department of Justice's investigation into the Associated Press.

But asked by BuzzFeed's Ben Smith whether the incidents could hurt the immigration bill's momentum, observers on both sides of the aisle said no.

Castro, a Democrat from Texas, said, "You could actually argue that either way," but added that with the media's attention on the IRS and DOJ stories, members of Congress could "go behind the scenes and work."

"Sometimes with the spotlight constantly on it as an issue can make it tougher," said Castro.

"I think these distracting scandals actually help its chances of passing," said Mickey Kaus, a left-leaning pundit and contributor to the site The Daily Caller. "Every time [the bill] is at center stage, its chances of passing go down."

Mario Lopez, the president of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, agreed, arguing that it could only be a positive development that the White House is engaged in what he called "their own long list of failures."

"The only time I worry about immigration not pasing is when the White House gets more involved," said Lopez. "When they perk up, it only hurts the bill."

Clarissa Martinez, of the nonpartisan Council of La Raza, said only that the scandals would not have an effect on the bill. "I think [the bill] is gonna pass. The moral, the economic, and the political imperatives are aligned."

“I wouldn’t say that possibility doesn’t exist,” says Castro. But calls on Republicans to support it.

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Via:

WASHINGTON — Rep. Joaquin Castro called on Republicans Tuesday to support the amendment to include rights for same-sex marriage couples in the Senate immigration bill.

"There needs to be movement on that issue, and there needs to be improvement on that issue," said Castro, "whether or not Republicans have the guts to vote that way."

But Castro acknowledged that equal treatment for same-sex couples under immigration law, proposed last week in an amendment by Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, could kill the comprehensive reform bill.

"I mean, honestly, there is that possibility. I wouldn't say that that possibility doesn't exist," he said, speaking at a panel hosted by BuzzFeed in Washington, D.C. "It is, particularly for Republicans, a sticky issue."

"But at the end of the day," Castro said, "you have to stand up for what you believe."

Good effort! Good try!!

Source: @fgonzalez1978