Justice Dept. Emails Target Reporter Attkisson
When former CBS investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson delved into the Fast and Furious gun scandal and reported on the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, then tried to uncover the truth of what happened to four Americans who died in Benghazi, Libya -- something began to happen.
The Obama administration used hardball tactics to discourage, block and suppress her Emmy Award-winning investigative work, and she says her bosses at CBS News did nothing.
Now comes a possible smoking gun: the federal watchdog group Judicial Watch forced the Obama administration to turn over some 42,000 pages of documents related to the Fast and Furious scandal, during which U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry and scores of Mexicans died when guns were transported from the U.S. into Mexico.
PJ Media reports one of those documents was an October 4, 2011, email from Attorney General Eric Holder's top press aide, Tracy Schmaler, calling Attkisson "out of control."
Schmaler, who has since left the Justice Department, told White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz that she planned to call CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer to stop Attkisson.
Schultz's reply: "Good. Her piece was really bad for the AG [Attorney-General]."
Schultz told Schmaler that he was working with a National Journal reporter to target Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican head of the House Government Oversight Committee. Issa conducted hearings on Fast and Furious as well as Benghazi. A few weeks later, the reporter wrote a critical piece on Issa.
Attkisson claims in her book, Stonewalled, that her computers and phone lines were hacked and bugged by sophisticated parties most likely tied to the government.
She left CBS News earlier this year, saying she was having difficulty getting stories that didn't show the Obama administration in a favorable light on the air.
