President Joe Biden said he would not allow his Justice Department to seize phone records or emails from journalists, even though he was silent on the issue when he was vice president.
CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins asked Biden about the issue after the Justice Department revealed Thursday that prosecutors had seized phone records and emails from CNN reporter Barbara Starr during former President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Only yours, but beyond yours…” Biden replied, with a grin.
“Absolutely positively it’s wrong. It’s simply, simply wrong,” Biden continued seriously.
“It’s simply, simply wrong. I will not let that happen,” President Biden tells me about the Justice Department seizing the records of reporters. pic.twitter.com/bRL88NssMr
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) May 21, 2021
When asked if he would allow his Justice Department to do the same thing, Biden replied, “I will not let that happen.”
But when he was vice president, Biden did not condemn the actions of Attorney General Eric Holder when he was caught spying on journalists from the Associated Press and Fox News when he was serving in former President Barack Obama’s administration.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki actually cited Holder as a “model” for press freedoms during the daily press briefing on Friday.
“They certainly intend to use the Holder model as their model, not the model of the last several years,” Psaki said.
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