Sharyl Attkisson Testifies: If You Cross The Obama Administration, You Will Be Attacked and Punished

◼ Investigative reporter and author of Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington Sharyl Attkisson testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday as part of attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch's confirmation hearing. - Katie Pavlich/Townhall

During her testimony, Attkisson detailed government intimidation she has endured under the Obama administration, particularly through the Department of Justice, for pursuing investigative stories unfavorable to the administration. Attkisson has been an investigative reporter for decades and has pursued stories of government corruption, waste, fraud and abuse in both political parties.

"The job of getting at the truth has never been more difficult. Facets of federal government have isolated themselves from the public they serve. They covet and withhold public information that we as citizens own. They bully and threaten access of journalists who do their jobs, news organizations that publish stories they don't like and whistleblowers who dare to tell the truth," Attkisson said. "When I reported on factual contradictions in the Administration's accounts regarding Fast and Furious, pushback included a frenzied campaign with White House officials trying to chill the reporting by calling and emailing my superiors and colleagues, using surrogate bloggers to advance false claims, one White House official got so mad he angrily cussed me out. The Justice Department used its authority with building security to handpick reports allowed to attend a Fast and Furious briefing, refusing to clear me into the public Justice Department building."

"Let me emphasize that my reporting was factually indisputable, government officials weren't angry because I was doing my job poorly, they were panicked because I was doing my job well," she added.

◼ Attkisson: Reporters treated like 'enemies of the state' under Obama - The Hill

"If you cross this administration with perfectly accurate reporting they don’t like, you will be attacked and punished,” Attkisson said. "You and your sources may be subjected to the kind of a surveillance devised for enemies of the state."

DOJ: Attkisson computer hack caused by 'back space key being stuck'... http://t.co/67w4P8uN5t

— DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) January 29, 2015

“Why did the president of the United States have to step in and keep these things secret, and declare executive privilege?”

◼ Ex-CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson Shares New Revealing Emails From Gov’t Official: ‘She’s Out of Control’ - Erica Ritz/The Blaze

Former CBS investigative reporter and author of “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington” Sharyl Attkisson shared new government documents that she says prove the Obama administration is “spinning” taxpayers with their own money.

“Among some of the documents that are being forced to be released now are documents that discuss … my news stories, my Freedom of Information Act requests,” Attkisson explained on The Glenn Beck Program Thursday. “Why did the president of the United States have to step in and keep these things secret, and declare executive privilege?”

Attkisson said one of the documents is an October 4, 2011 email from Tracy Schmaler, the top press aide of outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, to the White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz.

“I’m also calling Sharyl’s editor and reaching out to Schieffer. She is out of control,” Schmaler wrote of Attkisson.

“Good, her piece was really bad for the AG,” the White House deputy press secretary responded, according to the documents. Attkisson said she was reporting on the Fast and Furious scandal at the time.

“It’s what I say in the book. They use your tax dollars to pay their salaries, to spin us and target us,” Attkisson remarked. “If you dare to go after them, they will target you, try to assassinate your character, they’ll call your bosses, they’ll email. We know all of this is going on, but we now have emails that they’ve been withholding under executive privilege that refer to this.”
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◼ Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington.

Bombshell Emails: White House Coordinated With Department of Labor To Hide Illegal Obama Fundraiser Hilda Solis’ Schedule

◼ As TheDC previously reported, Solis illegally fundraised for the Obama campaign and headlined a Latino-themed Obama fundraiser while on a trip in her official capacity as a Cabinet member, which is forbidden by the Hatch Act. - Daily Caller

A quiet, behind-the-scenes FBI investigation into Solis’ Hatch Act violation led to her resignation from the Obama administration at the beginning of his second term – and handed Solis a hefty check for legal advice from the Washington arm of the politically-connected Chicago law firm Sidley Austin. (The Daily Caller, meanwhile, is permanently banned from talking to employees at the Department of Labor — which oddly hasn’t stopped us.)

But Solis’ department continued coordinating with the White House on requests for Solis’ records.

“This was a generic request for calendar,” Secretary of Labor official Deborah Greenfield wrote to Associate White House Counsel Kathleen Hartnett on April 8, 2013. ”This is the issue. We withheld this entry, and it is now on appeal. Any issues with disclosing?”...

The truth shouldn’t be partisan." -- Sen Ted. Cruz

◼ Ted Cruz Wants Answers to These 4 Questions on Benghazi - Heritage

Speaking to Fox News’ Neil Cavuto yesterday, Cruz said: “We have four dead Americans. We have the first dead U.S. Ambassador killed in service since 1979. In the 19 months that have followed, we don’t have a single dead terrorist or a single terrorist apprehended, and what we have seen from the president and Senate Democrats has been stonewalling.”

Here are the four questions Cruz wants the Obama administration to answer:

◼ Why did the State Department repeatedly refuse to provide additional security as was requested by personnel on the ground?
◼ Why did the United States not have military assets in place to protect American men and women on Sept. 11, 2012, when there was increased terrorist activity in the region?
◼ During the Benghazi attack, why didn’t the United States send in forces to protect the four men who lost their lives?
◼ In the 19 months that have followed, why has no one been apprehended, and no one been brought to justice?

Obama charged with blocking IRS probe, breaking promises to help

◼ A House chairman probing the IRS scandal on Wednesday said that President Obama has reneged on a promise to have his aides cooperate with the investigation, forcing the Ways and Means Committee to conduct a dragnet for emails and documents needed to smoke out the truth. - Paul Bedard/Washington Examiner

Rep. Dave Camp also revealed that federal agents conducting an investigation into the Internal Revenue Service's bid to punish Tea Party and conservative critics of the president have yet to talk to a single target of the scandal....

“I don’t fully understand why it’s taken them so long given that the president promised,” Camp said at a media roundtable hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “He promised that he would have quick action and we still don’t have the documents from an agency that is in this administration."

His committee has been frustrated with the administration's failure to cough up emails from Lois Lerner, who ran the IRS department that blocked Tea Party groups from winning the typically quick approval of tax exempt status. Lerner was on Capitol Hill Wednesday where she refused to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“I still don’t have all of her emails. I still don’t have all of the documents that I’ve requested. The administration promised a quick action, and I’m still waiting for her emails,” said Camp, a Michigan Republican. “I need all of those, before I can conclude.”

By refusing to make good on his promise, Camp said that Obama and his administration is to blame for dragging out the investigations. Had Lerner not refused to testify to his committee earlier, Camp said “we probably would be at the bottom of what this is all about.”