Washington (AP) —According to the Federal Observatory, a special customs and border protection unit used a sensitive government database aimed at tracking terrorists to a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter. We surveyed as many as 20 US-based journalists, including.
Yahoo News, which published an extensive report on the investigation, also found that the unit, the Counter Network Department, had queried the records of members of the House of Representatives and perhaps members of the House of Representatives.
Agent Jeffrey Lambo, who allowed journalists to perform checks in 2017, told federal agents that the practice was routine. “When the name comes across your desk, you run it through every system you have access to, it’s just the status quo, that’s what everyone does,” Rambo quoted as said by Yahoo News. I did.
AP has obtained an edited copy of the over 500-page report by a Homeland Security Inspector General. This copy contains the same statement, but the speaker’s name is blacked out. The Border Guard is part of DHS.
The revelation warned the press and urged a request for full explanation.
“We are deeply concerned about this apparent abuse of power. This seems to be an example of a journalist simply aiming to do his job, which violates the First Amendment. “We are,” said Lauren Easton, AP’s director of media relations, in a statement.
CBP did not specifically mention the investigation in its own statement, but said: CBP does not investigate individuals who are justified and have no legal basis. “
An employee of Rambo’s Storymakers Coffee Roasters, a small storefront in the Barrio Logan district of San Diego, said on Saturday that Rambo couldn’t comment immediately. Rambo lives in San Diego.
The new disclosure is just the latest example of a federal agency using their power to investigate the contacts of journalists and others.
Earlier this year, Attorney General Merrick Garland officially banned prosecutors from seizing journalist records in leak investigations, but with a few exceptions, overturned years of department policy. Did. The action came after protests against the revelation that the Trump Department of Justice had obtained records belonging to journalists, Democrats and their aides, and former White House adviser Don McGurn.
During the Obama administration, federal agents secretly seized the phone records of some AP reporters and editors. These seizures included not only mobile phones, but also offices and homelines.
The use of databases by Rambo and the CBP unit was more extensive than previously known. Inspectors mentioned the possibility of criminal accusations for misusing government databases and lying to investigators, but the Justice Department refused to prosecute Lambo and two other DHS employees. did.
Rambo complained to Yahoo News that CBP wasn’t standing by him and that he was being misrepresented in the news coverage.
“None of these articles have identified me, but I’m a law enforcement officer who has had the real purpose of actually doing what I’m doing, eliminating fraud,” he said. rice field. It refuses to make that wrong right. “
Rambo had previously accessed reporter Ali Watkins’ travel records and was subsequently identified as an agent working at Politico, asking her about sensitive sources. Watkins is currently contributing to The New York Times.
Rambo was assigned to the CBP Unit, which is part of the National Targeting Center in Sterling, Virginia, in 2017. He told investigators that he first approached Watkins as part of an extensive effort to get reporters to write about forced labor around the world as national security. problem.
According to an unedited summary obtained by Yahoo News, he also described a similar effort with AP reporter Martha Mendoza. “I was able to scrutinize Mendoza as a reputable reporter,” Rambo’s forces said before trying to establish a relationship with her for her writing expertise in forced labor. Mendoza was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the second time in 2016 as part of a team reporting on slave labor in Southeast Asian fishing.
Dan White, a supervisor at Rambo in Washington, told investigators that his unit operates Mendoza through multiple databases: “CBP says one of Mendoza’s phone numbers is a terrorist. I found it connected, “Yahoo News reported. White’s case was also prosecuted and dismissed.
The Associated Press’s Easton said, “The Associated Press’s investigative journalist, Martha Mendoza, and other journalists examined the databases used to track terrorists and identified them as potential sensitive sources. We are requesting the United States Customs and Border Protection to explain immediately. “
It was Rambo’s approach to Watkins that led to the inspector general’s investigation. He sought her to facilitate his work on forced labor on the surface, but Rambo quickly focused on investigating the leak. Rambo named the brand of whiskey he drank when he met Watkins at a bar in Washington, DC in June 2017, “Operation Whiskey Pig.”
Only James Wolfe, a former security director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who had a personal relationship with Watkins, was charged and convicted of Rambo’s efforts. Wolf pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with reporters.
During the conversation with the FBI agent, Rambo was extensively asked about his interest in Watkins. He used his travel records to confront her about her relationship with Wolf and claimed that Wolf was the source of her story. Watkins acknowledged the relationship, but claimed that Wolf did not provide information on her story.
Rambo said Watkins wasn’t the only reporter to look at records through the government’s database, but said in an interview with the FBI that he was only looking to see if Wolf provided sensitive information. Rambo said he had “performed a CBP record check” for “15-20 national security reporters,” according to the FBI summary of the question contained in the Inspector General’s report.
New York Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades-Ha said new details about Watkins’ investigation raised new concerns.
“It’s very difficult to know how the U.S. Customs and Border Protection conducted this investigation against journalist sources. As the Attorney General clearly states, the government is an excuse to thwart journalism. It is time to stop using the leak investigation as the Customs and Border Protection will publish a complete record of what happened in this investigation to prevent repeated improper conduct. rice field.”
Watkins also said, “CBP and DHS officials seem to have tried to identify sources of journalism and delve into my personal life. It was cold at the time, but it’s still cold.”
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San Diego’s Associated Press writer Elliott Spagut contributed to this report.
Watchdog; Federal Counter Terrorist Unit Investigates Journalists | WGN Radio 720
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