Former CBS-TV anchor Sharyl Attkisson has revealed in a YouTube video and leak to the New York Post more details of how government agents under the Obama administration have wiretapped journalists.
Attkisson made a name for herself at CBS for reporting on Obama administration scandals such as Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and waste from the TARP bailout. But she also ran up against the self-censorship of her progressive editors, whose first inclination was to protect the Obama administration. Attkisson claimed in a YouTube video released by her book publisher HarperCollins,
I was at home working on questions for yet another story that the Obama administration was unhappy with related to the Benghazi terrorist attacks. And as I was typing and working on questions for a Benghazi-related story, the data started wiping kind of at hyperspeed, being deleted, as if my computer had been hijacked and I had no control over it. I had a phone next to me, so I was able to sort of get a tilted picture of a little bit of the data being deleted. I knew because I’d had so many anomalies over the past year and a half two years — that somebody was interfering with the computer. It was described to me by the computer experts I consulted with afterwards that that was purely an attempt to let me know that they could do that, that they were watching, that they were in my computer. So I think in general, I’m just one of the reporters, top on the list, of those that they watch and that they disagree with and that they fight.
That’s not just paranoia. Her former employer, CBS News, confirmed more than a year ago that her work computer had been hacked — presumably by government officials. CBS spokesman Sonya McNair told the Washington Post for June 14, 2013, “A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts.” Other journalistic opponents of White House policies — most notably the Associated Press before 2013 — have also found themselves being hacked by government officials as well.
According to the New York Post, Attkisson quotes a source in her book who summarized what was done to her: “This is outrageous. Worse than anything Nixon ever did. I wouldn’t have believed something like this could happen in the United States of America.” The Nixon administration was brought down after a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex, and compilation of an official “enemies list” of journalists.
Shortly after CBS confirmed that Attkisson’s computer had been hacked, the television network came to an officially “amicable” separation, but her upcoming book is expected to reveal the inner workings of leftist bias at CBS among corporate executives. The New York Post’s Kyle Smith drew a different picture from the publicly touted amicable separation in an October 25 analysis:
Two of her former bosses, CBS Evening News executive producers Jim Murphy and Rick Kaplan, called her a “pit bull.”
That was when Sharyl was being nice.
Now that she’s no longer on the CBS payroll, this pit bull is off the leash and tearing flesh off the behinds of senior media and government officials.
The leaks are promotions to her book, Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington. It will be released November 4 by HarperCollins Publishers.
