Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington

by Sharyl Attkisson

  On February 18, 2014, Coburn issues a follow-up letter to the Justice Department pointing out that none of his questions from the previous July had been answered in its December response.

  “The [Justice] Department’s restatement of my questions reflected neither the intent of the original questions, or the spirit of the inquiry at hand,” Coburn wrote. He then asked Holder to re-review the original questions and provide numbered responses.

  Five months later, more than a year after the original congressional query was posed, the Justice Department had still provided no further response.

  | AUDACITY

  In September 2013, Ambassador Thomas Pickering agrees to do a sit-down interview with me about his work heading up the State Department Accountability Review Board’s (ARB) controversial Benghazi report. The ARB is under fire for possible conflicts of interest and for its decision not to interview relevant officials, including then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

  The White House is already panicky over my reporting on the ARB controversies, some of which are raised in a Republican congressional report in advance of a hearing. On September 18, 2013, White House officials deploy the usual tactics. Direct contact with CBS officials. Multipronged approach.

  On this occasion, the White House dispatches separate emails to different CBS officials an hour apart. Each email is signed by a different White House official, as if each one had written the email himself. But the text is nearly identical. Clearly they’ve held their regular spin meeting (on the taxpayer’s dime), coordinated their pushback plan, and distributed the wording each spinner would use in his email to various CBS officials and probably others in the media.

  First, an email from White House spokesman Carney to Bureau Chief Isham. Carney begins by referring to a prior email he’d already apparently sent to CBS managers complaining about my Benghazi reporting earlier in the week:

  Hey Chris—not sure if you saw my email marveling at Sharyl A’s exclusive preview of a Darrell Issa press release. It got me wondering whether she, or CBS, might be interested in giving equal weight to a Benghazi story based on some hard facts. Since CBS has been relentless in promoting the idea that there’s a scandal and cover-up, I think overlooking the exonerating material after months of heavy coverage of political accusations does a disservice to everybody.

  An hour later, White House spinmeister Eric Shultz tries our White House correspondent Major Garrett with this similarly worded email:

  Hello sir . . . Yes, I am actually pitching you a Benghazi story and I think this is fairly important. Usually this stuff gets lost in between Hill and WH beats—want to be sure this doesn’t this time. CBS has been relentless on this so I want to make sure you guys don’t overlooking [sic] the exonerating material.

  Carney continues to Isham:

  Because we know if it was the reverse—we’d be deluged in coverage. So only seems fair to report on the exculpatory material. Three different themes we noticed below (with page number cites!) . . . let me know if we can otherwise be helpful.

  —Jay

  And Schultz to Garrett:

  And we know if it was the reverse—we’d be deluged in coverage. So only seems fair to report on the exculpatory material. Three different themes we noticed below (with page number cites!) . . . let me know if we can otherwise be helpful.

  —Eric

  Both emails include identical spin referring to “Republican conspiracy theories” and quotes that dispel the theories. The material isn’t exculpatory at all in terms of anything that I’ve reported, but the White House must be sending versions of these emails to media representatives all over Washington and New York in hopes that media surrogates and bloggers will adopt the spin and treat it as if it’s factually setting the record straight.

  That very night, with Schultz, Carney, and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my very eyes. Deleted line by line in a split second: it’s gone, gone, gone.

  I press the mouse pad and keyboard to try to stop it, but I have no control. The only time I’ve seen anything like this is in those movies where the protagonist desperately tries to copy crucial files faster than the antagonist can remotely wipe them.

  I press down on the mouse pad of my MacBook Air and it pauses. I let up and the warp-speed deletions resume. Interesting. I have to either sit here stuck with my thumb on the mouse pad or lift it and watch my work disappear. The whole file would be erased in a matter of seconds. My iPhone is sitting on the bed next to me and I grab it with my right hand while using the thumb of my left hand to keep the mouse pad depressed and the action paused. Hit the video camera function, record, and lift my thumb off the mouse pad long enough to capture a few seconds of the action on video. Don’t want to let it erase too much. While still holding down the mouse pad with my thumb, I use my index finger to try to work the cursor up to the file button, hoping to save and close the file. But the drop-down menu is disabled. Eventually, I find that all I have the ability to do is close out the file. As soon as it shuts, another file that’s still open begins slow deletions as if the backspace button is being held down. But I’m not touching the keys. I close that file, too, and disconnect the computer from my FiOS Wi-Fi, which stops the weird behavior.

  The next day, I show the video recording of the deletions to two experienced computer experts who are familiar with my case. They both agree that it shows someone remotely accessing my computer. Somebody who apparently wanted me to know it.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes,” says one of the technicians. “They’re fucking with you. There’s no other purpose. They want you to know they’re still there.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” says the other. “I’d have to agree they’re trying to send you a message. They’re saying, ‘We’re still watching. See what we can do to you.’ ”

  It takes audacity. To be so bold after all the public scandals, long after they know I discovered their presence in my private and work computers. It reminds me of an impetuous child sticking out his tongue while standing behind his mother’s skirt. It’s the mission of cowards. Of people who have little confidence in their own abilities and believe their only hope at maintaining control is to intimidate and steal and suppress information. What power that they have isn’t earned; it’s what they’re able to grab for a short time while they have access to all the toys. We only have ourselves to blame. They wouldn’t be able to do this unless we—the public, Congress, and the news media—allowed it. But we do and they know they can act with impunity.

  | THE YEAR OF MASS SURVEILLANCE EXPOSED

  In October 2013, one of my sources who currently works in the government says that his federal bosses have pulled his phone records to see if he’s talking out of school. Not because he’s leaked classified information or done anything wrong. Quite the contrary: he knows of others in his agency who have committed ethical and possibly legal violations. So they’re snooping into his phone records. How does he know? They told him so. They want him to know. That way, maybe he’ll keep his mouth shut. After reviewing his calls, including some to an official on Capitol Hill, they approach him and say, “You’re talking to them?”

  My name and number aren’t in the records that they checked. The source and I have figured out an alternate way to communicate. But the government monitoring of its employees, citizens, and news media—to protect its own political interests, not to protect us from terrorists—is becoming a fact of life. If nobody stands up to stop it, we’ll all have to just get used to being watched by our government.

  As 2013, the year of mass-surveillance-secrets-exposed, draws to a close, we’re not finished learning about the government’s reach into our private lives. In an article in the Washingt
on Post on December 4, Snowden’s documents reveal the NSA is collecting nearly five billion records a day on cell phone locations around the world, “enabling the agency to track the movements of individuals—and map their relationships—in ways that would have been previously unimaginable.” According to an NSA official quoted in the article, the agency is “tapping into the cables that connect mobile networks globally.” Even when you’re not using your phone, it’s broadcasting its location. “The government is tracking people from afar into confidential business meetings or personal visits to medical facilities, hotel rooms, private homes and other traditionally protected spaces,” reports the Post. Other highlights include the fact that this particular NSA database is more than twice the size of the text content of the Library of Congress print collection, and that there’s so much material the NSA has had trouble ingesting, processing, and storing it.

  Though this is as big as any Snowden revelation so far, the reaction from most of the public, the press, and Congress seems a bit bored. These complex surveillance systems have been difficult to explain, digest, and comprehend. If you ask most ordinary Americans, they might be able to tell you the government has gotten caught invading the public’s privacy, but they probably couldn’t tell you much more than that. Some of us in the media haven’t done an adequate job explaining all of this in a clear and accurate fashion.

  Also, there have been so many staggering revelations in a short period of time, people have become desensitized. We’ve suffered through all the stages: outrage, denial, rejection. I wonder if the public has reached a complacent sort of acceptance.

  | THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT IG

  When the two agents from the Department of Justice Inspector General’s office pull into my driveway, on January 15, 2014, I try to size them up. White guys, nice looking, early forties, impeccable dark suits, colorful ties. No rumpled collars here. One of them, Digital Forensics and Technology Investigations Unit Director Keith Bonanno, comes from a buttoned-down bureaucratic background. The other, Special Agent Harry Lidsky, looks more like a cop or spook.

  They’re here to pick up my personal Apple iMac desktop computer for a forensics analysis. It’s been one year since Number One first confirmed the intrusion on my CBS laptop. The IG can’t have my work laptop since that belongs to CBS. But the iMac is all mine and there may be evidence on it, too. I’ve decided to let them examine it.

  I’m taking a chance entrusting my computer to a team that’s connected to the agency that may hold responsibility for my intrusions. But it’s okay. My personal forensics team is conducting its own analysis. I continue to believe that the worst-case scenario is the IG finds nothing. Best case? Maybe they turn up something we don’t yet have.

  Bonanno drags in a rolling briefcase and the two men step into my living room. I have a little help to size them up: my husband, who’s the most accurate profiler I know, and a friend who’s taken an interest in the case.

  Bonanno and Lidsky also want to look at my Verizon box where the mysterious, dangling cable was found and removed before it disappeared a little more than a year ago. The three of us take the two of them outside to the Verizon box and Bonanno takes pictures while they ask what the cable looked like and how it came to disappear. I explain that after the Verizon man removed it, I asked him to leave it, but it was gone when I later went back to retrieve it.

  “I have photographs of it,” I tell the agents.

  We go inside and I show them the pictures of the cable. They say they’ve never seen anything like that.

  We make small talk. Before the IG, Bonanno says he worked at the Department of Transportation. Lidsky’s former DEA and CIA. When he mentions the CIA, my friend says, “There are a lot of us ex-agency around . . .” alluding to his own status as a one-time CIA officer.

  “What did you do there—if you can tell me?” asks Lidsky.

  “Intelligence,” answers my friend.

  So they’ve got one and we’ve got one, I think, referring to the CIA backgrounds.

  After conducting a brief interview, Bonanno and Lidsky have me sign a piece of paper authorizing them to take my iMac. Then, they pack up their gear and my computer, and head out.

  | LESSONS LEARNED

  On November 20, 2013, I re-interview Fast and Furious whistleblower John Dodson. Pretty soon it’ll be three years since he first came forward and exposed the government’s gunwalking secrets on the CBS Evening News. He’s written a new book about the whole experience (The Unarmed Truth, published by a division of CBS partner Simon & Schuster). There are still many unanswered questions. During our interview, Dodson reflects on his own situation and how it applies to the scandals that have happened since.

  He sees Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservative groups, and the government spying stories as variations on the same theme.

  “It’s so reminiscent of everything that happened in Fast and Furious,” Dodson tells me. “It’s the same thing repeating itself over and over again. You know I refer to it as the self-licking ice-cream cone of the federal government. It’s there to simply enjoy itself while the rest of us have to pay for it.”

  ATF originally tries to block the book’s publication, saying it will hurt morale and damage ATF’s working relationships with the DEA and the FBI. When the American Civil Liberties Union and Senator Grassley stand up for Dodson’s right to publish, ATF relents and clears the book for publication.

  I contact ATF for comment on the Dodson book, and spokeswoman Ginger Colbrun, who succeeded the Fast and Furious era’s Scot Thomasson, reacts frostily. It’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

  “How are you?” I’m attempting to start off with a moment of small talk. “Do you have to work the holiday?” I ask, referring to the holiday the day after tomorrow.

  “I answered the phone, didn’t I?” Colbrun snaps back. Not a very professional response from a publicly paid PR official working on behalf of the public. Okay, this isn’t going to be friendly. Maybe not even courteous. She’s following in Thomasson’s footsteps.

  Colbrun says the agency has no interest in doing an interview about Dodson. Her tone indicates ATF still views Dodson as the enemy rather than a whistleblower who helped halt a misguided and harmful policy. No matter what mea culpa government officials have made for the benefit of the public or Congress, their basic attitudes haven’t changed. In a less political world, Dodson might be rewarded for his honesty. Instead, he’s odd man out. Colbrun conveys no sense of gratitude to or pride in Dodson. No sense of embarrassment over the government lies told to me, Congress, and the public along the way. No sense of regret for lives lost. They’re just mad at Dodson for telling the truth. Mad at me for reporting it.

  Interestingly, the Justice Department has barred Dodson from accepting payment for his book, claiming it would violate ethics rules. Dodson states, “I do find it hard to reconcile how the very same agencies who thought of, approved, and employed the strategies used in Fast and Furious only to later attempt to cover it up by lying to Congress and the American people, ignoring the rule of law, withholding documents, and smearing whistleblowers, now asserts themselves to be the sole authorities who preside over this or any other ‘ethical inquiry.’ The conflict is obvious.”

  Today, Dodson wants to stand as an example to others who see wrongdoing: you can step forward and expose it.

  “[My story] shows that they can’t totally take away your empowerment. You can make a difference,” Dodson tells me in an interview. “And there’s a lot of people out there that were in my position, that know things that are going on in the NSA, in the State Department, in the CIA or IRS. . . . It is their greatest fear, as a government, that we ever realize how much of that power we actually have. And what they have is, you know, given to them by us.”

  All I know is that, so far, the main impact of the exposure of the government’s dirty little surveillance secrets is that the government has doubled
down on leakers and whistleblowers. A chilling effect has been administered with surgical precision on anyone who might have thought about stepping forward.

  It’s July 2014 and one member of my team, Don Allison of KoreLogic, has been working on my computer puzzles for more than a year. I’ve come to understand why he came so highly recommended. The work has been difficult and tedious. But there’s no great hurry. Patience must be exercised. His task has been to unmask some of the most sophisticated computer intrusion efforts in existence. And he’s gathering clues and intel. Revealing new information, even now, about the surveillance of both my work and personal computers by an outside presence.

  Regarding my work laptop, Don tells me that his analysis shows CBS had the means and opportunity through corporate software to perform its own inside, complete remote acquisition and forensic analysis of the laptop as well as other platforms on their network as soon as I first informed them of the intrusion. If they did so, they didn’t tell me about it. Don can see that one party looking through my laptop showed particular interest in my Benghazi reporting work, opening and reading a key file.

  Don is also able to provide the best forensics detail yet of my personal desktop iMac. It reveals a sophisticated set of intrusions that were at least as invasive as the ones into my work laptop. The interlopers were able to co-opt my iMac and operate it remotely, as if they were sitting in front of it. They used a program to control parameters that allow for complete remote graphical access as one of the authorized users of the system.

  The unauthorized presence had complete control.

  It had access to emails, personal files, Internet browsing, passwords, execution of programs, financial records, and photographs of not just me but of my family members as well.

  The illegal infiltration included the ability to capture passwords and account information for my extended computing footprint as well, such as my external accounts with Hotmail, Facebook, Twitter, online banking credentials, and CBS corporate systems.