House panel vows report on Justice’s probe of Fox reporter

The House Judiciary Committee on Friday announced plans to issue a report on the Justice Department’s secret spying of a Fox News reporter’s emails and phone records, a move that came after a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder. 

{mosads}Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va) said the private meeting with Holder revealed new information about the DOJ’s leak investigation involving the reporter, James Rosen.

“The House Judiciary Committee intends to issue a report outlining its findings of its investigation into this matter,” the four lawmakers said in a statement following the meeting.

Rosen was named as a criminal co-conspirator in a search warrant that was part of the government’s case against Steven Kim, a State Department employee who has been charged with allegedly leaking sensitive information to Rosen. Kim has pleaded not guilty to the indictment.

Goodlatte and the committee have questioned Holder repeatedly about his involvement in signing off on the warrant. They have focused on whether the nation’s top cop intended to prosecute Rosen as part of the case against Kim.

Holder testified before the committee — and has repeatedly restated in letters to the panel — that the DOJ has never sought to bring charges against a journalist as part of any leak investigation.

In their statement following the meeting with Holder on Friday, the lawmakers said they got answers about the specifics of the case that they had been seeking, though they did not detail what information was revealed.

“We felt it was prudent to hold a private meeting with Attorney General Holder due to the pending prosecution of Mr. Kim,” said the lawmakers.

“The private meeting afforded us the opportunity to ask Attorney General Holder substantive questions about the ongoing prosecution and the relationship between Mr. Kim and Mr. Rosen that he would not have been able to answer in a public setting.”

No date has been set for the release of the committee’s report.