DOJ Allegedly Spied on Fox News Correspondent, the FBI Investigates Bachmann, and More

Spy Games:

It appears the Justice Department’s surveillance of The Associated Press was not an isolated incident. According to an article in The Washington Post, the DOJ spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen in connection with a 2009 investigation into a North Korea leak, tracing his phone records, tracking his comings and goings from the State Department through security badge access records and obtaining a warrant to search his personal emails. Rosen’s account was accessed so the government could root out his source for a story about how North Korea would likely respond to added U.N. sanctions through more nuclear tests. The alleged source is Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a government adviser who was charged in 2010 with disclosing national defense information. (Read more)

Scandal Mongers: Though they’re making a big to-do about it now, Republicans actually knew about the IRS’ additional questioning of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status nearly a year ago, according to ABC News. In July, IRS Inspector General J. Russell George sent a letter to GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, informing him the issue was being investigated and offering to keep him updated on it. And what’s more, an aide to Issa said the Oversight Committee knew about the audit because it had made the request for it in the first place. The letter in which Issa makes the request is dated June 28, 2012. (Read more)

Intensifying Investigation: The FBI is now involved in the probe of Michele Bachmann’s 2012 presidential bid. The Minnesota congresswoman’s failed campaign has been under intense scrutiny over complaints that she improperly used her super PAC to pay an Iowa state senator, and that the state senator stole and used an email list from a Bachmann campaign staffer. The Office of Congressional Ethics, the Federal Election Commission and an Iowa state Senate ethics committee also are looking into the matter. However, the FBI’s entry into the investigation signals the possibility of criminal violations. (Read more)

War on Women Update: From the state that tried to make it mandatory for women to undergo an invasive transvaginal probe in order to get an abortion, there’s this: The Virgina lawmaker who won the Republican nomination for attorney general this weekend once proposed a law that would have essentially criminalized not reporting a miscarriage in certain instances. According to Think Progress, the bill proposed by state Sen. Mark Obenshain would have forced any woman who had a miscarriage without a doctor present to report it to police within 24 hours or risk going to jail for a year. The legislation did not pass, but as Think Progress observed, “Even without Obenshain’s bill, Virginia law already treats many miscarriages as potential crimes.” (Read more)

Video of the Day: Sorry, Republicans. The Benghazi attacks that you can’t stop talking about aren’t on par with Watergate, so says the reporter who helped uncover the scandal that brought Richard Nixon down. “First of all, people are making comparisons to Watergate. This is not Watergate,” Bob Woodward said on “Meet the Press.” Still, Woodward says he thinks that “there are some people in the administration who have acted as if they want to be Nixonian, and that’s a very big problem.” He added: “This is a business where you have to tell the truth and that did not happen here.”