US Attorney General Holder Grilled in Congress Over Justice Dept. Swoop on AP Phone Records

The leaders of a House panel told Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday that they had serious concerns about the Justice Department’s gathering of phone records at The Associated Press.

Attorney General Eric Holder says the search was justified to get to the bottom of one of the most serious leaks he’s ever seen.

But testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Holder said that he had earlier recused himself from the case, so had no knowledge of the secret subpoena or other details on why regulations to govern press subpoenas were bypassed.

But the story at issue appears to be an AP report on a CIA investigation into a bomb plot that was disrupted in Yemen last year.

Steven Aftergood directs the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, and he joins host Marco Werman to break down what this means.