Department of Justice prosecutors in Washington have joined a probe into the secret taping of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) campaign office, Politico reported on Thursday.
The case is complicated, however, by the fact that Curtis Morrison, who admitted to bugging the Louisville office, was once a paid freelancer for a local news outlet. Any decision to subpoena his records would require a sign off from Attorney General Eric Holder:
These latest developments underscore the sensitivity of the case involving McConnell, the most powerful Senate Republican and a vehement critic of President Barack Obama. Any delay or decision to forgo prosecution of Morrison would be used by the McConnell campaign as fodder to attack Obama’s Justice Department, as would an apparent decision by federal prosecutors to classify the liberal activist as a journalist and treat him accordingly.
Yet any DOJ investigation of journalists is itself an enormously sensitive topic in the aftermath of its subpoena of phone records from The Associated Press and the separate criminal probe into Fox News reporter James Rosen, both of which have generated major controversy.
