Appearing Monday on Fox News, Karl Rove attacked the Obama administration’s surveilling of Fox reporter James Rosen in a leak investigation as “chilling” and its rationale for doing so “beyond the pale.”
“We had to confront this question during the Bush administration,” he said. “There were leaks of classified information and in each and every instance, the focus was on the potential leak, not the reporter who received it.”
Rove defended the need to prosecute leaks but said the media shouldn’t be targeted.
“This is really chilling,” he said.
Host Megyn Kelly noted that in 2005, New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail for refusing to reveal a source.
Rove said of Rosen: “This is a clear declaration by the FBI and Department of Justice they considered him a target of a criminal investigation, and wanted to prosecute him for criminal conspiracy. This is beyond the pale.”
Due to a transcribing error, an earlier version of this post misattributed to Rove a quote by Kelly about Miller going to jail in 2005. It has been corrected.