The Czar is taking the latest scandal—or it was the latest at the time of writing; they’ll probably find some new one by the time you read this—involving the Department of Justice and their apparently inappropriate seizing of the Associated Press’ phone records much more seriously than many other people on the Right.

This presidency is unbelievable. God grant we all survive until 2016. It will be close.

The Department of Justice seizes phone records all the time for investigations, as this is a basic step in many criminal investigations. Believe it or not, but a lot of phone conversations go on before, during, and after crimes and proving person A talked to person B is quite often a key piece of evidence in establishing who, when, and where.

Let us be clear—these were not phone taps. The Department of Justice was not evidently listening to conversations, but instead studied the dialing habits of at least 20 AP reporters: the record lists day, time, what number was called, and the duration of the call.

So what, say many people. Many on the Left think this is harmless enough information; many on the Right dismiss this: sure, you ignore the Gosnell trial, sleep through Benghazi, laugh about the IRS scandal, but the instant someone looks at the media’s phone calls, wow, what a huge scandal.

Indeed, it is a huge scandal. Let us walk you through why.

In all cases, you need a warrant to obtain phone records of private individuals. No such warrant appears to be issued, which is illegal. However, the phone companies are so used to giving the Department of Justice phone numbers—with warrants—on request that they did not even bother to check.

Second, it can be clearly established who was called. This means that the Department of Justice can identify each and every confidential source a reporter spoke to. If you know journalists, you never reveal or give up a confidential source—reporters have even gone to jail for obstruction of justice when they refuse to reveal a source. It is every bit as sacred, although not as legally protected, as a doctor-patient relationship or a priest-confessor relationship. In cases where a reporter is held for obstruction, they usually are released because the First Amendment implies that freedom of the press means protecting confidential sources: if you cannot protect yourself from revealing a source, you might not be inclined to print a story. Ergo, the First Amendment means you can deny the law information if it would otherwise curtail your freedom to print. And so forth; it is more complicated, but we are running out of space and readers.

The thought that law enforcement now knows their confidential sources should have at least 20 reporters screaming in genuine terror. This is a massive betrayal of trust as well as their Constitutional rights—just as if they were Catholics. This has never happened before in the entire history of the United States, and reporters are right to feel under attack.

So why did they do it? Fortunately, the Czar had long-time minion and rap master MC walk him through this one before most of the story became common news. On May 7, 2012, the AP learned that the Yemeni government foiled a serious terrorist attack involving American aircraft. They assembled most of the story, and contacted the FBI to confirm some of the details. The FBI was shocked to hear so much information was being shared with the AP, and contacted CIA Director John Brennan to ask him if he or his personnel had spoken to the AP. Brennan denied any contact with the media.

Shortly thereafter, the Department of Justice (holding company of the FBI) took AP’s phone records and began searching for any phone numbers that might indicate who was the source of the information. Very probably they found out who all the sources were.

But a curious thing: the FBI does not concern itself with revelations of national security unless criminal charges are potentially involved. Really, what does the FBI care if the Yemeni government stopped a terrorist attack? They would only investigate, of course, if they were ordered to by…the Department of Justice.

And the Department of Justice reports directly to the President. The CIA, who does care about national security leaks, reports to the President directly, with a dotted line to the National Security Council. Curiously, the Department of Justice has a dotted line to the CIA as well, but that is largely for information sharing. Why would the CIA leak information to the press and then ask the Department of Justice to investigate who leaked it?

That makes no sense, so why would this happen? Well, the Associated Press believes it knows the answer: the news story about Yemen exposed a flaw in the President’s re-election campaign. The White House stated that there was “no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden’s death.” The Yemeni government proved that to be not just false, but a lie—the CIA was already on to the perpetrators, which meant they had perfectly credible information.

So here it is: the President—just as he did with Benghazi—tried to portray himself as the Destroyer of all things al-Qāʿidah. And at the worst possible moment, al-Qāʿidah exposed him as a fool. Rather than say nothing to the public—and then let the CIA do their job—the President had the NSC, CIA, and Department of Justice conceal the story to avoid making him look foolish in an election year.

But someone talked, and the White House had the Department of Justice attempt to nail the sucker who did it. When the AP refused to reveal the source (although they did agree to sit on the story for a few days), Justice simply stole their phone records and Googled the phone numbers.

The story is not directly linked to the Benghazi travesty, but the mentality behind both are the same.

Thanks again to MC for his help in this account; no doubt he will send us an email correcting half the information in here.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.