Independent journalist Sharyl Attkisson took aim at Politico’s Dylan Byers on Monday after he suggested her lawsuit against the Department of Justice for withholding FBI documents on an alleged computer hacking may be a publicity stunt.
“Maybe he’s waiting for the government to file charges against itself,” Attkisson told the Washington Examiner’s media desk. “But in the end, he’s a blogger … he’s allowed to write based on incomplete or incorrect information and say all those silly things.”
Attkisson, whose reporting during her time at CBS News often reflected poorly on the Obama administration, filed a lawsuit against DOJ in November, requesting that officials turn over all documents pertaining to the FBI’s investigation into the U.S. government’s alleged hacking of her computers.
In response to Attkisson’s lawsuit, Byers said on Monday: “If you believe [the U.S. government] hacked your computers this isn’t the way you go about doing it… if you want publicity, on the other hand.”
When contacted by the Examiner to clarify his meaning, Byers replied: “For a journalist to claim that the United States government hacked his or her computer is an extremely serious charge. Were said journalist to have concrete evidence of such a hack, a lawsuit would most certainly be in order.”
“I’ll leave it to legal experts to decide whether it would also be in order for said journalist to tweet about her suspicions at length, leak home videos of abnormal computer activity to the media, and claim in interviews to have ‘pretty good evidence’ of a government connection,” he said.
Attkisson did not take kindly to Byers’ criticism, explaining in an email that she only brought the lawsuit against DOJ after every other means for obtaining documents related to the FBI investigation had been exhausted.
“If Dylan had done any research he might know that prior to my lawsuit, I took many months of actions trying to resolve this case. Congressional questions were posed to Justice [Department] repeatedly, which they would not answer. [The] FBI opened a case listing me as a victim of computer intrusions but never notified or interviewed me,” she said. “I requested from the FBI info on the case but they wouldn’t provide it. I filed a complaint with the DOJ Inspector General. I hired my own team that conducted forensics. And much more. Most of this was not made public at the time (putting a bullet in Dylan’s publicity-seeking allegation).”
“So again — Dylan isn’t outraged that there’s been an illegal intrusion of a computer, he goes about attacking the person whose computer was compromised. Why would that be? Additionally, you’d think Dylan might be somewhat concerned about issues such as the government’s failure to lawfully respond to my and other journalist’s many [Freedom of Information Act] requests rather than trying to disparage the reporter whose computers were illegally monitored.
She has been assisted in her many FOI requests to DOJ by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group. However, this group is not in any way involved in Attkisson’s computer intrusion lawsuits.
As for what she intends to accomplish by suing DOJ, Attkisson told the Examiner that she hopes it will shed some light on the federal government’s continued efforts to withhold documents that involve her personally.
Speaking more broadly of the criticism she has received from certain corners of the media for her reporting on the federal government and for her claim she was hacked, Attkisson said: “As far as I’m concerned, people who are trying to silence those of us who have had such experiences are turning their scrutiny in the wrong direction.”
“[T]here is a propaganda trend that focuses all scrutiny and skepticism on those who expose wrongdoing, who ask tough questions or who question authority—yet public officials and those accused of wrongdoing are spared the same sort of focus,” she said.
Attkisson told the Examiner that this is not the first time that Politico’s media desk has taken a dig at her.
She accused Politico of intentionally misrepresenting a party she attended in November 2014 in Washington, D.C., in honor of her new book, “Stonewalled,” as a strictly conservative affair.
The only party attendees mentioned in the Politico report are: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Fox News’ Howard Kurtz and Juan Williams, tax crusader Grover Norquist and the Examiner’s Byron York.
Politico’s exclusion of the party’s non-conservative guests, including former CBS News colleagues and a former Obama administration official, was a deliberate attempt to advance a “false narrative that attempts to surround me with a conservative cloak,” she said.
