reporters? april and may of 2012. that vague? yep. kathleen, you say over 100 reporters phones were phone records were seized by the government? it s 20 different phone lines, joe, and they include main numbers. if you count all the journalists who would be making calls in and out of those phone numbers, it would be more than 100. what s so surprising here, mike, is of course other administrations have done this, have made mistakes in 2004, the fbi mistakenly did this and apologized for an indonesian office. this goes right to the core of the associated press mission. what is the impact of having the phone records of 100 reporters of the associated press seized by the government? well, it s clearly distressing to think that without our knowledge someone is looking at phone calls that we
think that without our knowledge, someone is looking at phone calls that we make in the course of daily business. i ve been in this business more than 30 years. and our first amendment lawyers and our lawyers inside the a.p. and our ceo is also a well known first amendment lawyer. none of us have seen anything like this. ron, you were at the a.p. how long? 20-some years. yeah. 20-some years. i wondered what your reaction was when you heard about this? i m obviously biassed. i worked directly for kathleen. she s a friend of mine. and many of the reporters whose phone records were seized by our government are friends of mine. i agree with the a.p. that this is appalling. it s chilling. here s why. it s very important that the press, as flawed as we can be, we do our best work when we get people in government, around government, to tell us things that their bosses don t want to get out. to tell us things that are embarrassing to the administration, whether it s the republican admi
associated press records. so let me get your reaction to that as well. well, also, very serious, this invokes first amendment concerns. as does the situation related to the irs. but admittedly it s hard to follow all these either scandals or screwups, however we ultimately characterize them, between irs, the associated press, health and human services applying seemingly pressure to insurance companies to give to progressive groups that will help implement the exchanges. we re dealing with a lot here. benghazi. but, listen, this is also something we need to look into. it s being looked into. probably nowhere more fiercefully than among our washington, d.c. press corps. congressman todd young, thank you so much. we appreciate it. thanks for having me. let me play to that point of what happened with the a.p. a clip from executive editor kathleen carol this morning. it s clearly distressing to
0 jeffrey wygan, hello, what we re doing is illegal. tonight, if you don t get it. demand. i will get you. [ laughter ] i m greg gutfeld along our panel and dana perino. it s 5:00 in new york city and slightly balmy. greg: one week ago president obama said this about government. you have grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government is nothing more than a some sinister entity at the root of all our problems, you should reject all these voices, because what they suggest that our our unique experiment in self rule is a sham which we can t be trusted. greg: about those voices, first they said benghazi about and then they say the irs and now the doj. you never know with our media will put up with everything. a.p. s editor called obama clearly distressing. that is an understatement. what can you expect president obama snooping on the a.p. is like a husband keeping tabs on his wife. why don t you trust me. after all that dirt i dug up, you still don t love me. but i
0 leave. three of them they were relieved of their duty. they still collect their government paychecks but three of them, a fourth official who was punished resigned. just want to clarify what happened to those four officials. we ll continue the conversation with the congressman in the days to come. remember, you can always follow when s going on here on twitter, follow me. erin burnett outfront starts right now. up next, breaking news. cnn obtained a copy of a report that confirms that the irs deliberately targeted conservative groups and how the white house responded to that. plus, latest on the investigation in cleveland. cnn s exclusive details of missed clues to save those women sooner. and a major decision of angelina jolie. the surgery she may or may not have needed. let s go outfront. good evening, everyone. i m erin burnett. we begin with the breaking news. cnn tonight obtained an irs internal report that shows the agency targeted conservative groups. the report read