even questioning how this came to light. merrick garland was getting creamed in the pr war as trump repeatedly slammed the search as a break-in, but the attorney general felt he couldn t publicly respond. so justice department officials made hair case through leaks their case through leaks which violate the rights of a potential defendant who hasn t been charged with anything and may not be. they made garland s case from a behind a curtain of anonymity. a poll-up piece in the washington post cited people with direct information. as an ethical matter, the leaks are indefensible. i m howard kurtz, and this is mediabuzz. howard: ahead, we ll question senior white house adviser gene sperling on the fierce debate over the president forgiving college debt for millions. that new york times story triggered a media explosion, especially the part about donald trump repeatedly holding on to documents so sensitive they could only be seen in a secure government room and a deep s
to george will, to the new yorker, to mother jones saying department of justice needed to quickly explain what justified this raidnot indict within two weeks in order to avoid this looking like a very pretty size. instead, we ve heard press conferences, refusal to answer questions, the leaks you mentioned and then this heavily redacted document for even the reasons why it s redacted are recontacted. so the burden of proof is clearly on fbi, and we should remember the fbi was an agency that false iffied evidence in order to procure a warrant to spy on the trump campaign just a few years ago. howard: well, leslie, this notion of let s see evidence, this is an ongoing investigation, no one s been charged, no prosecution ever puts out its evidence at this stage of the game. but shouldn t the media acknowledge that that, as expected, we didn t learn that much because so many pages were blacked out, particularly you