Obama Administration Officials Threatening Journalists And Media Outlets

By Susan Duclos

Bob Woodard exposed the Obama administration on Wednesday February 27, 2013, for threatening that he would “regret” his reporting on the sequester and how the idea originated in the White House and was proposed to Congress by the White House.

BuzzFeed identified the White House administration official that made that threat as  Gene Sperling, the director of the White House Economic Council.

Now another person who writes columns for a different media organization is speaking out about threats made to them by the Obama administration.

Bob Woodward isn’t the only person who’s received threats for airing
the Obama administration’s dirty laundry.  It seems anyone is a
potential target of the White House these days – even former senior
members of the Clinton administration.

A day after Woodward’s claim that a senior White House official had
told him he would “regret” writing a column criticizing President
Obama’s stance on the sequester, Lanny Davis, a longtime close advisor
to President Bill Clinton, told WMAL’s Mornings on the Mall Thursday he
had received similar threats for newspaper columns he had written about
Obama in the Washington Times.

Davis told WMAL that his editor, John Solomon, “received a phone call
from a senior Obama White House official who didn’t like some of my
columns, even though I’m a supporter of Obama. I couldn’t imagine why
this call was made.”  Davis says the Obama aide told Solomon, “that if
he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would
lose their White House credentials.”

Davis has a little bit of advice for the White House – Threatening Woodward is a bad idea:

“Firstly, you don’t threaten anyone. Secondly, you don’t threaten Bob
Woodward,” said Davis. “He’s one of the best reporters ever.  He’s
factual.  You can disagree with facts that he reports, but he’s
factual.  Don’t mess with him about his facts. You can mess with him
about the interpretation of his facts, but this is not a reporter you
tangle with,” he added.

Both video and audio below

Video of Bob Woodward talking about White House threatening him:

Audio of Lanny Davis talking about White House threats: