Lawmakers enlist Mike Pence to protect reporters from Trump administration

Source: Washington Examiner | December 4, 2017 | Pete Kasperowicz

Lawmakers who fear the Trump administration is about to pressure reporters into revealing their confidential sources have an unlikely ally: Vice President Mike Pence.

Pence was in the House in 2007 when he cosponsored legislation called the Free Flow of Information Act, which was aimed at setting strict conditions for when the government can force reporters to give up their confidential sources. In a letter to lawmakers signed by Pence 10 years ago, the Indiana lawmaker stressed the importance of allowing reporters to do their work “without fear of intimidation or imprisonment.”

“As Republicans who believe in limited government, we know that the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press,” Pence wrote then. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate.

Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, are hoping Pence’s support for the law in 2007 will make it easier to convince the Trump administration to refrain from going after reporters more aggressively in 2017. The two lawmakers introduced a 2017 version of Pence’s bill this month, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions declined to agree that reporters should not go to jail for protecting their sources.

“I will commit to respecting the role of the press, and conducting my office in a way that respects that and the rules within the Department of Justice,” Sessions told Raskin at a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

“We have not had a conflict in my term in office yet with the press, but there are some things the press seems to think they have an absolute right to [that] they do not have an absolute right to,” Sessions added.

Sessions’ vague answer followed an announcement from his Justice Department over the summer in the wake of government leaks to the press that seemed aimed at undermining the Trump administration. Then, the Justice Department said it was reviewing its policy on when to subpoena reporters who may know the source of leaked information from the government.

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