Rep. Peter King Lies About Glenn Greenwald, Uses Those Lies To Say Greenwald Should Be Arrested & Prosecuted

by Mike Masnick
Techdirt
Jun. 13, 2013

We already mentioned how terrorist supporter Rep. Pete King has said that journalists reporting on government leaks exposing blatant abuse of power should be prosecuted, and rather than admit that he misspoke, he appears to be doubling down... by flat out lying. He went on Fox News to specifically call out Glenn Greenwald and claim that legal action should be taken against him, mainly based on the entirely false claim that Greenwald is threatening to reveal the names of CIA agents and assets. The problem is this is not true. Greenwald has made no such threats or even suggested anything like that. But King bases his entire attack on Greenwald on these false claims.

According to the summary at TPM:

"I'm talking about Greenwald. Greenwald, not only did he disclose this information, he has said he has names of CIA agents and assets around the world and threatening to disclose that," King said. "The last time that was done in this country, we saw the CIA station chief murdered in Greece. No right is absolute and even the press has certain restrictions. I think it should be very targeted, very selective and certainly a very rare exception. But in this case, when you have someone who's disclosed secrets like this and threatens to release more, then to me, yes, there has to be, legal action should be taken against him. This is a very unusual case with life and death implications for Americans."

Later on in the interview, King is asked about whether Greenwald's existing leaks should lead to prosecution, and King says yes, that this is clearly being done to "hurt Americans." When it's pointed out to him that Greenwald will (quite rightly) say that what he's doing is to help Americans by exposing abuse of power, King again says that because Greenwald has threatened to reveal CIA agents (again, a totally false statement), it shows his intent is harm.

Fox News: Well, Glenn Greenwald will say he's trying to help America.

King: Well, first of all, he's not. To me, what shows his intent, is his saying he's threatening to release the names of CIA agents. There's no way that helps the United States. And that, to me, shows his motivation.

Hmm. And what "motivation" does it show when an elected official blatantly lies about a reporter revealing abuses of power from the federal government, and claims that reporter should be arrested and prosecuted for doing his job, based on those lies. Also, Fox News, perhaps next time you speak to Rep. Pete King, you can point out that he's been lying to you.