AP is screaming bloody murder over the invasion of its press freedom because the Justice Department seized two months of journalists' phone records. National security insiders are calling the seizures "massive and unprecedented". Apparently the seizures are part of a criminal investigation into a leak that exposed the existence of a covert operative in the ranks of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to testify on the hill before the House Judiciary Committee concerning the probe. A May 7,2012 AP story allegedly contained leaked information about a foiled plot in Yemen to put an upgraded underwear bomb aboard a plane bound for the United States around the time of the first anniversary of killing Osama bin Laden. All the records seized were from journalists and editors that worked on the story. Paradoxically, the offending story contained no mention of western espionage controlling the plot or using an inside informer. It also said the fate of the potential bomber was unknown.
The real story is in the background to the Justice Department probe. CIA Director John Brennan held a small conference call with the administration's national security fronts who appear regularly on US television news programs as "commentators" on May 7th, just before newscasts were aired. The conference call was prompted by AP's insistence it would go public with the foiled bomb plot story. Brennan told the fronts that the Yemen plot was never a serious threat to national security because Washington had "inside control" over it. This statement obviously implied some covert activity was involved. ABC security commentator Richard Clarke, and former counter-terrorism chief for Clinton, participated in Brennan's phone briefing. He later went on the air and said that, "The US government is saying it never came close because they had insider information, insider control, that implies they had somebody on the inside who wasn't going to let it happen." This public deduction by a recognized security insider was enough for journalists to run with the story of a joint US-British-Saudi counter-terror operation in which the latest non-metalic underwear bomb was handed over to US officials by a double agent. The espionage operation was blown and had to be shut down prematurely with red faces all round. The White House denies it or the CIA was the ultimate source for the damaging leak.