PAYBACK: THE AP SPOILED OBAMA'S PROPAGANDA

Worst.  Leak.  Everrrrrrr!!!  Or was it?  You be the judge.

For five days, reporters at the Associated Press had been sitting on a big scoop about a foiled al-Qaeda plot at the request of CIA officials. Then, in a hastily scheduled Monday morning meeting, the journalists were asked by agency officials to hold off on publishing the story for just one more day.

The CIA officials, who had initially cited national security concerns in an attempt to delay publication, no longer had those worries, according to individuals familiar with the exchange. Instead, the Obama administration was planning to announce the successful counterterrorism operation that Tuesday.

Now, some members of Congress and media advocates are questioning why the administration viewed the leak that led to the May 7 AP story as so grave.

The reality is that the AP did not blow a CIA operation nor did it put any American citizen, even a covert one, in danger by publishing the story.  They simply spoiled a propaganda victory lap by the Obama regime.  And that kind of thing gets you investigated these days.

AP's story about the foiled plot was at odds with the calming message the White House had been conveying on the eve of the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. On April 30, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement saying that there was "no indication of any specific, credible threats or plots against the US tied to the one-year anniversary of Bin Laden's death."

AP reporters had learned in the spring of 2012 that the CIA had infiltrated the al-Qaeda branch behind the plot, according to the individuals familiar with the story, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the record. The plot centered on an attempt to get a bomb into an assailant’s underwear, like the bomb that failed to detonate on a Christmas Day 2009 flight to Detroit.

The news service was prepared to publish its scoop on May 2, 2012. But in discussions with government officials, the CIA stressed to AP that publishing anything about the operation to obtain the bomb and thwart the plot would create grave national security dangers and compromise a "sensitive intelligence operation."

Michael J. Morell, the CIA’s deputy director, gave AP reporters some additional background information to persuade them to hold off, Vietor said. The agency needed several days more to protect what it had in the works.

Then, in a meeting on Monday, May 7, CIA officials reported that the national security concerns were "no longer an issue," according to the individuals familiar with the discussion.

When the journalists rejected a plea to hold off longer, the CIA then offered a compromise. Would they wait a day if AP could have the story exclusively for an hour, with no government officials confirming it for that time?

The reporters left the meeting to discuss the idea with their editors. Within an hour, an administration official was on the line to AP's offices.

The White House had quashed the one-hour offer as impossible. AP could have the story exclusively for five minutes before the White House made its own announcement. AP then rejected the request to postpone publication any longer.

Note the first sentence of that passage: "AP's story about the foiled plot was at odds with the calming message the White House had been conveying..."  That is the same "message" that the Obama regime was attempting to protect in September when they pretended that Benghazi had nothing to do with terrorists retaliating against Americans on the anniversary of 9-11 but was a spontaneous outbreak of rioting due to an insulting video.  There is literally nothing that Obama and his minions will not politicize.  Naturally they blame others for it...and retaliate whenever possible.

The justification for the secret subpoenas was that the AP story revealed sensitive information.  We now know that it was a lie.  There were no national security concerns at that point.  

Since the information was no longer sensitive, and the regime was more interested in turning the story into a campaign PR event, the use of a special exemption when it was no longer needed (AP was already working with the government by holding off on publishing) is simply one more indication of the regime's Nixonian attitude.  In their vindictive and paranoid little minds, the AP had spoiled the party, via a leak, and so retaliation was in order.