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» »Unlabelled » Will David Gregory Be Asking Barack Obama For a Pardon This Sunday?
Friday, December 28, 2012

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As regular followers on Twitter or readers of Twitchy know, I have been having waaaaay too much fun with David Gregory’s potential legal problems.  As you might recall, last Sunday, David Gregory interviewed the NRA Wayne LaPierre about gun control and at one point he held up an alleged high capacity magazine, and asked him if this should be banned.



Of course there was one slight problem.  Such magazines are banned in D.C.  Rut-roh.

And then we learned the police were actually investigating this as a potential crime.  Rut-roh.

Which led to my fun:





The last of which is a joke, obviously.  I don’t expect him to actually ask for my help in a million years.  But it was funny enough to get me a thread on Twitchy!  Which was like an extra Christmas present.

And of course a point of clarification is in order:


And then the story manages to get worse:


Now since then the ATF has helpfully thrown itself on its sword explaining that they asked some cop in D.C. and told him based on that, that this was kosher.  Which any lawyer will tell you mitigates the crime significantly, but it is not an excuse.  But likewise, Instapunditis right to point out that this demonstrates that the gun laws are too complicated even for those who enforce the laws to keep them straight—so how can we expect ordinary people to do so?

And I saw a journalistic angle to all of this:


I mean isn’t it strange that we have to hear from other news organizations about what David Gregory knew and when he knew it?  Shouldn’t they come clean with the public immediately?  Isn’t that what journalists are supposed to do: tell the truth?

And then of course when I learned David Gregory was going to have Barack Obama on this Sunday, the fun started again (which made Twitchyagain).



I mean after all, D.C. is a U.S. territory so Obama does have the power to pardon Gregory and his staff.  And there was a journalistic angle to it, too.



Of course a few people pointed out that we really can’t expect Gregory to be hard on Obama anyway, which I suppose is a fair point.  And there was this, too:


But one point made me hesitate a little more, which was when Howard Kurtz suggested that Gregory should be exempt from prosecution because this was journalism.  I raised the point in a tweet I can’t find whether Kurtz was similarly offended when James O’Keefe III was convicted of lawbreaking in the pursuit of his journalism.

And if I can get serious for a moment, it raises an interesting point.  Is some law breaking justified in the pursuit of journalism?

I think if there is a distinction that can be made between James O’Keefe’s conduct and David Gregory’s it is that O’Keefe broke the law in order to gather information.  He and his crew pretended to be maintenance workers, the story goes, in order to prove there was nothing wrong with the phones, which was important to prove for some reason or other.  By comparison, Gregory broke the law just to get a cute visual, something he could have easily done with a picture.  Oh, sure it might have been less dramatic, but are we willing to say a person has a right to break the law for dramatic effect?

Or for that matter, why didn’t Gregory go across the river to Virginia where the gun laws are considerably more pro-choice?  In fact, I bet LaPierre would be happy to host the interview in the NRA’s Northern Virginia office.

So I think that if we are going to allow people to break laws at all for journalistic purposes, that is the distinction to be made.  And further it needs to be codified.  It should not be this business of prosecutorial or police discretion, because the danger is that the discretion might not be operated fairly.  Indeed, journalists who break the law might be tempted to make deals with those who make the decision about their prosecution: I promise to go easy on you in my coverage, if you promise not to prosecute me for the way I broke the law to investigate this other story.  No, if we are going to accept a journalistic exception to these laws, it needs to be a statute that says something to the effect that you may break such a law, so long as your actions do not harm anyone else and it is for news gathering purpose.  And I think it should be a requirement that upon gathering the information that you immediately confess to lawful authorities what you have done, turn over any evidence, etc.  If you run a story on how easy it is to buy coke, for instance, by buying coke, at the first opportunity you should go to the police and say, “I just purchased this coke for a news story.  Here it is.  Here is a copy of my under cover footage which you can feel free to use in any prosecutions of the bad guys.”  That’s how it should work, I think.

That is, if we should let journalists break the law, at all.  And I admit I am not sure we should, because there is something else to consider.  These days journalism can be done by anyone.  And if anyone can do journalism, then anyone can take advantage of this exception to the law.

If you get the sense that I am of two minds about this, you are right.  Indeed I haven’t made up my mind.  What I can say, on the other hand, is that we cannot have a situation where the press gets away with committing crimes on an ad hoc basis because of the danger that prosecutorial discretions brings.  This status quo is unacceptable.  The law should be deciding which journalist is a criminal and which is not, and not some prosecutor.

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My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years.  I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video evidence.  If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable, please hit the Blogger’s Defense Team button on the right.  And thank you.

Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  That this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.
Posted by at 5:16 PM
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