Citation
From the October 16 edition of One America News Networks' OAN News
STEPHANIE MYERS (OAN ANCHOR): But first, Judicial Watch takes a look into former Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who allegedly ordered the monitoring of journalists and those tied to the Trump administration. One of those people named was One America's Jack Posobiec. Jack is live in Washington, D.C. to give us the details on the probe. Good morning, Jack.
JACK POSOBIEC (OANN): Hey, good morning Stephanie. So we're now learning of course from Judicial Watch and our own One American News sources at the White House and within the administration about this list. Now Maria Yovanovitch, she's the former ambassador, in terms of contacts, the former ambassador to the Ukraine that had been recalled by President Trump. She herself had been appointed by Barack Obama and was seen as a holdover from her administration. Now just last week she testified against President Trump behind closed doors as part of this impeachment inquiry with the Democrats, so we're not really hearing very much what came out of that. However just days later, we see this report from Judicial Watch naming a list, apparently a watch list, that she put together at the embassy but then also reached back to her colleagues at State Department headquarters asking for more resources into what the report describes as monitoring of the people on this list which include myself, a number of other journalists, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and the list goes on. I found my name to be right at the very top of it and so we're not sure exactly yet what exactly the scope of this monitoring was, whether or not it was simply following on their on-air reports and tweets or whether or not it included something further with government resources.
MYERS: Right, and you mentioned some of the other people, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Guiliani, and again it's believed that Yovanovitch ordered the State Department to monitor those employees, including yourself, who may be allies of the president. What can you tell us about the investigation conducted by Judicial Watch?
POSOBIEC: So Judicial Watch so far has filed a Freedom of Information Act request. And we are gonna be following up as well with the privacy act requests -- for myself it's a privacy act request because it's actually records pertaining to myself that the government is holding. From sources that have reported back to Judicial Watch, they have essentially said that Marie Yovanovitch was looking for certain key words in reports or in tweets that she was tracking through the State Department, and having her own employees and members of the State Department track one of which, believe it or not was the word "Biden," which is very interesting because apparently this list may have been done as early as a year ago. So those of us who are covering this story, so One American News, we were certainly covering the story. I know I was making it certainly a highlight of my coverage. They've been noting that Joe Biden has had an issue, Hunter Biden has had an issue, for well over a year at this point. And that's something that even members of our own State Department were tracking it, certainly doesn't seem like something that was done in the course of official duties and unfortunately it smacks of the type of partisan political targeting that was done by members of the Barack Obama administration and now we're seeing hauled over into the Trump administration.
MYERS: I can only imagine, especially someone like you who was targeted, that you may have your guard up at this point and it's essentially like Big Brother watching you but can we expect Yovanovitch and other State Department officials who may have been involved in this to be held accountable for this unlawful monitoring?
JACK POSOBIEC: Well she's already been pulled from her State Department -- her at least ambassadorship post. She's still at the State Department but we would like to see -- I mean once the Freedom of Information Act request comes back out, I would certainly like to go to the House intelligence committee ,to the Senate intelligence committee to see if the lawmakers there -- and by the way in a bipartisan fashion because this shouldn't be something that's a partisan issue. The United States government should not be using state resources, national security resources for use against partisan political opponents. I myself was a former member of the intelligence community and believe me Stephanie, I would not dream of using any of those assets for my own personal gain.
MYERS: Yeah, we'll have to see if this is just the tip of the iceberg as more information unfollows. It almost seems like an onion and you're peeling back the layers so it's definitely an interesting development, especially since you were one of those names.