Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume clashed with fellow Fox News contributor Juan Williams on Sunday after Williams pointed out that the investigations of reporters had started under George W. Bush's administration and then continued under President Barack Obama.
During a panel discussion about the Department of Justice's investigation into leaks of classified information published Fox News reporter James Rosen, Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Williams if he could defend the president's decision to ask Attorney General Eric Holder to review his own department.
"Republicans have been hammering Eric Holder... to go after the leaks, that they have wanted him to pursue leaks that had to do with how bin Laden was killed to secret prisons to the attack on the cyber network in Iran," Williams explained. "That came from Republicans. And it has been something that the Bush administration started and it has been continued with a vengeance -- to everyone's surprise -- by this administration."
"Eric Holder did not conduct the probe that led people to somehow come to the madhouse conclusion that James Rosen is somehow a co-conspirator, is somehow to be suspected," he continued. "He signed the affidavit as attorney general of the United States, he did not conduct the probe."
"The problem is that it went to Holder and he okayed it!" Hume exclaimed. "Are you saying he's not ultimately responsible as the head man of the Justice Department?"
"That's why he's being asked to look at it," Williams insisted. "He's the exact right person as the attorney general of the United States to see what prosecutors did."
"Wasn't he supposed to see all that before he signed off on the affidavit?" Hume shouted.
"You can't see everything," Williams replied.
"What you do know is, when that affidavit came to him, rife with assertions that this reporter doing his job was acting in a criminal way, he okayed it!" Hume shot back.
"In this case, the Rosen case, he had nothing to do with it," Williams argued. "All he was doing was signing an affidavit sent to him by his underlings."
