Judge tosses journalist’s surveillance lawsuit against Rod Rosenstein

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that longtime television journalist Sharyl Attkisson filed last year alleging that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and other ex-officials carried out illegal surveillance against her as she reported on Obama administration controversies about a decade ago.

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Bennett, who is based in Baltimore, permanently dismissed Rosenstein and former FBI official Shawn Henry from the suit. The judge said Rosenstein was protected by the doctrine of “qualified immunity,” which blocks suits against public officials unless their alleged actions violated a clearly established legal right.

Bennett, an appointee of President George W. Bush, also ruled that there was inadequate indication that any surveillance of Attkisson involved activities in Maryland, which Bennett’s court has jurisdiction over.

“The Amended Complaint is devoid of any factual allegations with respect to actual conduct related to the alleged surveillance which occurred in Maryland,” Bennett wrote in his 20-page decision, issued on Tuesday. “The conclusory statements that the alleged surveillance was performed by individuals in Maryland, unsupported by any factual allegations, lie in contrast to the Plaintiffs’ numerous assertions regarding conduct performed and events which occurred in the Eastern District of Virginia.”

Attkisson has claimed that beginning in 2012, while she was a CBS News correspondent, computers and other electronic devices used by her and her family began acting abnormally. Experts she consulted said they believed she’d been the target of illegal wiretapping.

Attkisson’s efforts to pursue her complaints over the issue in federal courts in Washington and Alexandria, Va., came to naught. However, in 2019, one federal appeals court judge faulted his colleagues for what he called a “Kafkaesque” stance that put too many obstacles in the path of Attkisson’s efforts to assign responsibility for the alleged hacking.

Attkisson filed a new suit in federal court in Baltimore last year, asserting that a source had come forward to confess involvement in the wiretapping. Attkisson said that source said the effort was an outgrowth of a Baltimore-based federal law enforcement operation targeting illegal activity on the so-called dark web, the Silk Road Task Force.

The source was initially anonymous but later identified by Attkisson’s attorneys as Ryan White, an alleged former FBI informant. White is a QAnon conspiracy adherent who appears to have been the source of bizarre child-abuse allegations that Georgia attorney Lin Wood leveled at Chief Justice John Roberts last year, according to a report in the Daily Beast.

The suit filed last year named figures like Rosenstein, who was the U.S attorney in Maryland at the time and had some responsibilities for oversight of the task force. Bennett’s ruling precludes refiling of the suit against Rosenstein or Henry, but leaves the door open to Attkisson revising the case as to other defendants.

A lawyer for Attkisson, George Washington University law professor Paul Berman, expressed disappointment in the decision.

“The court's ruling seems to require that a U.S. citizen, before she can even get to discovery, must identify in advance the precise governmental agent who hacked into her computer system,” Berman said. “This burden will be almost impossible to meet in most cases of government surveillance, and denying even meaningful discovery or a hearing on the issue is simply incompatible with the rule of law in a democratic society.”

Attkisson stressed that the decision had not gotten into the merits of her case.

“Rosenstein is hiding behind alleged legal ‘immunity’ and legal estoppel arguments to avoid responsibility,” she said. “As everyone knows, I attempted to avoid litigation, but the government lied to me, lied to Congress and concealed the truth of what transpired. The truth is all we as a family ever wanted. I hope and pray this never happens to another family.”

Rosenstein, who served as deputy attorney general for two years under President Donald Trump, declined to comment on the ruling. A Justice Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.