After reporter Catherine Herridge was laid off from CBS News, the network seized files about her research into Hunter Biden.
The research may contain the identities of confidential sources and conversations with lawyers.
Sources familiar with the matter told The New York Post that the move is “unprecedented” and “extraordinary.”
“They never seize documents” when a reporter is let go, one source said. “They want to see what damaging documents she has.”
A representative for CBS told The Post that the network has “respected her request to not go through the files, and out of our concern for confidential sources, the office she occupied has remained secure since her departure,” adding, “We are prepared to pack up the rest of her files immediately on her behalf – with her representative present as she requested.”
Law professor Jonathan Turley wrote in The Hill that he spoke “confidentially with current and former CBS employees who have stated that they could not recall the company ever taking such a step before.”
A former CBS manager shared with Turley that he “never heard of anything like this,” noting that journalists take their files with them upon departure.
Herridge currently faces possible contempt charges for failing to comply with U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper’s demand to reveal how she knew of a federal probe into a Chinese American scientist. She has not released the information to protect her sources.
