In this short NewsNation segment, host Katie Pavlich interviews investigative journalist Catherine Herridge about recently released Trump-administration-era documents that, according to the host’s framing, concern alleged Chinese efforts to acquire US voter files and claims of intelligence-community suppression of reporting on election interference. Herridge says an instant-message exchange involving a senior FBI counterintelligence official refers to a “shadow government”, and she recounts a conversation with Senator Ron Johnson, who she says described an August 2020 FBI “defensive briefing” about Russia that he believes was used to discourage him and Senator Chuck Grassley from pursuing the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Herridge further claims she has seen records referencing potential Chinese “blackmail” in a President Biden daily brief, which she speculates may have involved targeting Biden’s family; she argues that withholding threat intelligence from elected decision-makers harms US national security. She calls for accountability and suggests various criminal and ethics statutes could apply to officials involved in alleged suppression.
The discussion then shifts to a House Judiciary Committee criminal referral involving former special counsel Jack Smith. Herridge argues that metadata such as toll records can be more revealing than message content, and alleges Smith used National Archives requests as a “work around” to obtain the contents of communications linked to dozens of lawmakers—raising, in her view, serious constitutional and procedural concerns.
Finally, Herridge describes her own ongoing legal battle over source protection, saying she is paying $800-per-day contempt fines and that the plaintiff is seeking far higher penalties.
Herridge alleges former special counsel Jack Smith used a National Archives ‘workaround’ to obtain not only toll records but message content linked to members of Congress. She says the approach could breach investigative norms and clash with the Speech or Debate Clause, citing conversations with sources rather than documents on air.
Read this moment →Catherine Herridge says she is being fined $800 per day after being held in contempt for refusing to reveal confidential sources, describing the financial and family pressure the case has created. She claims the plaintiff is seeking an increase to $5,000 per day, and frames the dispute as a test of source protection and press freedom in the US.
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