In testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee, former CBS News journalist Sharyl Attkisson lashed out at the Justice Department and the White House for blocking her various attempts to report on the activities of the administration. “If you cross this administration with perfectly accurate reporting they don’t like, you will be attacked and punished,” said Attkisson in prepared remarks in the second day of proceedings on the nomination of Loretta Lynch, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, to take over from Eric Holder as U.S. attorney general.

In a brief statement before the Senate panel, Attkisson essentially abridged her recent book, “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.” She decried a “frenzied campaign” by administration officials to clamp down on her when she found “factual contradictions” in government accounts of the “Fast & Furious” gun-running program; she said that the Justice Department refused to “clear me into the Justice Department building” after her critical reports surfaced; and she noted that a Justice Department press officer had characterized her as “out of control” in her reporting. “Let me emphasize that my reporting was factually indisputable. They were panicked because I was doing my job well,” said Attkisson.

In response to questioning from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Attkisson elaborated on the time when she wasn’t allowed into the Justice building, claiming that a press liaison had decided that only regular beat reporters would be permitted to attend. Reflecting on the episode, Attkisson marveled at “how improper it is that government officials would misuse their authority to hand-pick reporters … and keep out in some cases more knowledgeable reporters.”

The longtime journalist also recapped the alleged intrusions into her computers and other technology devices — both at home and at work — while employed at CBS News, a post she left nearly a year ago. Attkisson has sued the Justice Department and the U.S. Postal Service over the intrusions, claiming that the hacking constitutes violations of various constitutional rights. “Getting to the bottom of it hasn’t been easy,” said Attkisson, noting that the Justice Department has “refused” to answer questions from Congress on her allegations about the computers.

Attkisson mentioned to Grassley that she’d received a “partial” response to a records request from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which took a look at some of Attkisson’s computer hardware following her hacking allegations. The disclosure, she said, lacked key information such as forensics and “summaries.” Government implementation of freedom of information laws, charged the reporter, has rendered them “pointless” and “senseless,” she said.

Lynch, said Attkisson in summation, “should chart a new path and reject the policies of the past.”