“Brazen effort to intimidate the press”
Judge rebuffs Trump admin demand for phone records from NYT reporters
“We can quash the subpoenas, or you could withdraw the subpoenas,” judge told US.
Credit:
Getty Images | Angela Weiss
Credit:
Getty Images | Angela Weiss
After criticism from a federal judge, the Department of Justice yesterday withdrew demands for phone records and grand jury testimony from New York Times reporters who wrote about security concerns related to the Air Force One jet donated to Trump by Qatar.
It was a setback in the Trump administration’s attempts to unmask journalists’ confidential sources. US District Judge Arun Subramanian “grilled Justice Department lawyers for nearly an hour over their handling of the subpoenas” during a hearing on Thursday, The New York Times wrote.
“Either we can quash the subpoenas, or you could withdraw the subpoenas,” Subramanian reportedly told Sean Buckley, chief counsel for the US attorney in New York’s southern district.
Subramanian reportedly said during the hearing that subpoenas to reporters “are not the first thing you do—they are the last thing you do,” and that “it’s a matter of basic compliance with the law.” Government lawyers agreed to withdraw the subpoenas during the hearing.
“As stated on the record during the July 23, 2026, hearing, the Government has voluntarily withdrawn the challenged subpoenas, including the subpoenas issued to the journalists as well as the third-party subpoenas. Those subpoenas are null and void. As a result, the motions to quash are moot,” Subramanian wrote in an order yesterday.
NYT: “Brazen effort to intimidate the press”
The NYT reported on Monday that the US government sought phone and text messaging records of NYT journalists and their relatives, including one reporter’s mother and two reporters’ spouses. This was in addition to subpoenas demanding that reporters testify before a federal grand jury.
On July 15, the NYT filed a motion to quash the subpoenas seeking grand jury testimony. The motion called the demands “a brazen effort to intimidate the press into abandoning its critical, constitutionally protected role.” The motion said armed federal agents served the subpoenas at the journalists’ homes, ordering them to appear before a grand jury within three business days.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation Director [Kash Patel] orchestrated this activity from within the White House, in close coordination with top Administration officials and in response to the President’s anger over the reporting,” the motion said.
Two days after this motion was filed, the government revealed in a call with NYT counsel that it also served subpoenas on phone providers for call records, according to a July 18 filing. In the newer filing, the NYT asked the court “to quash the newly-disclosed grand jury subpoenas served on third-party phone service providers on July 10, July 14, and July 16, 2026, for records associated with the Journalists.”
Trump admin lashes out at judge
During Subramanian’s questioning of DOJ lawyers, “the government acknowledged factual errors in its filings. It conceded that it had omitted significant information—including that the case pertained to journalists’ records—when it asked a different federal judge to prevent a phone company from disclosing a record request,” the NYT reported.
Buckley had “argued that the nature of The Times’s reporting on sensitive national security matters had allowed for an exception to standard procedures,” but “he struggled to identify the precise legal rationale for that exception when the judge pressed him,” the NYT article said.
Buckley apparently admitted that the subpoenas shouldn’t have sought phone records of reporters’ relatives. “Mr. Buckley also acknowledged that the phone record subpoenas had inadvertently encompassed relatives of the Times reporters—including the mother of one and the spouses of two others—calling it an error and ‘a consequence of trying to move quickly,’” the NYT wrote.
The Trump administration lashed out at the judge after the hearing. “This judge threatened our attorneys with sanctions unless subpoenas were withdrawn, and blocked us from presenting the meticulous process of this investigation,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement provided to Ars today.
“The grand jury has a right to hear testimony from all material witnesses in a federal criminal investigation,” the DOJ statement continued. “This judge’s conduct overrides clear longstanding principles and common sense—blocking the grand jury from receiving core evidence in a national security investigation. Make no mistake, this investigation remains ongoing, and we will pursue justice against those threatening national security by leaking classified information, a serious federal crime.”
US previously seized Washington Post reporter’s devices
NYT newsroom lawyer David McCraw issued a statement calling the hearing “an important affirmation of our country’s commitment to a free press. We are pleased that the government finally conceded that the subpoenas violated the law, but they should never have been issued in the first place.”
The NYT motion to quash said that after Trump accepted the Boeing jet from Qatar, “concerns were immediately raised about the ethical implications of accepting a $400 million gift from a foreign government, the costs to American taxpayers of retrofitting a commercial jet to serve as a ‘flying White House’—with all the necessary communications, security, and support capabilities—and the national security implications of using a foreign-donated aircraft for that purpose.”
The NYT motion said the paper’s reporting on the topic “was manifestly in the public interest. It contributed to the public’s knowledge about the workings of the Executive Branch, the President’s dealings with foreign nations, and the safety of an aircraft that transports the President and many other public officials, reporters, and guests.”
In January, the FBI seized devices from a Washington Post reporter who had built up a contact list of 1,100 current and former government employees. The government said it was unable to access data from the iPhone because it was protected by Apple’s Lockdown Mode, but it did access the reporter’s work MacBook Pro by compelling her to unlock it with her fingerprint.
A judge ordered a halt to the FBI search of the Post reporter’s devices, and decided the court would do the search itself because the government only had probable cause to obtain a small fraction of the material it seized.
