{"id":955285,"date":"2026-07-24T02:25:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T02:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/955285\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T02:25:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T02:25:20","slug":"government-withdraws-subpoenas-of-3-reporters-for-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/955285\/","title":{"rendered":"Government withdraws subpoenas of 3 reporters for The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Criticized by a federal judge for sloppy legal work, the government on Thursday grudgingly withdrew subpoenas that would have compelled three New York Times reporters to testify about their sources for articles about President Donald Trump\u2019s Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The withdrawals in U.S. District Court followed a remarkable back-and-forth between a visibly irritated Judge Arun Subramanian and government lawyers. They come at a time when the Trump administration is vigorously going after news organizations whose reporting and coverage it doesn\u2019t like \u2014 and also trying to crack down on leaks inside the government.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s turnabout in the face of vigorous legal opposition and a stern reprimand from a judge marked the latest instance of the Justice Department making aggressive moves to compel journalists to identify their sources before a grand jury \u2014 only to later retreat. The administration recently withdrew similar subpoenas<\/a> that sought to compel testimony from journalists for The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal related to separate national security coverage.<\/p>\n

Subramanian said he otherwise would have granted the newspaper\u2019s request to reject the subpoenas because regulations pertaining to subpoenas served on journalists maintain that they should be issued as a last resort in an investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSubpoenas are the last step, not the first step, but the last step,\u201d the judge said, citing rules set to protect against violations of the First Amendment. He said the government\u2019s actions had turned the law and the regulations \u201con its head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see something like this, if this were a civil proceeding, what I would normally do is ask the parties to show causes why sanctions should not be issued,\u201d the judge said, referencing punishment for lawyers for egregious actions.<\/p>\n

After the hearing, the Justice Department lashed out at Subramanian in a statement, saying he \u201cthreatened our attorneys with sanctions unless subpoenas were withdrawn, and blocked us from presenting the meticulous process of this investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe grand jury has a right to hear testimony from all material witnesses in a federal criminal investigation. This judge\u2019s conduct overrides clear longstanding principles and common sense \u2014 blocking the grand jury from receiving core evidence in a national security investigation,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake,\u201d it added, \u201cthis investigation remains ongoing, and we will pursue justice against those threatening national security by leaking classified information, a serious federal crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Government attorneys upbraided by judge<\/p>\n

Subramanian noted that with protections for journalists at stake, the government was required to ensure it could not obtain what it needed from any other sources before issuing subpoenas to journalists.<\/p>\n

A Justice Department lawyer, Sean Buckley, cast the government\u2019s missteps as inadvertent errors and said: \u201cNo one was trying to pull a fast one.\u201d Buckley apologized for other subpoenas that sought records for phone numbers belonging to one reporter\u2019s mother and two of the journalists\u2019 spouses.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat was an error, judge, which we own,\u201d Buckley said. \u201cIt was a consequence of trying to move quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese things are starting to pile up,\u201d Subramanian said, becoming increasingly testy.<\/p>\n

The hearing was held publicly despite efforts by the Trump administration to keep secret the litigation spawned by subpoenas it served on the Times\u2019 journalists to try to get them to divulge their sources.<\/p>\n

The newspaper\u2019s lawyers had challenged the validity of the grand jury subpoenas, along with subpoenas issued for phone records of several Times journalists and some of their relatives. Senior Times officials, including the paper\u2019s managing editor and general counsel, sat in the gallery watching during Thursday\u2019s proceedings.<\/p>\n

The request for phone records raised questions about the extent of the investigation being carried out by the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

David McCraw, the Times\u2019 chief newsroom lawyer, said after the hearing in a statement that it \u201cwas an important affirmation of our country\u2019s commitment to a free press.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased that the government finally conceded that the subpoenas violated the law, but they should never have been issued in the first place,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will not be deterred in the face of tactics like these.\u201d<\/p>\n

Court action comes after reporting on new Air Force One jet<\/p>\n

The new jet in question, a present from Qatar that Trump\u2019s administration spent $400 million to retrofit and upgrade, recently entered service<\/a>. But Trump used an older model Air Force One jet<\/a> to leave a NATO summit<\/a> in Turkey earlier this month.<\/p>\n

The Times, citing anonymous sources, reported that the switch had come at the urging of the Secret Service and that the newer plane lacked some of the advanced security features of the older Air Force One aircraft, including antimissile capabilities. On social media, Trump rejected claims of security concerns.<\/p>\n

The Times wrote in a letter to the judge several days ago that two subpoenas seek records beginning on Jan. 1, long before the newspaper published articles on July 8 and July 9 that became the basis for the grand jury subpoenas.<\/p>\n

It said that lengthy stretch of records sought would indicate that the purpose of the subpoenas might have been \u201cto forage for information about the Journalists\u2019 source relationships more broadly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Times argued for the phone records subpoenas to be disallowed on the grounds that the government had acted in \u201cbad faith\u201d and ignored its own protocols by not giving the journalists advance notice that records were being sought and by demanding the information \u201cwithout first conducting any serious investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Justice Department has justified the grand jury subpoenas<\/a> by saying that \u201creporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.\u201d The department also said it had complied with its own regulations in issuing the subpoenas and had taken \u201ccertain\u201d investigative steps before seeking them. It said it was authorized to delay disclosure of the phone records subpoenas but decided to alert the journalists\u2019 lawyers \u201cso that counsel could advance any arguments\u2014regardless of merit\u2014in furtherance of their motion.\u201d <\/p>\n

In fighting the subpoenas, the Times\u2019 lawyers highlighted how the government\u2019s carelessness could have exposed sensitive information that had nothing to do with the journalists. The mother whose phone records were mistakenly sought is a mental health professional with confidential client relationships and one of the two spouses is the general counsel of a law firm, the lawyers said.<\/p>\n

At Thursday\u2019s hearing, a final rebuke from the judge to the government came when he asked its lawyers to assure him that it won\u2019t repeat a scenario that left one journalist being served a subpoena by an FBI agent while he was home watching the family-friendly movie \u201cThe Sheep Detectives,\u201d about sheep on a quest to solve the murder of their shepherd.<\/p>\n

Said the judge, to loud courtroom laughter: \u201cI can\u2019t think of anything more inconsistent with \u2018Sheep Detective\u2019 than an FBI agent showing up at your door.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press Writer Eric Tucker reported from Washington<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Criticized by a federal judge for sloppy legal work, the government on Thursday grudgingly…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":955286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,3881,12587,64,374191,69,171,328876,57,362,398,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,384351,79361,24922,94,51507,61,67,370,586,132,5230,68,2969,93],"class_list":["post-955285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-ap-top-news","tag-arun-subramanian","tag-business","tag-david-mccraw","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-eric-tucker","tag-general-news","tag-legal-proceedings","tag-media","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-sean-buckley","tag-subpoenas","tag-turkey","tag-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-u-s-federal-bureau-of-investigation","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-government","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-washington-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}