The Justice Department told a judge it will withdraw its subpoenas for grand jury testimony and phone records from New York Times reporters during a heated court hearing Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian grilled federal prosecutors working for the Justice Department on why it had issued subpoenas before taking further investigative steps, and questioned whether he should issue sanctions over alleged perjury in an application to a judge to secure the subpoenas.
The New York Times said earlier this month that several of its reporters received grand jury subpoenas soon after it published reporting on President Trump’s use of an old presidential aircraft to depart from the NATO summit in Turkey in early July. The paper said the subpoenas were signed by Jay Clayton, who served as the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and was tapped by Mr. Trump for director of national intelligence.
The news outlet moved to block the subpoenas, calling them “abusive and improper.” The newspaper said in court filings Saturday that prosecutors attempted to gain access to phone records of Times journalists and their family members as part of a Justice Department effort to identity sources who spoke to the reporters about security systems on the new Air Force One plane, which was donated by the Qatari government.
In one batch of subpoenas, the Justice Department sought grand-jury testimony from several reporters “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.” But subpoenas were also sent to third-party service providers for toll records and data for accounts associated with Times’ journalists. Among the information sought by the Trump administration were phone records for the spouses of two reporters and one journalist’s mother.
Two of the subpoenas sought phone records dating back to Jan. 1, well before the Times started reporting on the security concerns with the Qatari-donated airplane.
Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, Subramanian halted enforcement of the subpoenas while he considered the Times’ request to quash the demands.
