The Justice Department has withdrawn grand jury subpoenas demanding testimony and phone records from New York Times journalists following sharp questioning from a federal judge.
The subpoenas were filed on July 10, just two days after the Times published the first of two stories about security concerns surrounding President Trump’s travel.
Those stories detailed concerns that led the U.S. Secret Service to intervene and prevent President Trump from flying home from Turkey aboard the new Air Force One jet.
The Air Force One aircraft at the centre of the dispute was donated to President Trump by the royal family of Qatar, making the leak investigation politically sensitive from the outset.
The Justice Department had sought to force Times journalists to reveal their anonymous sources, a move the newspaper publicly condemned as an attempt to intimidate its reporters.
U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian presided over Thursday’s hearing in Manhattan, making clear he believed the Trump administration had violated journalist protections underpinning First Amendment principles.
The judge also pointed to what he considered slipshod legal work and threatened to levy sanctions against federal attorneys for failing to follow the law.
Prosecutor Sean Buckley initially resisted withdrawing the subpoenas, arguing they should be held in abeyance so the government could preserve records in case they were needed later.
Judge Subramanian challenged prosecutors for seeking a court order instructing mobile phone providers not to notify journalists that their records had been subpoenaed, even after the subpoenas had already been publicly confirmed and widely reported.
Justice Department lawyers eventually agreed to withdraw the requests despite having admitted the subpoenas were rife with “inadvertent errors,” a concession that drew further scrutiny from the bench.
Buckley told the judge the subpoenas had been properly authorised by the attorney general, a reference to Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, and that such approval could supersede journalist protections.
Buckley declined to comment to NPR following the hearing, though he confirmed in court that he was leading the broader investigation into the leak of security information to the Times.
A Justice Department spokesperson issued a statement assailing the judge’s ruling and noting he had threatened its attorneys with sanctions unless the subpoenas were withdrawn.
“It’s a great day for the First Amendment and a great day for the rule of law,” said David McGraw, the lead newsroom lawyer for the New York Times, speaking to NPR moments after the hearing concluded.
“Once again, the federal courts have stood up for what’s right in this country,” McGraw added. “We hope that’s the end of it.”