Justice Department withdraws subpoenas that sought reporters’ grand jury testimony, sources say

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department issued and then withdrew subpoenas that sought to compel reporters at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal to testify before a grand jury, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Washington Post confirmed that one of its reporters received a subpoena from the Trump administration as part of a broader and aggressive crackdown on media leaks that in January also included the extraordinary step of an FBI search of a Washington Post reporter’s home and the seizure of her devices. Journalists at The Wall Street Journal also received grand jury subpoenas, according to people familiar with the matter, a rare and unusual move that critics said was a threat against press freedom.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the government withdrew the subpoenas or what precise news coverage the subpoenas concerned, but the decision to rescind them, first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post, was confirmed by people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a non-public law enforcement action.

Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray wrote in a staff email obtained by The Associated Press that a subpoena to Ellen Nakashima, a prominent national security journalist who has reported on the Iran war and deadly U.S. military boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea, had been withdrawn.

“The unwarranted subpoena of our reporter Ellen Nakashima – a clear violation of constitutionally guaranteed press freedom – was another sign of the government seeking to compel journalists to become instruments of its investigations. We will continue to stand fully behind the journalism of The Washington Post and fight all efforts by any administration that violate our First Amendment rights,” a newspaper spokesperson said in a statement.

A spokesperson for The Wall Street Journal didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Tuesday.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche declined to comment on the subpoenas or the decision to withdraw them while speaking to reporters after an unrelated news conference, calling it a grand jury matter.

“To the extent that we have to investigate breaches of national security, in whatever form they come, that’s something that we will continue to do,” Blanche said.

He noted that in media leak investigations, “reporters are not our targets. We very much value the role that reporters play in this city and country.”

But, he added, “I have a similarly important role to make sure that people that are entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information, which — spoiler alert — means not sharing with reporters. There’s tension there. I don’t deny there’s tension there. But I’m not going to stop investigating people who work for this administration who think it’s OK to leak classified information.”

Mark Schoeff Jr., a reporter at CQ Roll Call and president of the National Press Club, called the decision to seek grand jury testimony from journalists, “one of the most aggressive actions against a free and independent press in recent memory.”

“Reporters were one step away from being forced to participate in a criminal investigation because they were doing their jobs. That should alarm every American who values a free press,” Schoeff said in a statement.

The Justice Department over the years has developed, and revised, internal policies governing how it will respond to news media leaks.

Though the Justice Department across presidential administration has periodically seized the phone records of individual journalists in hopes of identifying sources for national security stories, it is extremely rare for the government to attempt to compel a reporter to reveal their sources before a grand jury.

In April, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi rescinded a policy from President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration that protected journalists from having their phone records secretly seized during leak investigations — a practice long decried by news organizations and press freedom groups.

The moves again gave prosecutors the authority to use subpoenas, court orders and search warrants to hunt for government officials who make “unauthorized disclosures” to journalists. A memo she issued said members of the press are “presumptively entitled to advance notice of such investigative activities,” and subpoenas are to be “narrowly drawn.” Warrants must also include “protocols designed to limit the scope of intrusion into potentially protected materials or newsgathering activities,” the memo states.