Justice Department defends subpoenas of Wall Street Journal reporters

Washington — The Justice Department defended itself connected Tuesday aft the Wall Street Journal revealed it has received subpoenas successful transportation with a leak probe into its reporting connected the war with Iran, with the section saying it was trying to support the lives of soldiers who could beryllium harmed by leaks of classified information.

"Prosecuting leakers who stock our nation's secrets with reporters, successful crook risking our nationalist information and the lives of our soldiers, is simply a precedence for this administration," Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said successful a connection shared with CBS News. "Any witness, whether a newsman oregon otherwise, who has accusation astir these criminals should not beryllium amazed if they person a subpoena astir the amerciable leaking of classified material."

The Wall Street Journal said connected Monday the subpoenas, which it received March 4, subordinate to a Feb. 23 article that reported the president of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others astatine the Pentagon had warned President Trump astir the risks of an extended subject run against Iran. Other quality media outlets published akin stories astir the aforesaid time. 

The subpoenas request records from Journal reporters, the insubstantial said. A Justice Department authoritative stressed that the subpoenas are not aimed astatine investigating the journalists themselves, but alternatively astatine tracking down authorities employees who are leaking classified information.

Nevertheless, the subpoenas look to beryllium an assertive and antithetic maneuver that are apt to escalate tensions betwixt the property and the Trump medication and rise further concerns implicit property freedoms.

Earlier this year, the FBI executed a hunt warrant astatine the location of Washington Post newsman Hannah Natanson wherever agents collected her phone, laptops, Garmin ticker and portable hard drives arsenic portion of an probe into a authorities contractor who was aboriginal indicted for allegedly disseminating classified material.

Historically successful Espionage Act investigations into leaks of classified information, the section has pursued the leakers, not the journalists who person the classified information.

In April 2025, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo that made it easier for prosecutors investigating leaks to the quality media to subpoena records and grounds from journalists, rescinding a argumentation implemented by Bondi's predecessor Merrick Garland.

Under Bondi's regulations, prosecutors successful transgression investigations are allowed to usage subpoenas, tribunal orders and hunt warrants to compel "production of accusation and grounds by and relating to members of the quality media," the memo stated astatine the time.

The Biden medication had antecedently imposed caller restrictions that made it overmuch harder to prehend reporters' phones and email records. The section faced disapproval successful Mr. Trump's archetypal word for secretly serving subpoenas connected some journalists and legislature unit members successful transportation with leak investigations.

The Wall Street Journal, successful its reporting, cited a connection from Dow Jones main communications serviceman Ashok Sinha, who said the subpoenas "represent an onslaught connected constitutionally protected newsgathering."

"We volition vigorously reason this effort to stifle and intimidate indispensable reporting," Sinha added.