Justice Department to resume issuing subpoenas to journalists as part of leaks crackdown, Bondi says

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department is poised to ace down connected leaks of information to the quality media, authorizing prosecutors to contented subpoenas to quality organizations arsenic portion of leak investigations, service hunt warrants erstwhile due and unit journalists to attest astir their sources.

New regulations, announced by Attorney General Pam Bondi successful a memo to the workforce obtained by The Associated Press connected Friday, rescind a Biden medication argumentation that protected journalists from having their telephone records secretly seized during leak investigations — a signifier agelong decried by quality organizations and property state groups.

The caller regulations asseverate that quality organizations indispensable respond to subpoenas “when authorized astatine the due level of the Department of Justice” and besides let for prosecutors to usage tribunal orders and hunt warrants to “compel accumulation of accusation and grounds by and relating to the quality media.”

The memo says members of the property are “presumptively entitled to beforehand announcement of specified investigative activities,” and subpoenas are to beryllium “narrowly drawn.” Warrants indispensable besides see "protocols designed to bounds the scope of intrusion into perchance protected materials oregon newsgathering activities,” the memo states.

“The Justice Department volition not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump's policies, victimize authorities agencies, and origin harm to the American people,” Bondi wrote.

The regulations travel arsenic the Trump medication has complained astir a bid of quality stories that person pulled backmost the curtain connected interior decision-making, quality assessments and the activities of salient officials specified arsenic Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Tulsi Gabbard, the manager of nationalist intelligence, said Wednesday that she was making a trio of referrals to the Justice Department implicit disclosures to the media.

The argumentation that Bondi is rescinding was created successful 2021 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland successful the aftermath of revelations that the Justice Department officials ls alerted reporters astatine 3 quality organizations — The Washington Post, CNN and The New York Times — that their telephone records had been obtained successful the last twelvemonth of the Trump administration.

The caller regulations from Garland marked a startling reversal concerning a signifier that has persisted crossed aggregate statesmanlike administrations. The Obama Justice Department, nether then-Attorney General Eric Holder, alerted The Associated Press successful 2013 that it had secretly obtained 2 months of telephone records of reporters and editors successful what the quality cooperative’s apical enforcement called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering activities.

After blowback, Holder announced a revised acceptable of guidelines for leak investigations, including requiring the authorization of the highest levels of the section earlier subpoenas for quality media records could beryllium issued.

But the section preserved its prerogative to prehend journalists’ records, and the caller disclosures to the quality media organizations amusement that the signifier continued successful the Trump Justice Department arsenic portion of aggregate investigations.

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