The Justice Department made a major retreat this week, withdrawing its controversial subpoenas against New York Times journalists intended to root out a leak.
But the federal judge who strong-armed them into backing down isn’t finished with them quite yet.
According to Lawfare’s Anna Bower, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian of New York issued an order on Friday demanding the DOJ turn over a number of documents pertaining to their operations.
Specifically, the judge wants all internal communications about the decision to seek a non-disclosure order — which comes just a day after he forced Justice Department counsel to admit certain claims made in that filing were inaccurate.
“With respect to the July 14, 2026 application for a non-disclosure order, the Government should, on or before Monday, July 27, 2026, furnish to the Court on an ex parte basis any internal communications on or before July 16, 2026, concerning (1) the decision to seek the non-disclosure order, (2) whether the application should or should not reference that the owners of the records were reporters, and (3) whether and when notification of the third-party subpoenas should be given to the reporters,” wrote Subramanian.
The leak investigation was a reaction to New York Times reporting about potential security vulnerabilities in the new Air Force One jet gifted to President Donald Trump by the Qatari government — something Trump and federal officials had publicly been denying.
Directly interrogating reporters for the source of their information is a violation of the Justice Department’s own rules about press freedom, except in narrow circumstances where all other options have been exhausted.
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