President Donald Trump’s Justice Department suffered a humiliation on Thursday as prosecutors were forced to withdraw subpoenas against New York Times reporters.
But buried in the brawl with a federal judge in D.C. over the matter was an exchange that had ominous implications for acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, legal expert Lisa Rubin told MS NOW’s Katy Tur.
For starters, said Rubin, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian “told them that there are federal regulations that demand that where the Department of Justice subpoenas either the news media or a third party for information relating to a member of the news media, they have to take all reasonable steps to obtain that information from another source.” Only for prosecutor Sean Buckley to admit that hadn’t happened.
Ultimately, said Rubin, the judge gave Buckley a choice: “You either withdraw these subpoenas or I will quash them. At that point, Sean Buckley asked for an adjournment of the hearing” and ducked away to make a call before allowing the subpoenas to be withdrawn.
But this isn’t where the revelations end, said Rubin.
“The other thing that I think is important for our viewers to know is that subpoenas like this, by regulation, have to be authorized by the Attorney General of the United States. And indeed, Judge Subramanian [got] an admission from Mr. Buckley” that Todd Blanche personally signed off on the whole thing.
That, she added, “was a stunning admission, given the ongoing debate about whether Todd Blanche is going to get confirmed. And as you and I have discussed on air, there are still two votes very much hanging in the balance with respect to Mr. Blanche’s nomination.”
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