Biden’s Justice Department says it will no longer seize reporters’ records for leak investigations

CNN — The Justice Department on Saturday said it will no longer seize reporters’ records in leak investigations, a notable policy shift on the heels of disclosures that federal prosecutors aggressively pursued communication data from reporters to identify their sources. In a statement Saturday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that “no one at the White House was aware of the gag order until Friday night” due to the “independence of the Justice Department in specific criminal cases.” “While the White House does not intervene in criminal investigations, the issuing of subpoenas for the records of reporters in leak investigations is not consistent with the President’s policy direction to the Department, and the Department of Justice has reconfirmed it will not be used moving forward,” Psaki added. “However, there is significantly more that needs to be done and we are still awaiting an explanation on why the Department of Justice moved so aggressively to seize journalists’ records.” Asked earlier Saturday to comment on the Times report, Coley told CNN that “on multiple occasions in recent months, DOJ moved to postpone enforcement of the … order and voluntarily moved to withdraw the order before any records were produced.” A Google spokeswoman told the Times that it does not comment on specific cases, but that the company was “firmly committed to protecting our customers’ data and we have a long history of pushing to notify our customers about any legal requests.” The government’s attempts to seize Times reporters’ email data is the latest incident revealed after the Times reported Wednesday that the Biden administration notified the paper that the Trump administration in 2020 seized nearly four months of phone records in 2017 from the four reporters as part of a leak investigation. Following those disclosures, President Joe Biden told CNN last month that he would not allow his Department of Justice to seize reporters’ communications, calling it “simply, simply wrong.” Coley, in announcing an end to the practice, said Saturday that the Justice Department “has now completed a review to determine all instances” in which the department had “pending compulsory requests from reporters in leak investigations.” “The Department strongly values a free press, protecting First Amendment values, and is committed to taking all appropriate steps to ensure the independence of journalists,” he added. Sally Buzbee, the executive editor of the Post, on Saturday called on the Biden administration and Justice Department to provide a “full accounting of the chain of events in both administrations and to implement enduring protections to prevent any future recurrence.” “Secret efforts to obtain journalists’ phone and email records severely hinder the ability of news organizations to uncover information of clear public interest, damaging the First Amendment,” she said in a statement.