The Justice Department said Thursday it would withdraw subpoenas seeking phone records and grand jury testimony from New York Times journalists who reported on the security capabilities of President Donald Trump’s new Qatari-donated Air Force One jet.
“The government is prepared to unilaterally withdraw the subpoenas at this time,” Sean Buckley, a senior official in the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, said during a hearing in U.S. District Court.
The decision to withdraw the subpoenas, which were issued on July 11, came after U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, questioned DOJ lawyers for nearly an hour about their handling of the subpoenas. The New York Times had asked the court to quash them, describing the demands as an attempt to intimidate its reporters.
Subramanian said the withdrawal would not prevent the DOJ from issuing new subpoenas to the journalists if prosecutors followed the appropriate procedures.
DOJ SUBPOENAS NEW YORK TIMES JOURNALISTS INVOLVED IN AIR FORCE ONE REPORTING
The subpoenas stemmed from an article published this month speculating on why Trump departed a NATO summit in Turkey aboard an older presidential aircraft, instead of flying in the new Qatari-gifted plane, which he had used to travel to the summit.
This is a developing story and will be updated.