Judge rebuffs Trump admin demand for phone records from NYT reporters

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation Director [Kash Patel] orchestrated this activity from within the White House, in close coordination with top Administration officials and in response to the President’s anger over the reporting,” the motion said. Two days after this motion was filed, the government revealed in a call with NYT counsel that it also served subpoenas on phone providers for call records, according to a July 18 filing. In the newer filing, the NYT asked the court “to quash the newly-disclosed grand jury subpoenas served on third-party phone service providers on July 10, July 14, and July 16, 2026, for records associated with the Journalists.” “The grand jury has a right to hear testimony from all material witnesses in a federal criminal investigation,” the DOJ statement continued. “This judge’s conduct overrides clear longstanding principles and common sense—blocking the grand jury from receiving core evidence in a national security investigation. Make no mistake, this investigation remains ongoing, and we will pursue justice against those threatening national security by leaking classified information, a serious federal crime.” NYT newsroom lawyer David McCraw issued a statement calling the hearing “an important affirmation of our country’s commitment to a free press. We are pleased that the government finally conceded that the subpoenas violated the law, but they should never have been issued in the first place.” The NYT motion to quash said that after Trump accepted the Boeing jet from Qatar, “concerns were immediately raised about the ethical implications of accepting a $400 million gift from a foreign government, the costs to American taxpayers of retrofitting a commercial jet to serve as a ‘flying White House’—with all the necessary communications, security, and support capabilities—and the national security implications of using a foreign-donated aircraft for that purpose.” The NYT motion said the paper’s reporting on the topic “was manifestly in the public interest. It contributed to the public’s knowledge about the workings of the Executive Branch, the President’s dealings with foreign nations, and the safety of an aircraft that transports the President and many other public officials, reporters, and guests.” In January, the FBI seized devices from a Washington Post reporter who had built up a contact list of 1,100 current and former government employees. The government said it was unable to access data from the iPhone because it was protected by Apple’s Lockdown Mode, but it did access the reporter’s work MacBook Pro by compelling her to unlock it with her fingerprint. A judge ordered a halt to the FBI search of the Post reporter’s devices, and decided the court would do the search itself because the government only had probable cause to obtain a small fraction of the material it seized.