Trump's Justice Department Secretly Seized Phone Records Of NYT Reporters

New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet said the act "profoundly undermines press freedom."

The Trump administration secretly obtained the phone records of four New York Times reporters shortly after Donald Trump assumed office in 2017, the Justice Department, now under President Joe Biden, told the newspaper Wednesday. Justice Department officials said the agency had seized phone records for Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau and Michael Schmidt for more than four months, from Jan. 14 to April 30, 2017. The Times noted the Justice Department did not say which articles the seizures were related to but added the reporters were focused at the time on then-FBI Director James Comey and his handling of the bureau’s investigations during the 2016 presidential election. The government also had a court order to seize the journalists’ email logs, excluding their contents, but did not obtain any records, the officials said.