NYT moves to quash subpoenas for phone records of reporters and family members
The New York Times moved to quash subpoenas that sought phone records of the reporters and their relatives, including the spouses of two reporters and one reporter's mother.
The Justice Department, in trying to uncover confidential sources who spoke to the New York Times for its reporting on the security systems on the Qatar-donated Air Force One plane, attempted to gain access to phone records of several Times reporters and their family members.
The Times said earlier this month that several journalists at the company received grand jury subpoenas on the same day that the news organization first reported that the Secret Service had advised that President Trump should take the old presidential aircraft to depart from Turkey. Mr. Trump had flown on the new plane to the NATO summit in Ankara, but while he was at the meeting of defense alliance leaders, questions arose about the new jet's defensive military capabilities.
The subpoenas did not allege anything specific, the Times said, only that the reporters had been asked to testify "in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law." They sought to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan last week.
The Times said the subpoenas were signed by Jay Clayton, Mr. Trump's nominee to serve as director of national intelligence who was previously the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.
On Wednesday, David McCraw, the paper's senior vice president and deputy general counsel, said that the company moved to quash the "abusive and improper subpoenas."
In court filings published Monday by the Times, the paper sought to block new subpoenas sent to third-party phone service providers for the phone records of the reporters and their relatives, including the spouses of two reporters and one of the reporter's mothers.