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Trump Administration obtained phone records from Washington Post reporters

2021-05-10T14:29:31.671Z


The Justice Department secretly obtained the phone records of three newspaper reporters who covered the federal investigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. "We are deeply concerned," said the newspaper's acting editor.


By Pete Williams - NBC News

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department confirmed Friday that it obtained the phone records of three reporters from The Washington Post newspaper of the calls they made during three months of 2017 while reporting on Russia's role in the previous year's presidential election.

According to the Post, which broke the news, journalists Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller and Adam Entous, who no longer works for the newspaper, were notified by letters dated May 3 that the government was trying to obtain court orders to access information about calls that were made between April 15, 2017 and July 31, 2017.

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The newspaper explained that towards the end of that period the three reporters wrote a story about classified US intelligence interceptions that revealed that Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, had discussed the Trump campaign in 2016 with him. Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

The subpoenas sought records showing who the reporters called and how long their conversations lasted, but not what they talked about.

The letters said that the subpoenas covered Nakashima's work, mobile and household phones;

Miller's work and cell phones;

and Entous' cell phone, according to the Post.

Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi confirmed the content of the letters in a statement.

"Although rare, the Department of Justice follows procedures established within its media policy when they want to access legal process to obtain phone call logs and content-free email logs from journalists as part of an investigation. criminal over unauthorized disclosure of classified information, "according to a statement.

Robert F. Kennedy Justice Department Building, Washington, Friday, June 19, 2015.AP Photo / Andrew Harnik

"The objectives of these investigations are not the recipients of the media, but those with access to the national defense information that provided it to the media and, therefore, did not protect it as legally required," he adds. .

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The search for records in the media is rare "and is only done after all reasonable attempts have been made to obtain the information from alternative sources," the spokesperson concludes.

Department of Justice policies require the approval of the attorney general before requesting subpoenas for such telephone and email records.

A spokesperson for the agency explained that the Post's reporters' records were obtained in 2020, when William Barr was still serving as attorney general

for then-President Donald Trump.

Barr declined to explain to the Post.

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Government officials have stated that they seek such information in hopes of identifying the sources that leak classified information, but citing journalists' phone records is rare and controversial.

The Post's acting editor, Cameron Barr, criticized the move in a statement:

“We are deeply concerned about this use of government power to gain access to journalists' communications

.

The Department of Justice must immediately make clear the reasons for this interference in the activities of reporters who carry out their work, an activity protected by the First Amendment [of the Constitution], "he recalled.

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The Post reported that the documents revealed that attorneys for the Justice Department also obtained court approval to obtain email addresses accessed by journalists, but did not obtain those records.

In 2013, during the Obama Administration, then-Attorney General Eric Holder met with various media outlets to advocate for change after he revealed that the Justice Department seized records of more than 20 phone numbers used by reporters from the Obama administration agency. news The Associated Press and requested a court order to obtain emails from a Fox News reporter.

But the Justice Department has maintained that it would only obtain journalist records as a last resort.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2021-05-10

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