Trump DOJ Secretly Seizes Phone Records of Four New York Times Reporters
The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained the phone records of four New York Times national security reporters — Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau, and Michael Schmidt — as part of a leak investigation, the newspaper disclosed in June 2021 when the Biden DOJ notified the reporters.
In January 2020, federal prosecutors using a 2703(d) court order secretly obtained records covering the personal and work phone accounts of New York Times reporters Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau, and Michael Schmidt, all of whom covered national security. The records covered portions of 2017. The reporters were not notified at the time; they learned of the seizure only in June 2021 when the Biden DOJ — under pressure from the simultaneous disclosure of similar seizures targeting CNN and Washington Post reporters — informed them. The Times reported that Apuzzo and Goldman had won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The disclosure came weeks after reports that the Trump DOJ had also secretly seized phone records of CNN's Barbara Starr and email records of Washington Post reporters. The Biden DOJ subsequently announced a policy prohibiting secret subpoenas of journalists' records in leak investigations.