NEW: The Justice Department said that it no longer will secretly obtain reporters' records during leak investigations, a policy shift that abandons a practice decried by news organizations and press freedom groups.
FILE - In this June 28, 2018, file photo, a police officer stands outside The New York Times building in New York. The Trump Justice Department secretly obtained the phone records of four New York Times journalists as part of a leak investigation, the newspaper said Wednesday, June 2, 2021.
The reversal follows a pledge last month by President Joe Biden, who had said it was “simply, simply wrong” to seize journalists' records and that his Justice Department would halt the practice. The latest revelation came Friday night when the Times reported the existence of a gag order that barred the newspaper from revealing a secret court fight over efforts to obtain the email records of four reporters. That tussle had begun during the Trump administration but had persisted under the Biden Justice Department, which ultimately moved to withdraw the gag order.
In a separate statement, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said that “in a change to its longstanding practice,” the department"will not seek compulsory legal process in leak investigations to obtain source information from members of the news media doing their jobs."
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