Saturday Rewind: The aftermath
Even after the Trump DOJ withdrew its NY Times subpoenas, a judge is demanding answers.
The Trump Justice Department’s abrupt withdrawal of subpoenas issued to New York Times reporters does not end the pressure on the prosecutors who brought it.
Hours after the hearing, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian ordered the government to provide “any internal communications” about the decision to seek a non-disclosure order concerning subpoenas for reporters for testimony about investigative journalism about the Qatar-gifted airplane that Donald Trump has been using for his Air Force One.
“With respect to the July 14, 2026 application for a non-disclosure order, the Government should, on or before Monday, July 27, 2026, furnish to the Court on an ex parte basis any internal communications on or before July 16, 2026, concerning (1) the decision to seek the non-disclosure order, (2) whether the application should or should not reference that the owners of the records were reporters, and (3) whether and when notification of the third-party subpoenas should be given to the reporters,” Subramanian wrote.
As the order indicates, the government failed to disclose in its application for a non-disclosure order that reporters held the records that they were seeking. The judge said during the hearing the government falsely claimed in its application that the grand jury investigation wasn’t public. (It was.)
During an interview with All Rise News, the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s chief of advocacy Seth Stern noted that this is part of a pattern for the Trump Justice Department.
“This is certainly not the first time that the government has tried to hide the ball from the courts — [and] from subpoena recipients — when going after journalists,” Stern noted, citing the raid on Washington Post journalist Hannah Natanson’s home.
Prosecutors could still decide to try to subpoena information from Times reporters in the future, but any attempt would require the approval of Subramanian, who retains jurisdiction over the case..
Stern expects the worst in terms of the Trump administration’s intransigence.
“I don't think that prosecutors who refuse to harass the news media at Donald Trump's request are going to last long in this administration,” he said. “That's top of the agenda, harassing, intimidating, subpoenaing, raiding journalists.”
You can watch my interview in full on Legal AF’s All Rise News playlist, and paid subscribers can watch all of these videos ad-free below.
Other videos this week:
* Hawaii’s Supreme Court roasts SCOTUS and John Roberts
* The case against a special needs teacher vilified by Pam Bondi collapses.
