Justice Department Eyes Subpoenas to Press to Find Leakers (1)

President Donald Trump’s Justice Department will look to subpoenas and other legal tactics to force members of the press to turn over information about their sources in an effort to crack down on government leaks.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced to employees in an internal memo Friday, obtained by Bloomberg Law, that the Justice Department will rescind a Biden-era policy that restricted the use of compulsory process to get information from reporters.

“Federal government employees intentionally leaking sensitive information to the media undermines the ability of the Department of Justice to uphold the rule of law, protect civil rights, and keep America safe. This conduct is illegal and wrong, and it must stop,” Bondi wrote.

She added that these leaks “aid our foreign adversaries.”

“The damage is significant and irreversible. Accountability, including criminal prosecutions, is necessary to set a new course,” Bondi wrote.

Under the revised policy, members of the media “must answer subpoenas” authorized by the Justice Department. These could include subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to compel journalists to turn over testimony and information. These orders “are to be narrowly drawn” and must contain protocols to limit the scope that they introduce into “potentially protected materials or newsgathering activities,” the memo said.

Bondi also wrote that a free and independent press is “vital to the functioning of our democracy” and said these tactics “are an extraordinary measure to be deployed as a last resort when essential to a successful investigation or prosecution.”

The memo rescinds a policy adopted by former Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021, and formalized in a regulation the following year, to not subpoena members of the press for records obtained via activities within the scope of newsgathering.

The changes continue a practice from the first Trump administration. The Justice Department’s inspector general found in a report released last year that, between 2017 and 2020, the department used compulsory legal processes to obtain communications records from eight reporters at major news outlets, two members of Congress, and 43 congressional staffers.