Under former President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice (DOJ) reportedly seized phone records of four reporters from The New York Times.
According to the DOJ, under President Joe Biden, officials seized phone records from Jan. 14 to April 30, 2017, of Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau, and Michael S. Schmidt, as The New York Times reports.
The publication adds, “The government also secured a court order to seize logs — but not contents — of their emails, it said, but ‘no records were obtained.'”
Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the Times, released a statement calling the Trump administration out for “profoundly” undermining “press freedom.”
“Seizing the phone records of journalists profoundly undermines press freedom.”
He added, “It threatens to silence the sources we depend on to provide the public with essential information about what the government is doing.”
The Justice Department did not identify the article that was being investigated.
The Times suggested, “The lineup of reporters and the timing” indicates the Justice Department was focusing on a 2017 article written by the reporters about how then FBI director, James Comey, handled “politically charged investigations” during the 2016 election.
The article touched on Comey’s “unorthodox decision” to announce the FBI in 2016 was advising against charging former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton related to a probe into her use of a private email server to perform government business while she held that position as secretary of state.
According to the Times, the article also referenced a classified document that was said to play a significant role in Comey’s approach to Clinton’s case.
Last month, the Biden Justice Department revealed seizures of phone logs of The Washington Post reporters and phone and email logs of a reporter from CNN conducted under the Trump administration.
Biden said he would not allow such an action during his administration. He called it “simply, simply wrong.”