Wall street Journal Gift Article – “President Trump privately complained to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche about media leaks in the wake of the Iran war last month, according to administration officials familiar with the matter, prompting an aggressive push at the Justice Department to pursue those investigations. Blanche vowed to secure subpoenas specifically targeting the records of reporters who have worked on sensitive national security stories, one official said. In one meeting, Trump passed a stack of news articles he and other senior officials thought threatened national security to Blanche with a sticky note on it that said “treason,” another administration official said. Senior Justice Department officials have met with counterparts from the Pentagon to discuss the investigations, according to officials familiar with the meetings. In particular, Trump has focused his ire on articles that provided details on how he arrived at his decision to launch the war, and what his advisers had told him as he deliberated, officials said. Launched 10 weeks ago, the conflict is now stuck in a shaky cease-fire. “In all circumstances, the Department of Justice follows the facts and applies the law to identify those committing crimes against the United States,” a department spokeswoman said.
…Former Attorney General Pam Bondi last year made it easier for prosecutors to get subpoenas and search warrants targeting reporters in leak investigations by rescinding a Biden-era media policy that sharply restricted the use of such requests…[But] Trump’s recent push to pursue the leak investigations comes as the Justice Department had already stepped up investigations into sensitive reporting about the lead up to the Iran war. The Wall Street Journal received grand jury subpoenas dated March 4 for records of Journal reporters. The request related to a Feb. 23 article that reported that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others at the Pentagon warned the president about the risks of an extended military campaign against Iran. Other news outlets, including Axios and the Washington Post, published similar stories that day. Trump launched the war five days later, on Feb. 28. In a statement, Ashok Sinha, the chief communications officer of Dow Jones, which publishes the Journal, said: “The government’s subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and our reporters represent an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering. We will vigorously oppose this effort to stifle and intimidate essential reporting.”…Last month, officials said, Trump was specifically angry about an April 7 article in the New York Times that outlined how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pitched Trump on bombing Iran. That reporting provided vivid detail about senior-staff meetings on the topic, including ones in the secretive Situation Room. It described how U.S. intelligence officials skeptically viewed Netanyahu’s argument for a war that would end in regime change….In recent months, prosecutors have sent subpoenas to media organizations as well as to email and phone providers seeking information in leak inquiries, according to people familiar with the requests. For years, the Justice Department has limited federal prosecutors’ ability to obtain records of reporters’ contacts when investigating government leaks of sensitive information, to protect First Amendment press freedoms. In recent decades, prosecutors haven’t issued subpoenas to news outlets soon after publication, former prosecutors said.
