MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd June, 2021) The Department of Justice under the administration of former President Donald Trump has secretly obtained records of phone conversations of four New York Times (NYT) reporters as part of probes into leaks of classified information to the media, the newspaper reported, citing President Joe Biden's administration.
The justice department, in particular, informed the newspaper that its officials obtained three-and-a-half months' worth of phone records from NYT journalists Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt. The authorities also attempted to seize logs of their emails but failed, the publication said on Wednesday.
Though the department did not specify which article was under investigation back then, the newspaper suggested, given the lineup of reporters and the timing, that it was the one published on April 22, 2017, describing how then-FBI head James Comey handled politically motivated probes during the 2016 presidential election.
The disclosure is the latest in a series of revelations about the previous administration secretly seizing journalists' phone records in a bid to uncover their sources. Last month, Biden's Department of Justice revealed government seizures of phone records from The Washington Post's journalists and a CNN reporter under the Trump presidency.
