The Department of Justice has withdrawn the subpoenas sent to reporters for The New York Times seeking their grand jury testimony and phone records after a federal judge threatened to quash them.
In a move decried by President Donald J. Trump’s critics, the DOJ issued subpoenas over the paper’s reporting on alleged security issues with the new Qatari-donated Air Force One jet airliner, seeking information about who leaked it to the Times.
Reporters were served at their homes by federal agents, “a brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs,” said David McCraw, Senior Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, in a statement.
https://t.co/cJ1FPkg3eT pic.twitter.com/uwXcpJYKbc
— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) July 11, 2026
The paper fought back against what it called an attack on the free press and on Thursday, the matter ended up before Judge Arun Subramanian in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, a hearing that did not go well for the administration.
The Justice Department withdraws subpoenas targeting New York Times reporters. Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig says the hearing went “quite poorly” for the DOJ and that they “had to back off.” pic.twitter.com/MouIpw8EX6
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) July 24, 2026
Subramanian grilled the government’s lawyers for almost an hour on the 23rd floor of the federal courthouse in the hearing on the Gray Lady’s request that the subpoenas be quashed.
The Biden appointee scolded the attorneys, saying that issuing subpoenas “are not the first thing you do — they are the last thing you do,” adding “It’s a matter of basic compliance with the law.”
“Either we can quash the subpoenas, or you could withdraw the subpoenas,” Judge Subramanian told chief counsel to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Sean Buckley, who was representing the federal government.
“Judge Subramanian then grilled the prosecutors for the vast majority of the hourlong hearing, his demeanor at times resembling a teacher scolding his pupils. He asked few questions of The Times’s lawyers; at one point, he even apologized to one of them and promised time to respond to some of the government’s statements,” the New York Times reported.
“The government is prepared to unilaterally withdraw the subpoenas at this time,” Buckley said.
“We are pleased that the government finally conceded that the subpoenas violated the law, but they should never have been issued in the first place,” McCraw said in a Thursday statement. “The Times and our journalists will continue to report and seek the truth without fear or favor. We will not be deterred in the face of tactics like these.”
The government blasted Subramanian after the hearing.
“This judge threatened our attorneys with sanctions unless subpoenas were withdrawn, and blocked us from presenting the meticulous process of this investigation. The grand jury has a right to hear testimony from all material witnesses in a federal criminal investigation,” the DOJ said in a statement. “This judge’s conduct overrides clear longstanding principles and common sense—blocking the grand jury from receiving core evidence in a national security investigation.”
“Make no mistake, this investigation remains ongoing, and we will pursue justice against those threatening national security by leaking classified information, a serious federal crime,” the feds vowed.
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