A person walks into the New York Times building in New York City on Jan. 22, 2026.
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The Justice Department is withdrawing subpoenas it obtained for New York Times reporters involved in an article about security involving President Donald Trump’s new Air Force One plane, prosecutors told a federal judge in New York on Thursday.
The move came during a hearing in US District Court in Manhattan, where Judge Arun Subramanian warned the prosecutor, Sean Buckley, that he would withdraw the subpoenas at the request of The Times if the DOJ did not withdraw them, according to MS NOW.
“Why isn’t that the right result?” Subramanian questioned Buckley, who argued at length that the subpoenas had been issued legally.
The DOJ on July 10 issued subpoenas seeking to compel Times reporters to testify before a grand jury, the newspaper reported. Federal agents delivered several subpoenas to reporters’ homes.
On Monday, the Times reported that the DOJ told the newspaper late last week that it had “issued subpoenas to third-party telephone providers seeking dozens of journalists’ phone calls and text message records.” The phone records of another reporter’s mother were subpoenaed to them, according to the newspaper.
The complaints were issued by Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton, whom Trump appointed as director of national intelligence. Clayton was asked about the subpoenas at his Senate confirmation hearing on July 15.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, authorized the subpoena.
David McCraw, deputy attorney general of The Times, said in a statement Thursday, “Today’s action reaffirms our country’s commitment to a free press.”
“We are happy that the government finally admitted that the subpoenas violated the law, but they should not have been issued in the first place,” said McCraw. “The Times and our journalists will continue to report and seek the truth without fear or bias. We will not give up when faced with tactics like these.”
CNBC has requested comment from the DOJ.
The investigation related to the complaints came after the Times reported on security concerns about Trump’s new Air Force One, which was donated by Qatar.
The Times reported on July 8 that Trump flew from Turkey that day “on an old Air Force One instead of his new Boeing 747-8 that was given to Qatar as a security measure related to renewed tensions with Iran.”
The newspaper, citing people briefed on the capabilities of the new plane, reported that “the new plane does not have all the features of the old plane” in terms of safety.
During Thursday’s court hearing, Buckle, the prosecutor, told Subramanian that in a letter he wrote on Monday, the DOJ said it was willing to hold the subpoena for further investigation, MS NOW reported.
The judge said that was an admission that the DOJ did not take reasonable steps to obtain similar information from other available sources before issuing the subpoena, according to MS NOW. Under federal appeals court precedent that applies in Manhattan federal court, the DOJ must take these steps before subpoenaing reporters.
At one point, Subramanian told Buckley that if the case involved a civil dispute, as opposed to a criminal investigation, he would order the DOJ to state why it should not punish prosecutors for their conduct.
David O’Neill, a lawyer for The Times, told Subramanian that the DOJ’s conduct was “full of bad faith and that is even more clear now,” according to MS NOW.
During his testimony last week to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Clayton said he could not go into the details of the investigation regarding the article about Air Force One.
“I must say that I am sure that the procedures we have in place to protect the First Amendment and to protect the freedom of the press, will not result in the intimidation of journalists,” said Clayton.
