The Trump-era Justice Department violated agency policy in trying to identify journalists’ sources, the Justice Department’s inspector general alleges in a new report.
The IG alleges that the agency searched “non-content communications records” (information such as email logs rather than the content of conversations) for eight journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN. . The newspaper previously reported that President Trump’s Justice Department was investigating whether former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey was the source of classified information about Russian hackers leaked in 2017.
The report, released just over a month before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office following his election victory, provides insight into how the administration will handle similar requests for information in the future. It’s raising questions. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday tried to unanimously pass the Protecting Reporters from Predatory Espionage (PRESS) Act, but Sen. Tom Cotton (R-N.Y.) (Arkansas) was blocked. If passed, it would help reporters avoid having to identify their sources.
“In our judgment, the Department’s deviation from its own requirements represents an alarming disparity.”
The IG found that President Trump’s Justice Department failed to follow policies seeking journalists’ records during his first term, including failing to convene a committee to review forced records requests. The alleged violations come just a few years after the department under the Obama administration “overhauled” its news media policies after a backlash over aggressive tactics against journalists. “We were perplexed that these failures occurred just a few years after this overhaul,” the IG’s office wrote.
President Trump’s Justice Department also sought similar types of records from two members of Congress and 43 congressional staffers across the political spectrum, the IG said; They did not have a policy to deal with collection.
“In our judgment, the department’s departure from its own requirements reflects, on the one hand, the consideration expressed in the department’s policy for the role of the news media in American democracy and, on the other hand, the department’s commitment to society. “It shows a troubling divergence between “compliance with the very restrictions and requirements that protect its role,” the IG’s report said.
In a memo from Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer included in the report, the Justice Department notes that much of the report “follows the department’s revised news media policy that changes requirements for law enforcement agencies. and issues that were undertaken before the introduction of the Parliamentary Inquiry Policy. Still, the Department agreed with core recommendations from the IG, including considering changes to how certain requests for information are escalated to senior officials.