On July 23, 2026, the United States Department of Justice withdrew subpoenas that would have compelled three New York Times reporters to testify before a federal grand jury and identify their confidential sources. The withdrawal came during a court hearing in which a federal judge, Arun Subramanian of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, told government lawyers that they had turned the law and federal regulations protecting journalists on its head, and said that their conduct was so problematic that in a civil proceeding he would normally have asked the parties to show cause why sanctions should not be issued. The subpoenas had been issued in connection with the Times’ reporting on Trump’s Qatar-gifted Air Force One jet. In addition to the three reporter subpoenas, the Justice Department had also sought phone records belonging to the reporters’ spouses and the mother of one reporter. After the hearing, rather than acknowledging the errors, the Justice Department released a statement attacking Judge Subramanian, accusing him of blocking the government from presenting its case. It was the third time since the start of 2026 that the Trump administration has served subpoenas on journalists at major news outlets only to withdraw them after judicial pushback.
What the Reporting Was About
The articles at the center of the subpoenas were published by the New York Times on July 8 and July 9, 2026. They reported that Trump’s new Air Force One aircraft, a plane gifted to the United States by the government of Qatar and retrofitted at an estimated cost of $400 million, lacked some of the advanced security features of the older Air Force One model, including antimissile defense systems. The Times reported, citing anonymous sources, that the Secret Service had urged Trump not to use the new jet because of those security gaps. Trump publicly rejected the reporting and denied that there were any security concerns. The reporting drew significant attention because the Qatar jet gift had already been controversial: ethics experts and some members of Congress argued that accepting a $400 million aircraft from a foreign government raised serious conflicts of interest under federal law and the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, which prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign states. Trump flew on an older Air Force One to leave a NATO summit in Turkey in July, using the previous model rather than the Qatari jet. The Times’ reporting about why he did not use the new plane was what prompted the grand jury investigation and the subpoenas.
The Scope of What the DOJ Sought
Beyond the three reporter subpoenas, the Justice Department had also sought phone records from several additional individuals connected to the reporters. One subpoena sought records for a phone number belonging to one reporter’s mother, who is a mental health professional with confidential client relationships. Two additional subpoenas targeted the spouses of reporters, including one spouse who serves as the general counsel of a law firm, a role that comes with its own confidentiality obligations. The Times’ legal team argued in court filings that seeking records from family members who had no involvement with the reporting raised serious questions about the purpose of the investigation, and that the government’s carelessness in identifying the correct phone numbers could have exposed sensitive information that had nothing to do with the journalists or the stories. In their court filings, the Times’ lawyers also highlighted that the phone records subpoenas covered records starting on January 1, 2026 — more than six months before the articles were published on July 8 and 9. The newspaper argued that such a lengthy lookback period was inconsistent with a narrow investigation into specific leaks and instead suggested the government was attempting to, in the Times’ words, forage for information about the journalists’ source relationships more broadly.
What the Law Requires and What the Judge Said
Federal regulations governing grand jury subpoenas issued to journalists set a high bar. They require the government to exhaust all other available means of obtaining information before issuing a subpoena to a member of the press, to give journalists advance notice so they can raise legal objections, and to ensure that the request is narrowly tailored. The regulations are designed to protect the First Amendment interests at stake when the government compels reporters to identify confidential sources, which can have a chilling effect on press freedom and on the willingness of future sources to share information with journalists. Judge Subramanian said the Justice Department had failed to meet these requirements. ‘Subpoenas are the last step, not the first step, but the last step,’ he said from the bench, adding that the government’s conduct had turned the law and the regulations on its head. He said that if the government had not withdrawn the subpoenas, he would have granted the newspaper’s motion to quash them. The judge also noted that the government had failed to provide the required advance notice to reporters before seeking their phone records, and that errors had accumulated throughout the process. ‘These things are starting to pile up,’ he said, growing increasingly pointed in his remarks toward the government’s lawyers. A Justice Department attorney, Sean Buckley, described the missteps as inadvertent errors and said no one was trying to pull a fast one, apologizing for the subpoenas that had targeted the reporters’ family members. ‘That was an error, judge, which we own,’ Buckley said. ‘It was a consequence of trying to move quickly.’
The DOJ’s Statement Attacking the Judge
After the hearing, the Justice Department issued a public statement that did not acknowledge the errors the judge had identified. Instead, it accused Subramanian of threatening government attorneys with sanctions and blocking the department from presenting its case. The statement said the judge’s conduct overrides clear longstanding principles and common sense and argued that the grand jury has a right to hear testimony from all material witnesses in a federal criminal investigation. The statement concluded: ‘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 aggressive public attack on a sitting federal judge after a courtroom defeat is consistent with a broader pattern in the Trump administration, which has publicly criticized and personally attacked judges who rule against it. The judge presiding over the hearing had just told the government’s attorneys that their conduct was serious enough to raise the possibility of sanctions.
The Third Retreat: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Now the Times
The July 23 withdrawal was the third time in 2026 that the Trump administration has issued subpoenas to journalists at major news outlets and then withdrawn them after judicial opposition and legal challenges. Earlier in the year, the administration had issued and then withdrawn similar subpoenas to reporters at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal in connection with separate national security coverage. Legal observers said the pattern suggests the administration is using the subpoena process aggressively as a first move rather than a last resort, relying on the threat of compelled testimony to pressure news organizations and potentially deter future leaks, even when the legal basis for the subpoenas cannot withstand judicial scrutiny. The Times’ chief newsroom lawyer, David McCraw, said after the hearing that while the withdrawal was an important affirmation of the country’s commitment to a free press, the subpoenas should never have been issued in the first place. ‘We will not be deterred in the face of tactics like these,’ he said.
The FBI Agent and the Sheep Detectives
Among the details that emerged in the proceedings was an account of how one of the three reporters was served with his subpoena. An FBI agent appeared at the reporter’s home while he was watching a family-friendly animated movie called The Sheep Detectives, about sheep attempting to solve the murder of their shepherd. Judge Subramanian asked the government’s attorneys at the close of the hearing to assure him that such a scenario would not be repeated. ‘I can’t think of anything more inconsistent with Sheep Detective than an FBI agent showing up at your door,’ the judge said, drawing laughter from the courtroom. Federal regulations governing journalist subpoenas require that service be handled in a manner that minimizes intrusion and that advance notice be given where possible. The government’s attorney had already acknowledged that the required advance notice had not been given before phone records were sought from journalists and their relatives.