Mueller Scrutinized an Unidentified Member of News Media in Russia Inquiry

In contrast to those sparse accounts, the Justice Department also released a detailed timeline of the leak investigations late in the Trump era into sources for reporters with CNN, The Post and The Times, all of which spilled over into Mr. Biden’s presidency and which the Biden administration disclosed earlier this year.

The leak investigations involving CNN, The Times and The Post were opened in August 2017, each involving stories published or aired in preceding months. The chronology did not explain why three years later, there was a sudden urgency to go after the reporters’ communications records.

Mr. Barr approved requests to try to obtain a CNN reporter’s communications records in May 2020, the chronology shows. He approved going after the Times reporters’ materials in September 2020. And on Nov. 13, after Mr. Trump lost the presidential election, Mr. Barr approved a request to try to obtain the Post reporters’ communications records.

The Justice Department successfully obtained call data — records showing who called whom and when, but not what was said — for the reporters at the three organizations. The chronology said the phone companies had been legally free to reveal that they had received subpoenas, although none did.

While the department ultimately obtained some email records for a CNN reporter, Barbara Starr, it did not succeed in getting email records for the Times and Post reporters whose stories were under scrutiny. The Biden-era department ultimately dropped those efforts.

Still, the fight over those materials — including the imposition of gag orders on some news media executives, and a delay in notifying the reporters that their materials had been sought and in some cases obtained — spilled over into the Biden administration. The chronology showed that in April Attorney General Merrick B. Garland approved extending a delay in notifying Ms. Starr about the matter.

In July, at the direction of Mr. Biden, Mr. Garland barred prosecutors and F.B.I. agents from using subpoenas, search warrants and other tools of legal compulsion to go after reporters’ communications records or force them to testify about confidential sources — a major change in Justice Department policy from practices under recent previous administrations of both parties.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/us/politics/mueller-russia-media-investigated.html