Senators Probe Blanche and Clayton Over Withdrawn DOJ Subpoenas of New York Times Reporters

Senate scrutiny of two high-profile Trump nominees has expanded to include their roles in a failed effort to compel testimony and phone records from New York Times reporters in a leak investigation that the Justice Department later abandoned in court.

The episode now hangs over Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general and President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, and Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence. Blanche told senators at his confirmation hearing that he personally authorized the subpoenas. Clayton’s office issued them.

The subpoenas were tied to a New York Times report published in early July about security concerns surrounding a Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8 being prepared for presidential use as Air Force One. The story was bylined by Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt. Federal agents served some of the subpoenas at reporters’ homes on the night of Friday, July 10, two days after the article appeared.

The demands sought grand jury testimony from the reporters and communications records, including phone and text records. In some cases, the requests also covered relatives’ phone records, including spouses and one reporter’s mother. The Times moved to quash the subpoenas, arguing that the government had overstepped in using compulsory legal process against journalists.

At a public hearing in Manhattan on July 23, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian pressed the government over its handling of the matter as the Justice Department agreed to withdraw the subpoenas. During the hearing, Justice Department prosecutor Sean Buckley acknowledged that seeking records tied to relatives had been a mistake. “That was an error, judge, which we own,” Buckley said.

Subramanian sharply criticized the government’s handling of the matter and later ordered the department to provide internal communications to the court under seal. The judge said he wanted records about the decision to seek a nondisclosure order, whether the applications identified the record holders as reporters and when the reporters were notified.

The Justice Department has defended the underlying leak investigation even as it withdrew the subpoenas. A department spokesperson said, “Any subpoena issued by the Department of Justice is done so in full compliance with federal law and internal department policy.” The department has also said the investigation remains ongoing and could continue through other lawful means.

The Times and press-freedom advocates have cast the episode as a serious escalation because it involved federal prosecutors seeking journalists’ testimony and communications data in a leak case. David McCraw, deputy general counsel for The New York Times, said after the subpoenas came to light that “the appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects.”

The matter has also drawn criticism from Democratic senators, who have raised it as part of the confirmation process for Blanche and Clayton. That political scrutiny reflects more than a dispute over one leak inquiry. The Justice Department has special rules for seeking subpoenas or communications records from members of the news media, requiring high-level approval and treating such steps as a last resort. The policies also generally require notice to journalists in most circumstances.

Those guardrails are central to the Senate’s interest in the episode. Blanche’s acknowledgment that he authorized the subpoenas places the decision directly on the desk of Trump’s pick to lead the department. Clayton’s office, which issued the subpoenas, is likewise under examination as he seeks to move from one of the country’s most powerful federal prosecutor posts to the top U.S. intelligence job.

What might otherwise have been a short-lived court fight has instead become a test of accountability for two nominees seeking Senate approval. With the subpoenas withdrawn but the leak investigation still open, lawmakers are now weighing not only the judgment behind the decision, but also what it says about how each man would exercise power in office.