The Biden administration has disclosed that the Department of Justice secretly obtained the phone records of four journalists working for a prestigious U.S. newspaper for nearly four months in 2017, as part of an investigation into leaked information. This announcement is the latest in a series of discoveries regarding the Trump administration's covert acquisition of journalists' communication records in an effort to uncover their sources. Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that during Trump's presidency, it seized the phone records of reporters from a U.S. newspaper, as well as the phone and email records of a CNN correspondent.
In this regard, American attorney Charlotte Dent stated in an interview with "Sky News Arabia" that the actions of the Department of Justice were "illegal and a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects press freedom, and is an attempt to silence the voices of sources that journalists rely on to convey the truth to the public." Attorney Dent added that "the Trump administration consistently harassed journalists and claimed they were providing fake news, which undermines public trust in the media," and she anticipated that the affected media organizations would sue the Trump administration.
However, former U.S. Department of Defense official Brian Boyd stated that "part of the procedure of the U.S. Department of Justice is to investigate government employees criminally for leaking state secrets."
