In Targeting Times Reporter, Justice Department Backs Trump’s Anti-Press Rhetoric

The revelation that the Justice Department had seized years of phone and email records from Ali Watkins, a New York Times journalist, raised concerns that the Trump administration was adopting a highly aggressive approach, continuing a crackdown that ramped up in the Obama years. Under Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder Jr., the Justice Department obtained private records from reporters at Fox News and The Associated Press. Eventually, facing criticism from the news media, AG Holder strengthened rules meant to minimize the seizure of journalists’ data.

But journalists and lawyers said that the department’s handling of Ali Watkins’s case was a sign that those guardrails might be on their way out, under a president who relishes taunting the press.

“I don’t think people in this administration respect the press’s need to do its job at all,” said Matthew Miller, who served as director of public affairs for the Justice Department during the Obama presidency. “And they couldn’t care less about bad press coverage. So both of the checks on what is otherwise their unfettered ability to use the law to obtain journalist records are kind of gone right now.”