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Trump DOJ tried to seize Washington Post journalists' records over Russia leaks

14 July 2021
Dan Ackermann

The Trump Department of Justice attempted to obtain the communications records of three Washington Post reporters via legal action over 2017 reports on Russian election interference and Russia's ambassador, court documents unsealed Tuesday show.

Why it matters: The court order was lodged in secret the day before Bill Barr stepped down as attorney general last December.

  • The Biden Justice Department said last month it will no longer secretly seize reporters' records in leak investigations, following revelations that the Trump administration obtained phone records of New York Times, WashPost and CNN reporters.

Details: The order sought to uncover the leaker of classified information contained in three WashPost articles written by Adam Entous, Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima, whose records the Trump administration was trying to obtain:

  • One from May 2017 on conversations President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Kushner had with Sergey Kislyak, then Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
  • A June 2017 report on how the Obama administration dealt with U.S. election interference by Russia's government.
  • A July 2017 piece on discussions between Kislyak and then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, who went on to become the Trump administration's first attorney general.

Of note: The Biden administration was initially against the unsealing of the documents, but Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui said the government's "sealing power may not be exercised indiscriminately."

  • "A sealed matter is not generally, as the government persists in imagining, 'nailed into a nondescript crate, stored deep in a sprawling, uncataloged warehouse,'" she said in her order, quoting an earlier opinion that cites the 1981 movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" — which the Washington Post notes was made by Attorney General Merick Garland when he was an appeals court judge.
"Rather, it is merely frozen in carbonite, awaiting its eventual thawing," she added, evoking the 1980 film "The Empire Strikes Back."

What they're saying: Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan said in a statement, "Unsealing the application to obtain our reporters' email records was an important step. It remains essential that a full accounting of what happened be made public."

  • Representatives for Barr and the DOJ could not immediately be reached.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.