Leak hunting with legal orders

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

Welcome back to your newsletter around press freedom violations in the United States as captured by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project by Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Since taking office just 18 months ago, President Donald Trump and his Department of Justice have issued 15 subpoenas and other legal orders to journalists or news outlets, the most of the three administrations we’ve tracked. Nearly all of those orders have been related to leak investigations.

In July, the DOJ issued seven subpoenas to the The New York Times and Times reporters in connection to the Gray Lady’s reporting on security concerns around Trump’s Qatari-gifted airplane. All seven were withdrawn during a July 23 hearing, where the judge made clear his disapproval. (DOJ lawyers also withdrew subpoenas of phone records for two reporters’ spouses and one reporter’s mom, telling the judge the relatives were ensnared in error.)

Those orders followed three subpoenas to Wall Street Journal reporters and one to a Washington Post reporter in March as part of an internal leak investigation following the outlets’ reporting on the Iran war. All of those were withdrawn, also under judicial pressure.

The Post had been previously subpoenaed in January as part of the administration’s investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified materials. FBI agents also executed a search warrant on the home of Post reporter Hannah Natanson, seizing her phone, smartwatch and two laptops.

The only legal orders not related to leak investigations this year were the two federal arrest warrants issued to independent journalists Georgia Fort and Don Lemon, both charged in January after covering a Minnesota church protest.

By contrast, of the 13 subpoenas issued during the Biden administration, the majority were part of criminal investigations. Only one was for a leak investigation — which had been initiated during the first Trump administration. That February 2021 subpoena sought phone records on Guardian reporter Stephanie Kirchgaessner. Under Biden, however, the FBI raided the home office of journalist Tim Burke in 2023 and indicted him on computer fraud and wiretapping charges. Some of those charges remain pending today.

From 2017 through January 2021, the first Trump administration issued nine subpoenas. Those orders sought phone and email records of five New York Times journalists (four of them twice), three Washington Post reporters (all of them twice) and a CNN correspondent, among others.

Arrests of journalists already surpasses 2025 total

Outside of legal orders, it’s worth highlighting that we’ve already documented more arrests or detainments of journalists this year — 41 — than all of 2025, when we documented 35.

Roughly half occurred in California, the vast majority of those while journalists covered protests related to immigration policies.

Other notable Tracker updates

• On July 21, journalist Catherine Herridge posted on X that she had begun paying the $800-per-day contempt fine levied against her for refusing to identify her confidential sources. Herridge was subpoenaed in 2022 for information about a series of investigative reports she published five years earlier for Fox News and was found in contempt of court in 2024. In late June, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to pause the fine. The Supreme Court then briefly stayed enforcement, but ultimately declined to intervene on July 2. “This is designed to break a journalist — mentally, emotionally and financially,” Herridge wrote in her post.
• A man who assaulted documentary filmmaker Michael Newman in February at Ohio State University in Columbus was sentenced to two years of probation on July 20.
• After a brief pause, the Pentagon escort policy is back in effect. On June 30, as part of a legal challenge by the Times, a federal judge suspended the Department of Defense’s policy requiring media to be accompanied by escorts while reporting at the Pentagon. On July 16, an appeals court panel voted to reinstate it while the legal challenge is under appeal.
• In Los Angeles, two independent photojournalists were assaulted by a member of a far-right extremist group while covering a political protest on July 10. Christopher Almaraz was pepper-sprayed and Jonny Morales was punched multiple times. Morales had been struck in the face by the same man at a different protest in June. The two journalists have since filed a police report. “They did stop me from pursuing my job, my work, being a journalist,” Morales told the Tracker. “These guys should be held accountable for their actions.”
• On June 18, Texas journalist Justin Pulliam settled a lawsuit against Fort Bend County for $250,000 over his 2021 arrest and ejection from a news conference.