{"id":554319,"date":"2021-06-06T11:06:16","date_gmt":"2021-06-06T15:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=554319"},"modified":"2021-06-06T11:06:18","modified_gmt":"2021-06-06T15:06:18","slug":"biden-admin-slapped-unprecedented-gag-order-on-media-execs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-slapped-unprecedented-gag-order-on-media-execs\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Admin Slapped \u2018Unprecedented\u2019 Gag Order On Media Execs"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-admin-slapped-unprecedented-gag-order-on-media-execs%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=554319&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/NYT-Building.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>The Biden administration not only supported a secret legal effort to obtain the phone and email records of four New York Times reporters, but its Justice Department imposed a gag order on the Times \u201cto shield it from public view\u201d \u2014 a move the newspaper called \u201cunprecedented\u201d in journalistic history.<\/p>\n<p>The revelation comes just weeks after President Joe Biden called such records requests \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/joe-biden-rips-trump-for-doing-the-same-thing-the-obama-administration-did\">absolutely, positively wrong<\/a>,\u201d adding, \u201cI will not let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On January 5, the Trump administration petitioned a court to obtain the reporters\u2019 email information from Google, which provides the Times\u2019 email services. The newly inaugurated Biden administration continued the probe and added a new twist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the Trump administration never informed the Times about the effort, the Biden administration continued waging the fight this year, telling a handful of top Times executives about it but imposing a gag order to shield it from public view, said the lawyer, David McCraw, who called the move unprecedented,\u201d the Times <a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/u-waged-secret-legal-battle-142203155.html\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Google refused to turn over the records, the Times reported, \u201capparently demanding that the Times be told\u201d about the Justice Department\u2019s request, \u201cas its contract with the company requires.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On March 3, the Biden administration allowed the court to notify McCraw, but the judge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/new-york-times-justice-department\/2021\/06\/05\/0fc66026-c61d-11eb-93f5-ee9558eecf4b_story.html\">said<\/a> that he \u201cmay not share the existence or substance of either of these Orders with any other person without further approval from this Court.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the next few weeks, McCraw said he was allowed to inform a handful of people, including the company\u2019s legal team and publisher \u2014 but not Executive Editor Dean Baquet or other newsroom leaders, much less the public.<\/p>\n<p>McCraw called the order \u201cstunning,\u201d while Baquet noted the bipartisan nature of the email probe, which began \u201cin the final 15 days of the Trump administration. And the Biden administration continued to pursue it. As I said before, it profoundly undermines press freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such requests \u2014 launched to find out which administration officials leaked sensitive national security information to the media \u2014\u00a0amount to about one \u201ccase a year,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/everything-you-missed-from-cable-news-experts-this-weekend\">said<\/a> Washington Post national security reporter Devlin Barrett. But the issuance of a gag order has reportedly never taken place before March.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s completely unprecedented for the Justice Department to seek and obtain a gag order in a leak investigation,\u201d\u00a0Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a lawyer who assisted the Times with its negotiations, told The Washington Post. \u201cIt adds insult to injury for the government to seek to muzzle the news organization fighting to protect its sources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Times said it went public the moment the order was lifted on Friday. Strategic news decisions about releasing bad news just before the weekend are often derisively called the \u201cFriday news dump.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the Biden administration \u2014 echoing the Obama administration \u2014 released a statement saying it knew nothing about its own DOJ\u2019s activities until the media publicized them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo one at the White House was aware of the gag order until Friday night,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/statements-releases\/2021\/06\/05\/statement-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-on-the-department-of-justice-leak-investigation-policy\/\">said<\/a> White House press secretary Jen Psaki in a statement released on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration added it would put an end to the practice of asking for the records of <em>bona fide <\/em>journalists.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the White House does not intervene in criminal investigations, the issuing of subpoenas for the records of reporters in leak investigations is not consistent with the [p]resident\u2019s policy direction to the [d]epartment, and the Department of Justice has reconfirmed it will not be used moving forward,\u201d Psaki said.<\/p>\n<p>DOJ spokesman Anthony Coley <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/556996-white-house-says-it-was-unaware-of-ny-times-gag-order?rl=1\">added<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cgoing forward,\u201d the Justice Department would make \u201ca change to its longstanding practice\u201d and \u201cnot seek compulsory legal process in leak investigations to obtain source information from members of the news media doing their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the Associated Press <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/politics-business-government-and-politics-67ac2f4f96b2dfd7f47446662e59ec6e\">noted<\/a> that the DOJ\u2019s new order \u201cdid not define who exactly would be counted as a member of the media for the purposes of the policy and how broadly the protection would apply.\u201d For instance, would this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.projectveritas.com\">apply<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.centerformedicalprogress.org\/author\/david\/\">undercover journalists<\/a> infiltrating abortion facilities, or bloggers?<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration\u2019s deflection did not satisfy many members of the legacy media, including CNN\u2019s Kaitlan Collins. \u201cThis statement comes weeks after Biden told me he wouldn\u2019t allow DOJ to seize reporters\u2019 records and hours after a top lawyer for NYT revealed that DOJ, under Trump &#038; Biden, sought to obtain email logs of reporters to identify their sources and bound executives by a gag order,\u201d she <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kaitlancollins\/status\/1401196932576522244\">tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"11.559633027523\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This statement comes weeks after Biden told me he wouldn&#8217;t allow DOJ to seize reporters&#8217; records and hours after a top lawyer for NYT revealed that DOJ, under Trump &#038; Biden, sought to obtain email logs of reporters to identify their sources and bound executives by a gag order.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kaitlancollins\/status\/1401196932576522244?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jaketapper\/status\/1401170027055882240\">pointed out<\/a>, \u201cThe gag order happened *under Biden* who to @kaitlancollins decried such DOJ searches.\u201d (Emphasis in original.)<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"6.0394736842105\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The gag order happened *under Biden* who to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kaitlancollins?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@kaitlancollins<\/a> decried such DOJ searches. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6o2tw9NGZp\">https:\/\/t.co\/6o2tw9NGZp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jaketapper\/status\/1401170027055882240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And the Times\u2019 Washington correspondent, Maggie Haberman, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/maggieNYT\/status\/1401012985540317190\">reiterated<\/a>, \u201cAgain, this gag was imposed by the Biden DOJ.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"11.236434108527\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;There was no precedent, Mr. McCraw said, for the government to impose a gag order on New York Times personnel as part of a leak investigation.&#8221; Again, this gag was imposed by the Biden DOJ <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZbCB71hraq\">https:\/\/t.co\/ZbCB71hraq<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/maggieNYT\/status\/1401012985540317190?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>But others sought to put the blame on the previous, Republican administration. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) omitted the Biden administration\u2019s actions completely, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SenBlumenthal\/status\/1401307759400861696\">tweeting<\/a>, \u201cThis gag order unconscionably concealing DOJ\u2019s legally dubious probe of reporters under Trump requires full public disclosure.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"8.8745980707395\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This gag order unconscionably concealing DOJ\u2019s legally dubious probe of reporters under Trump requires full public disclosure. DOJ now must come clean. Tell the public why prosecutors perpetuated these secret abuses &#038; forced silence. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/aYD9fYslR1\">https:\/\/t.co\/aYD9fYslR1<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SenBlumenthal\/status\/1401307759400861696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 5, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The Trump administration reportedly sought records from the early months of 2017 from New York Times reporters Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau, and Michael S. Schmidt. The Obama administration had similarly asked for officials to turn over the records of Apuzzo and Goldman during the course of nine separate investigations into White House leaks, actions that the AP said in 2013 constituted a \u201cmassive and unprecedented intrusion\u201d into freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Biden administration not only supported a secret legal effort to obtain the phone and email records of four New York Times reporters, but its Justice Department imposed a gag &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2279356,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/NYT-Building.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Biden Admin Slapped \u2018Unprecedented\u2019 Gag Order On Media Execs","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/NYT-Building.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"Biden Admin Slapped \u2018Unprecedented\u2019 Gag Order On Media Execs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2279356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}