The New Yorker:

Last week, the Times reported that, during Donald Trump’s Presidency, the Justice Department subpoenaed Apple for the data of House Intelligence Committee members, their staff, and their families. The subpoenas, which were issued to find information about leaks to the media about the Russia investigation, were highly unusual and raise large questions about separation of powers. The first cases were opened in 2017, when Jeff Sessions was Attorney General; they were then revived by William Barr when he took over the Justice Department, in 2019. Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, two of those targeted, were informed of the cases by Apple last month, after the Justice Department’s gag order on the company was lifted earlier this year. The Times later reported that the same thing had happened to Don McGahn while he was Trump’s White House counsel, and a major source of information for the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators; the department also revealed this year that, during the Trump Administration, it had sought the records of reporters at several news organizations, including the Times.

I recently spoke to Katie Benner, who covers the Justice Department for the Times and who was the lead writer on the first of the paper’s stories. She was also a member of the team at the paper that was awarded a share of the Pulitzer Prize three years ago for reporting on workplace sexual harassment. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how the Justice Department might have gone about taking such an extraordinary step, the Biden Administration’s approach to press freedom, and why the new leadership of the Justice Department might not be interested in a close look at the possible misdeeds of its predecessors.

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