The Trump administration didn’t just have phone records from 2017 Washington Post-journalisten requested, but also information about CNN journalist Barbara Starr. The Department of Justice received information about e-mail traffic and telephone use from the Pentagon correspondent for the months of June and July of that year.
Starr was recently notified by Justice. It was not said why her data was requested, but it was said that there is no investigation against herself. The data may have to show who had spoken to the journalist.
President Trump has been known to be frustrated with leaks from his administration. During this time, Starr worked on stories about the negotiations with North Korea and the wars in Syria and Afghanistan. The Washington Post journalists had written articles about the close ties between Russia and the Trump administration.
CNN chief Zucker says requesting phone data from journalists goes against the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of the press and freedom of expression. “CNN strongly condemns secret investigations into any correspondence details of a journalist.”
‘Frustrating news gathering’
A spokesperson for Justice said earlier about the Post data that here too the journalists themselves were not the target of the investigation. “It was not about the recipients of information, but about those who had access to national defense information and passed it on to the media. In doing so, they violated their legal duty to keep it secret.”
Bruce Brown, chairman of a media advocacy group, says it is shocking that the practices went beyond the Post. “An important story has become even bigger”, he tells website Politico. “The fact that another organization was also targeted proves that investigations of journalistic sources were much more frequent under the Trump administration, in the hope of frustrating news gathering.”
President Biden called the practice wrong when asked about it during a press interview. “That won’t happen under me.”
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