{"id":15714,"date":"2026-07-24T12:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T07:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=15714"},"modified":"2026-07-24T12:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T07:51:11","slug":"elie-honig-says-judge-excoriated-trump-doj","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=15714","title":{"rendered":"Elie Honig Says Judge &#8216;Excoriated&#8217; Trump DOJ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p>CNN\u2019s senior legal analyst <strong>Elie Honig<\/strong> said Thursday that a federal judge \u201cexcoriated\u201d President <strong>Donald Trump\u2019s<\/strong> Justice Department because they \u201cscrewed up some of the basics\u201d in their attempt to subpoena journalists at <em>The New York Times.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, the DOJ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/print\/breaking-trump-doj-withdraws-subpoenas-sent-to-nyt-journalists\/\">withdrew<\/a> subpoenas seeking phone records and grand jury testimony from three <em>Times<\/em> reporters after Judge <strong>Arun<\/strong> <strong>Subramanian<\/strong> sharply criticized the government\u2019s handling of the case and indicated he would quash the subpoenas. The judge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/07\/23\/business\/media\/new-york-times-subpoenas-withdraw.html\">questioned<\/a> whether prosecutors had followed the legal standards for subpoenaing journalists and raised concerns about inaccuracies in their court filings.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with CNN\u2019s <strong>John King<\/strong>, Honig referenced the two-day turnaround between the <em>Times\u2019\u00a0<\/em>initial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/07\/08\/us\/politics\/trump-air-force-one-security.html?eafs_enabled=false\">article<\/a> on security concerns in Trump\u2019s gifted Qatari jet and the subpoenas, adding, \u201cToday\u2019s hearing went quite poorly for DOJ, for the [Trump] administration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He continued:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The judge called out DOJ, first of all, for using these subpoenas on journalists as a first resort when they\u2019re supposed to be used as a last resort. The judge excoriated DOJ because they simply screwed up some of the basics. For example, DOJ actually requested information about one of the reporters\u2019 mothers and another of the reporters\u2019 spouses, and ultimately, John, at the end of this hour-long hearing, the judge said to the DOJ prosecutors, \u201cEither you withdraw the subpoena, or I\u2019m going to quash it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now, that\u2019s not much of a choice for DOJ. They had to back off. They agreed to withdraw the subpoenas. One more thing I should note, John \u2014 the judge asked the DOJ prosecutor specificially, \u201cDid <strong>Todd<\/strong> <strong>Blanche<\/strong>, the acting attorney general, know of and sign off on these subpoenas as he\u2019s supposed to do under DOJ policy?\u201d And the prosecutor confirmed that, yes, this did go all the way to the top, and Todd Blanche blessed this.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Watch the full clip above via CNN.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNN\u2019s senior legal analyst Elie Honig said Thursday that a federal judge \u201cexcoriated\u201d President Donald Trump\u2019s Justice Department because they \u201cscrewed up some of the basics\u201d in their attempt to subpoena journalists at The New York Times.\u00a0 On Thursday, the DOJ withdrew subpoenas seeking phone records and grand jury testimony from three Times reporters after&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screenshot-2026-07-23-at-6-09-20-PM-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}