On Thursday afternoon, Justice Department attorneys withdrew subpoenas issued to New York Times reporters compelling them to reveal confidential sources, standing down after pushback from a “visibly irritated” federal judge, the AP reported. “Subpoenas are the last step, not the first step,” said Judge Arun Subramanian, echoing the paper’s arguments that the administration from its own leak-investigation guidelines. Thursday’s courtroom proceeding, said Times’ deputy general counsel David McCraw, “was an important affirmation of our country’s commitment to a free press.”
The victory for the Times should be welcome news heading into a dinner celebrating the First Amendment. But the aggressive manner in which the Trump administration targeted five Times reporters following their coverage of security concerns involving the new Qatari-donated Air Force One, remains deeply troubling. Even more, Times attorneys revealed in a motion that the administration sought phone records of journalists’ family members. As Katherine Marsh, an author and the wife of Times reporter Julian Barnes, told NPR, “You almost feel like you’re being treated as an enemy of the state.”
It’s against this ominous backdrop that the White House Correspondents’ Association will host its rescheduled dinner on Friday night at the Waldorf Astoria Washington. The event has been scaled back from the April gala, which was cut short after a gunman fired shots inside the hotel as President Donald Trump, top Cabinet officials, and hundreds of journalists and news executives gathered in a ballroom below. This time, there won’t be a flurry of predinner cocktail parties, Status reports, and news organizations have pruned their guest lists given the Waldorf’s smaller footprint.
