BIDEN: JUSTICE DEPT. WON’T SEIZE JOURNALISTS’ FILES

President Joe Biden on Friday declared that he would not allow his Justice Department to seize journalists’ phone or email records, calling the practice “simply wrong.”

At the White House, a reporter asked Biden about federal law enforcement taking such records and whether the president would “prevent your Justice Department from doing that.” Biden joked with the reporter, then grew serious, saying: “Absolutely, positively it’s wrong. It’s simply, simply wrong.”

“So you won’t let your Justice Department do that?” the reported asked.

“I will not let that happen,” the president responded.

Biden’s declaration follows recent disclosures that during the Trump administration, the Justice Department secretly sought the records of four journalists, three for their work at The Washington Post and one for her reporting at CNN.

Media organizations and free-press advocates decried the moves, asking whether the Justice Department had followed its own policies and noting that such tactics have a chilling effect on journalists’ ability to uncover essential information about the government. Two Democratic lawmakers — Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Rep. Jamie B. Raskin of Maryland — wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to stop using the tactic. But until the president’s assertion Friday, his administration had not renounced the practice.

Biden’s statement would seem to block the Justice Department from sifting through reporters’ records in leak investigations and other cases, at least while he is in office.