The Justice Department withdrew subpoenas demanding grand jury testimony and phone records from New York Times journalists on July 23, 2026, after a federal judge in Manhattan threatened to quash them and raised the prospect of sanctions against government attorneys for misleading the court.

The subpoenas, filed July 10, 2026, came two days after the Times published its first story on security concerns surrounding the new Air Force One jet, a $400 million plane gifted by Qatar (The Guardian). The Times reporting detailed the U.S. Secret Service intervening to prevent President Trump from flying home from the NATO summit in Turkey on the jet (NPR) (Axios).

U.S. District Court Judge Arun Subramanian presided over the hearing in the Southern District of New York. According to NPR, Subramanian told federal prosecutors that if the subpoenas were not withdrawn, he would quash them himself.

The government attempted to avoid that outcome by offering to hold the subpoenas "in abeyance" for 14 days. Subramanian found the proposal unappealing and pressed the Justice Department on why it had not exhausted other investigative avenues before targeting journalists. NBC News reported that the judge questioned why prosecutors had not pursued alternative steps before issuing subpoenas to reporters (NBC News).

Subramanian went further, threatening to levy sanctions against federal attorneys for failing to follow the law and for misleading the court in signed filings (NPR).

Sean Buckley, the deputy U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, presented the government's case and is leading the broader leak investigation. Federal prosecutors argued during the hearing that the U.S. attorney general has the authority to set aside legal protections for journalists when deemed necessary (NPR).

New York Times attorney David McGraw called the outcome "a great day for the First Amendment and a great day for the rule of law" (NPR).

A Justice Department spokesperson said the investigation remains ongoing and that the department will pursue justice against those leaking classified information (NPR).

The withdrawal does not foreclose future action. Courthouse News reported that the Justice Department could reissue the subpoenas if it fails to obtain the sought-after information through other investigative means (Courthouse News).

The broader context here matters for anyone tracking the intersection of leak investigations and press protections. The Justice Department's legal theory, as presented by Buckley, rests on the proposition that the attorney general possesses inherent authority to override journalist shield protections when the government determines it is necessary. Judge Subramanian's pushback on that theory was twofold: he questioned whether prosecutors had satisfied the procedural prerequisite of exhausting alternative investigative steps, and he signaled that the court would not defer to the government's self-certification of necessity when signed filings contained misrepresentations.

The sanctions threat is the more unusual element. Judges routinely quash subpoenas; they rarely invoke sanctions against federal attorneys for misleading the court. That posture from the bench suggests the court found the government's filings not merely deficient in their legal reasoning but affirmatively deceptive in their representations to the court, a distinction that separates a routine discovery dispute from a referral-grade matter.

The fact that the department withdrew rather than allowed a ruling also preserves its ability to reissue. Had Subramanian formally quashed the subpoenas, that ruling could have established precedent constraining future leak investigations targeting the press. The withdrawal leaves the legal questions unresolved, which may be precisely the outcome the Justice Department preferred to an adverse written order.

Whether the department ultimately reissues will likely depend on what its investigation produces through alternative channels. For now, the subpoenas are gone, the investigation continues, and the parameters of attorney general authority over journalist protections remain untested by written judicial opinion.