President Donald Trump's latest federal probe violates the Justice Department's own guidelines on how to investigate, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig told CNN's John Berman on Thursday morning.
The investigation — centered on New York Times reporters who revealed leaked information on the new Qatari Air Force One's security vulnerabilities — is being led directly by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and FBI Director Kash Patel, CNN reported.
Berman detailed the FBI's decision to go after the New York Times by issuing subpoenas to their reporters then asked Honig whether or not the case could succeed.
"There is no blanket, across-the-board privilege for communications between reporters and their sources," said Honig. It is not open season for DOJ and the FBI to subpoena reporters."
For one thing, Honig said, "there's DOJ's own internal guidance that says that subpoena should be an 'extraordinary measure' — that's a quote used — as a last resort only if necessary, for an urgent national security measure."
The bottom line, he said, is that "I would expect this case with The New York Times to go to court. And I think they're going to litigate whether those criteria have been met."
- YouTube youtu.be
