New York CNN Business —Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Wednesday that the Justice Department formally introduced regulations barring department employees from secretly seeking journalists’ records except in limited circumstances. Within CNN, the Trump administration secretly sought and obtained the 2017 phone and email records of Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr. The Biden Justice Department informed Starr last May that prosecutors had obtained her records covering two months between June 1, 2017 and July 30, 2017. Under previous DOJ regulations, investigators could secretly obtain journalists’ records through a court order without the journalists’ knowledge. After news organizations first reported the records seizures in the summer 2021, President Joe Biden vowed to end the practice.

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