US DOJ lawyer hit with bar complaint over search of reporter’s home
#Department of Justice #Tim Burke #First Amendment #Search Warrant #Journalism #Bar Complaint #Freedom of the Press Foundation
📌 Key Takeaways
- A formal ethics complaint was filed against DOJ lawyer Michael J. Singer over the search of a journalist's home.
- The Freedom of the Press Foundation alleges the DOJ misled a judge to secure a search warrant for Tim Burke's property.
- Advocates argue the DOJ ignored the Privacy Protection Act by failing to identify Burke as a journalist.
- The case involves the seizure of outtakes from a Fox News interview with Kanye West.
📖 Full Retelling
🏷️ Themes
Legal Ethics, Press Freedom, Government Accountability
📚 Related People & Topics
Ministry of justice
Government agency in charge of justice
# Ministry of Justice A **Ministry of Justice** (also known as a **Department of Justice** or **Justice Ministry**) is a high-level government agency or cabinet-level department responsible for the administration of a nation's judicial system, the maintenance of the rule of law, and the oversight o...
Search warrant
Type of court order
A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find. In most countries, a search warrant cannot be issued in aid of civil proc...
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
1791 amendment limiting government restriction of civil liberties
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents Congress from making laws respecting an establishment of religion; prohibiting the free exercise of religion; or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition t...
Journalism
Production of reports on current events
Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (professional or not), the methods of gathering inf...
🔗 Entity Intersection Graph
Connections for Ministry of justice:
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- 🌐 Congress (6 shared articles)
- 🏢 Federal Bureau of Investigation (6 shared articles)
- 🌐 United States House Committee on the Judiciary (5 shared articles)
- 👤 Fulton County (4 shared articles)
- 🌐 Benghazi (4 shared articles)
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- 👤 Howard Lutnick (3 shared articles)
- 👤 Assistant United States Attorney (2 shared articles)
- 👤 Thomas Massie (2 shared articles)
- 🌐 United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (2 shared articles)
📄 Original Source Content
try{ var _=i o; . if(!_||_&&typeof _==="object"&&_.expiry As Claude disrupts stock market, Anthropic researcher warns ’world is in peril’ Gold, silver prices rise amid U.S.-Iran tensions, blowout January payrolls data Dow halts three-day win streak as blowout jobs data curbs rate cut bets Citi pushes back Fed rate cuts to May after blowout January jobs report (South Africa Philippines Nigeria) US DOJ lawyer hit with bar complaint over search of reporter’s home World Published 02/09/2026, 07:34 PM Updated 02/09/2026, 07:36 PM US DOJ lawyer hit with bar complaint over search of reporter’s home 0 By Jan Wolfe Feb 9 - A press freedom organization has urged Virginia’s attorney licensing body to discipline a federal prosecutor who applied for a warrant last month to search the home of a Washington Post reporter. In a February 6 letter to the Virginia State Bar, Freedom of the Press Foundation said prosecutor Gordon D. Kromberg appeared to have withheld information from the magistrate judge who approved the warrant as part of a leak investigation. The complaint asserted that Kromberg likely violated ethics rules by not informing the judge of the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, a law that limits searches for reporting materials. The complaint alleged that Kromberg was likely "well aware of applicable law, but deliberately chose not to mention it," violating a state ethics rule mandating that lawyers disclose to judges legal authorities "adverse to the position of the client.” "We request that this office take appropriate disciplinary action, up to and including disbarment, and that it expedite disciplinary proceedings due to the dire consequences for First Amendment freedoms if illegal newsroom raids and seizures of journalists’ work product are allowed to go unchecked," the complaint stated. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The reporter, Hannah Natanson, has covered U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign to fire hundreds of thous...