Anger erupted after discovering that Trump's Justice Department had issued a "scandalous" secret subpoena.

The Justice Department announced that it had subpoenaed a journalist's records during a leak investigation into bad news about Donald Trump's administration.

• "Leak investigators issued a subpoena for the phone number of Stephanie Kirchgesner, the Guardian's Washington investigative correspondent. 

• This move was carried out without notifying the newspaper or its correspondent

• as part of an attempt to discover the source of the media articles on the review of family separation conducted by the Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice

• Michael Horowitz, "the British newspaper reported. "It is unusual for United States Government officials to obtain the details of a journalist's phone in this way

especially when national security or confidential information is not involved. This move was even more surprising because it came from the Office of the Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice - the oversight body responsible for ethical oversight and whistleblower protection ".

That wasn't the only anomaly.

1. "The leak investigation was conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Justice by the Inspector General's Office of an external government department
2. Housing and Urban Development (Hud)
3. Her investigation focused on allegations that a staff member in the Justice Department's Inspector General's Office had leaked sensitive information to three news outlets
4.  The Guardian, The New York Times and NBC News. the Guardian was the only one of the three outlets to issue a subpoena relating to the account of its correspondent's phone. "

Catherine Feiner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, described the subpoena as "a shocking example of the United States Department of Justice encroaching on press freedom and the public interest".

During the campaign, the Guardian published two stories about Trump's attitude to family separation.

The Guardian published two sensitive reports by Kirchgaessner within the time frame of the Justice Department's review on child separation covered by the leak investigation. On July 23

 2020, she revealed that former Deputy Attorney General of the Justice Department, Rod Rosenstein, personally advised that migrant parents should be prosecuted, regardless of the young children they accompany. 

On September 2, 2020, Kirchgesner reported that a senior Justice Department official nominated by Trump to be a federal judge had participated in the removal of a Texas attorney general who sounded the alarm about the separation of children, the Guardian reported.

Kirchgesner said on September 2, 2020, that a senior Justice Department official nominated by Trump to be a federal judge who was involved in impeaching a Texas attorney general who raised concerns about separating children.

• Jason Leopold, an investigative reporter, revealed a revised version of Hud's leak investigation report on Thursday

• obtained through freedom of information legislation. It was revealed that the leak investigators had exceeded evidence of 127 phone calls totalling about six hours with "phone numbers identified as belonging to Guardian reporter Stephanie Kirchgesner"

•  as well as 126 phone calls totalling about six hours and 20 minutes with a "phone number identified as belonging to the Guardian in general."

The Ministry of Justice sent an "administrative subpoena" to a telecom company to obtain "subscriber information to certify that a particular phone number belonged to the Guardian," according to the leak report. He obtained "basic subscriber information," including only "names, addresses and length of service" and "not the essence of messages," according to the statement.

The Trump administration implemented the separation of children in 2018. 

The policy, formally known as "zero tolerance", directed federal prosecutors to prosecute illegal immigrants who entered the United States illegally even if minors were present, reversing past practices that exempted families from criminal proceedings in order to prevent children from being separated from their parents.

1. This approach led to the separation of approximately 3,000 children from their parents or guardians
2.  as well as the prevalence of pandemonium, many of which were unknown. The inspector general's investigation into the practice
3.  which was delayed by two years, was eventually launched in January 2021.

The material was made public after BuzzFeed News writer Jason Leopold filed a Freedom of Information Act request.