Washington Post publisher accuses the Biden Justice Department of 'unprecedented assault on American news organizations'

• The Washington Post's publisher accused the Biden DOJ of "unprecedented" assault on the media.
• Fred Ryan described an "escalation" in attacks on the First Amendment since Trump left office.

The publisher of The Washington Post accused the US Department of Justice of an "unprecedented assault on American news organizations" under President Joe Biden.

Fred Ryan said that government action against media outlets had worsened since President Donald Trump left office, despite Biden officials taking a much less combative approach to the news media in public.

Ryan noted in an opinion article that Biden had criticized the Trump administration for using "extraordinary measures to obtain subpoenas to secretly seize records of reporters at three leading U.S. news organizations."

But, he argued, once in power Biden "intensified the government's attack on First Amendment rights before finally backing down in the face of reporting about its conduct."

"This escalation, on Biden's watch, represents an unprecedented assault on American news organizations and their efforts to inform the public about government wrongdoing," Ryan said.

Ryan appeared to be referring to a lawyer that represents some New York Times journalists claiming the Biden administration imposed a gag order on those journalists and unsuccessfully tried to obtain their email logs.