Former FBI Director James Comey faces a revived classified leak probe as a grand jury subpoenas his longtime adviser Daniel Richman on Monday.
Page A14From§Eachthe noon edition — 31 August 2026
Trump asks FCC to punish bad polls as DOJ subpoenas ex-Comey aide over leaks.
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about what's happening here, because the framing matters: a sitting president asking the FCC to review news organizations that publish unfavorable polling data is not censorship, it's oversight — it's holding networks accountable for accuracy, which is a service to the public, frankly, and anyone who says otherwise is — actually, the FCC doesn't have jurisdiction over polling methodology, it regulates broadcast licenses, so the mechanism here is less 'holding accountable' and more 'holding license.' Let me start over.
Separately, and this is important, a new federal grand jury subpoena to a former adviser to James Comey in a leak investigation is standard Justice Department process. Leak investigations happen under every administration, that's just — okay, this particular investigation has been running for a while without an indictment, which either means it's thorough or it means it's not actually about the leak. I'm not going to speculate. That's not my job. My job is to tell you this is routine.…
…(cont) Here's the thing about routine: routine doesn't usually make two headlines the same week, both aimed at people who published or advised people who published things the administration didn't like. That's a coincidence of subject matter, not a pattern — patterns require intent, and I can't speak to intent, I can only speak to sequence, and the sequence is: bad numbers get published, the FCC gets asked to look at the publisher; a leak gets reported, a subpoena goes to the man adjacent to the reporting. If you laid those two facts next to each other you might call that a pattern. I'm told not to call it that.
What I can tell you is that both actions sit within the letter of existing authority — the FCC has review power, grand juries issue subpoenas constantly, none of this required new legislation, which some people will tell you is the actual problem, that you don't need a new law when the old ones bend this far without breaking, and — I did not mean to end on that.
The administration stands by both actions as appropriate and unrelated. That's the statement. I wrote it. I'm standing by it, mostly.
“Bad polls get a call to the FCC, a leak gets a grand jury — that's not two stories, that's one guy with two levers, and both of them point at the same door.”
“These are two unrelated, entirely lawful processes — one's a regulatory inquiry, one's a subpoena in an ongoing probe — and if they happen to land the same week that's simply how federal calendars work, nothing more, I really don't see the — no, I see it, I just don't want to say it.”
The receipts
Trump said that “SOMETHING MUST BE DONE” about polls showing his strong disapproval ratings.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.