Trump administration 'spying on journalists to find out who is leaking information'

US media reports suggest Department of Justice has secured warrant to monitor reporters'

Picture: (Getty / Sean Gallup)

Donald Trump’s administration is spying on journalists who have been handed leaked information, it has been claimed.

The US Justice Department has obtained a legal warrant from the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to conduct electronic surveillance on reporters who were known to have published articles based on leaked information, according to the New York Post.

The surveillance is said to be part of the Trump administration’s attempts to clamp down on leaks from within the White House and government departments.

According to the newspaper​, some in the administration believe the leaks are coming from someone he described as “a retired, high-ranking military officer who held important posts in the intelligence service”.

That person was “getting some of his information from people inside the White House who were holdovers from the Obama administration”, the columnist claimed.

Those three people are reported to either have been sacked already or are soon to be fired.

The US Justice Department came under fire from the media and some politicians in 2013 after it subpoenaed the phone records of 20 Associated Press journalists, reportedly in an attempt to uncover who had leaked details about a 2012 CIA operation in Yemen.

Associated Press called the act a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into traditional press freedom.