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Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine will get barely weaker over time, firm knowledge exhibits, however stays robust in stopping extreme illness.

Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine gets slightly weaker over time, company data shows, but remains strong in preventing severe disease.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine’s effectiveness wanes slightly over time, according to newly released data from the companies, but remains strong in preventing severe disease. With coronavirus cases surging again in many states, the findings may influence the Biden administration’s deliberations about delivering a booster shot.

The vaccine had a sky-high efficacy rate of about 96 percent against symptomatic Covid-19 for the first two months, the study showed, but then declined about 6 percent every two months after that, falling to 83.7 percent after six months. Against severe disease, its efficacy held steady at about 97 percent. The data was posted online on Wednesday and has not been published in a scientific journal.

Despite the decline, the data confirm that the vaccine gives potent protection against Covid-19. Still, the study raises questions about how much protection two doses will provide in the months to come. Adding to these concerns is the rise of the Delta variant, which makes vaccines somewhat less effective against infection. The variant became dominant only after the study ended. But recent studies have also shown that vaccines remain strongly protective against the worst outcomes of Covid-19 caused by the Delta variant.

The findings come from 42,000 volunteers in six countries who participated in a clinical trial that Pfizer and BioNTech began last July. Half of the volunteers got the vaccine while the other half got a placebo. Both groups received two shots spaced three weeks apart. The researchers compared the number of people in each group who developed symptoms of Covid-19, which was then confirmed by a P.C.R. virus test.

When the companies announced their first batch of results, the vaccine showed an efficacy against symptomatic Covid-19 of 95 percent. In other words, the risk of getting sick was reduced by 95 percent in the group that got the vaccine compared to the group that got the placebo.

That result — the first for any Covid-19 vaccine — brought an exhilarating dose of hope to the world in December when it was riding what had been the biggest wave of the pandemic. Since then, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has made up the majority of shots that Americans have received, with more than 191 million doses given so far, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

After the first analysis, the Pfizer and BioNTech researchers continued to follow the volunteers. The research became more challenging as time passed, because volunteers who got the placebo could ask to get the vaccine once it was authorized in their country.

Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.

For the new study, the researchers followed the volunteers for six months after vaccination, up to a cutoff date of March 13. Looking over that entire period, the researchers estimated the vaccine’s efficacy at 91.5 percent against symptomatic Covid-19. (The study did not measure the rate of asymptomatic virus infections.)

But within that period, the efficacy did gradually drop. Between one week and two months after the second dose, the efficacy was 96.2 percent. In the period between two and four months, the efficacy fell to 90.1 percent. And between four months and six months, the efficacy hit 83.7 percent.

Each estimate came with a margin of uncertainty. But over the six months of the trial, there was a clear decline in efficacy.

The new study comes on the heels of data from Israel suggesting that the Pfizer-BioNTech’s protection may be waning there. But experts have pushed back against a rush to approving a booster there. The data have too many sources of uncertainty, they say, to make a precise estimate of how much effectiveness has waned. For example, the Delta-driven outbreak hit parts of the country with high vaccination rates first and has been hitting other regions later. “Such an analysis is still highly uncertain,” said Doron Gazit, a physicist at Hebrew University who analyzes Covid-19 trends for the Israeli government.

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Israeli Knowledge Suggests Potential Waning in Effectiveness of Pfizer Vaccine

Israeli Data Suggests Possible Waning in Effectiveness of Pfizer Vaccine

As Israel struggles with a new surge of coronavirus cases, its health ministry reported on Thursday that although effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remains high against severe illness, its protection against infection by the coronavirus may have diminished significantly compared with this winter and early spring.

Analyzing the government’s national health statistics, researchers estimated that the Pfizer shot was just 39 percent effective against preventing infection in the country in late June and early July, compared with 95 percent from January to early April. In both time periods, however, the shot was more than 90 percent effective in preventing severe disease.

Israeli scientists cautioned that the new study is much smaller than the first and that it measured cases in a narrower window of time. As a result, a much larger range of uncertainties flank their estimates, which could also be skewed by a variety of other factors.

Dr. Ran Balicer, the chairman of Israel’s Covid-19 National Expert Advisory Panel, said that the challenges of making accurate estimates of vaccine effectiveness were “immense.” He said that more careful analysis of the raw data was needed to understand what is going on.

“I think that data should be taken very cautiously because of small numbers,” said Eran Segal, a biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science who is a consultant to the Israeli government on vaccines.

Nevertheless, the new estimates are raising concern both in Israel and elsewhere, including the United States, that the vaccine might be losing some of its effectiveness. Possible reasons include the rise of the highly contagious Delta variant or a waning of protection from the shots over time.

Israel launched an aggressive campaign with the Pfizer vaccine in January, and the country has achieved one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, with 58 percent of the population fully vaccinated. At the start of the campaign, government researchers began estimating how much the shot reduced people’s risk of getting Covid-19.

They published their results in May, based on records from Jan. 24 to April 3: They estimated that the vaccine was 95 percent effective in preventing infection from the coronavirus in the country. In other words, the risk of getting Covid-19 was nearly 100 percent reduced in vaccinated people compared to unvaccinated ones. The researchers also estimated that the vaccine was 97.5 percent effective against severe disease.

From a peak of over 8,600 cases a day in January, cases plummeted in the following months until only a few dozen people were testing positive on a daily basis across Israel. The vaccine most likely played a part in that drop, along with the tight restrictions that the government imposed on travel and meetings.

Israel began relaxing its restrictions in the spring. In late June, the cases surged again. Now, over a thousand people are testing positive each day, leading Israel to restore some restrictions this week.

Updated 

July 23, 2021, 2:47 p.m. ET

Some of the people that tested positive for the coronavirus in the new surge were fully vaccinated. Epidemiologists had expected such breakthrough infections, as they do with all vaccines.

Researchers at the Ministry of Health took another look at the effectiveness of the vaccine, limiting their analysis to the surge from June 6 to July 3. In that period, they estimated, the effectiveness of the vaccine at preventing infections was down to 64 percent.

More recently, they ran another analysis. This time, they looked at cases between June 20 and July 17. In that period, they estimated, the vaccine’s effectiveness was even lower: just 39 percent against infection.

Still, they estimated that the vaccine’s effectiveness against serious disease remained high, at 91.4 percent.

If a vaccine has an effectiveness of 39 percent that does not mean that 61 percent of people who got vaccinated were infected by the coronavirus. Instead, it means the risk of getting infected is 39 percent less among vaccinated people compared to unvaccinated. So even at that lower percentage, the data shows that vaccinated people have significantly less risk of getting infected than unvaccinated people.

The small number of people in the latest study means that the true effectiveness might be lower or higher. Making the numbers even more uncertain is the fact that the new surge has not yet spread evenly across the whole country. Travelers who have picked up the highly contagious Delta variant have brought it back to neighborhoods where vaccination rates are relatively high.

Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.

The new outbreaks have yet to swamp communities of Orthodox Jews or Arab Israelis, where vaccination rates are lower. That imbalance may make the vaccine seem less effective than it really is.

Also, the ages of people vaccinated vary significantly during the different time periods studied. For example, the people who got their vaccines in January were different than those who got them in April in one major respect: They were over 60. If more people who got vaccinated in January are now getting infected, it may not have to do with the vaccine itself, but with their advanced age — or some other factor that researchers have yet to take into consideration.

Still, the new estimates have prompted some researchers to ponder what might be happening to the vaccines. The Delta variant grew more common in Israel in June, raising the possibility that it might be good at evading the vaccine.

In Britain, where Delta began surging earlier in the year, researchers estimated the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against the variant, based on a review of everyone in the United Kingdom who got vaccinated up till May 16. On Wednesday, they reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that it is 88 percent effective against symptomatic Covid-19.

Another possibility is that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is gradually becoming less potent. The Ministry of Health researchers found that people who were inoculated in January were having breakthrough infections at a greater rate than people vaccinated in April.

If the vaccine is indeed waning after six months, the implications can be enormous. It can influence the Israeli government’s current deliberations about whether to give people a third shot. Dr. Segal says that if the vaccines are indeed losing some of their potency, then it might be wise to roll out boosters to fight the Delta-driven outbreak.

“If a third booster is safe and if it seems that it really would give a benefit, I think this is something we should definitely do as quickly as possible,” he said.

Dr. Balicer, who is also the chief innovation officer at Clalit Health Services, said that he and his colleagues are working on their own study on the effectiveness of the vaccine in Israel, using Clalit’s health care records to take into account such confounding factors.

“I think there is definitely some waning, but not as much as hypothesized based on the crude data, and it’s not just waning to blame,” Dr. Balicer said. “We are now trying to figure it out in a clean way.”

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World News

S&P 500 hits new file after sizzling inflation information, sturdy earnings

S&P 500 hits new record after hot inflation data, strong earnings

The S&P 500 inched out a new high on Tuesday as investors weighed a hotter-than-expected inflation report and a strong start to second-quarter earnings season.

The broad index traded 0.12% higher, reaching an intraday record. The Dow Jones Industrial average shed about 41 points, or 0.12%. The measure closed at a record just below 35,000 the day prior.

The Nasdaq Composite gained about 0.4% and also hit another intraday high as investors went back into their favorite tech stocks amid the competing market crosscurrents. Apple and Amazon each gained more than 1% and both are outperforming the market this month.

Inflation rose at its fastest pace in nearly 13 years, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The consumer price index increased 5.4% in June from a year ago; economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected a 5% gain. Core CPI, excluding food and energy, jumped 4.5%, the sharpest move for that measure since September 1991 and well above the estimate of 3.8%.

“A white-hot June CPI print has the markets jittery this morning,” Cliff Hodge, chief investment officer at Cornerstone Wealth, said. “Moving forward we expect these inflation numbers to begin to cool. June 2020 was the absolute low for Core CPI during the pandemic shutdown, so the comparisons get tougher from here. Used car prices soared 45% year over year which is not likely to persist in coming months.”

The latest inflation data came after big banks and PepsiCo posted blowout second-quarter earnings reports. But with stocks at record highs and the Dow Jones Industrial Average just shy of 35,000, expectations likely ran higher than the official estimates reflected.

JPMorgan Chase shares dipped even after posting second-quarter earnings of $11.9 billion, or $3.78 per share, which exceeded the $3.21 estimate of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

Banks set aside billions of dollars for loan losses amid the pandemic, but have been releasing those reserves as consumers performed better than expected. JPMorgan released $3 billion in loan loss reserves after taking just $734 million in charge-offs. That gave the firm a $2.3 billion benefit, allowing the bank to top earnings expectations. Investors may be giving less credit to JPMorgan’s earnings beat due to this loan loss reserve release.

Goldman Sachs also shares edged lower after the firm reported second-quarter earnings of $15.02 per share, topping analysts’ expectation of $10.24 earnings per share. The bank posted its second-best ever quarterly investment banking revenue as a rush of IPOs hit Wall Street last quarter.

PepsiCo shares added more than 2% after the company crushed estimates for its second-quarter earnings and revenue, fueled by returning restaurant demand. The drink and snack giant also raised its forecast.

Meanwhile, shares of Boeing fell more than 3%, weighing on Dow sentiment, after the plane maker cut 787 Dreamliner production following the detection of a new flaw.

Overall earnings reports are expected to be stellar for the second quarter over the coming weeks with profit growth estimated at 64% year-over-year for the quarter, according to FactSet. That would be the biggest quarterly profit increase since 2009.

Banks’ earnings are expected to more than double for the second quarter, with an estimated 119.5% estimated year-over-year growth rate, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

In the regular trading session on Monday the Dow rose 126.02 points to close just below 35,000. The blue-chip measure is up 14% this year. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively, to record closes.

“High expectations for earnings and each companies’ forward guidance will push markets higher or disappointment may create a small pullback in equity markets,” said Jeff Kilburg, chief investment officer at Sanctuary Wealth. “Eyes will be on the major banks to set the tone for the next few weeks of earnings.”

Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley all ended Monday higher as well. They will report their earnings later in the week.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to appear in front of Congress Wednesday and Thursday to provide an update on monetary policy. He has maintained that the Fed’s easy policies will remain intact until there’s more progress on its employment and inflation goals.

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World News

Asia-Pacific shares rise as buyers await China’s commerce knowledge for June

Asia-Pacific stocks edge higher; Australia central bank's rate decision ahead

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific rose in Tuesday morning trade as investors awaited the release of China’s trade data for June.

The Nikkei 225 in Japan gained 0.55% in early trade while the Topix index advanced 0.57%. South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.54%.

Shares in Australia also advanced as the S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.25% higher.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.1% higher.

On the economic data front, China is set to release its trade data for June at 11:00 a.m. HK/SIN on Tuesday.

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Overnight stateside, the major indexes on Wall Street rose to record closing highs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 126.02 points to 34,996.18 while the S&P 500 gained about 0.35% to 4,384.63. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.21% to 14,733.24.

Currencies

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 92.214 as it struggled to return to levels above 92.7 seen last week.

The Japanese yen traded at 110.30 per dollar, still weaker than levels below 110 seen against the greenback last week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7481, above levels around $0.745 seen yesterday.

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Health

Coaching the Subsequent Era of Indigenous Information Scientists

Training the Next Generation of Indigenous Data Scientists

“Native DNA is so sought after that people are looking for proxy data, and one of the big proxy data is the microbiome,” said Yracheta. “If you are a Native, you need to consider all of these variables if you are to protect your people and culture.”

In a presentation at the conference, Joslynn Lee, a member of the Navajo, Laguna Pueblo and Acoma Pueblo Nations and a biochemist at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, shared her experience of tracking changes in microbial communities in rivers that drained mine wastewater Silverton, Colorado, discontinued. Dr. Lee also provided practical tips on planning a microbial analysis, from taking a sample to processing it.

Rebecca Pollet, a biochemist and member of the Cherokee Nation, took a data science career panel on how many mainstream pharmaceuticals were developed based on traditional knowledge and plant medicine of the indigenous people. The anti-malarial drug quinine, for example, was developed from the bark of a species of cinchona that the Quechua people used as medicine in the past. Dr. Pollet, who studies the effects of drugs and traditional foods on the gut microbiome, asked, “How do we honor this traditional knowledge and compensate for what has been covered up?”

One participant, Lakota Elder Les Ducheneaux, added that he believed that medicine derived from traditional knowledge mistakenly removed the prayers and rituals that traditionally accompanied treatment, making the medicine less effective. “You have to constantly balance the scientific part of medicine with the cultural and spiritual part of your job,” he said.

During the IndigiData conference, attendees also discussed ways to manage their own data to serve their communities.

Mason Grimshaw, data scientist and board member of Indigenous in AI, spoke about his research on language data at the International Wakashan AI Consortium. The consortium, led by engineer Michael Running Wolf, is developing automatic speech recognition AI for Wakashan languages, a family of endangered languages ​​spoken by multiple First Nations communities. The researchers believe that automatic speech recognition models can preserve the fluency of the Wakashan languages ​​and revive their use by future generations.

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Health

Delta Variant Not Driving Hospitalization Surge in England, Information Reveals

Delta Variant Not Driving Hospitalization Surge in England, Data Shows

The Delta variant, which is now responsible for most coronavirus infections in England, is not driving a surge in the rate of hospitalizations there, according to data released by Public Health England on Thursday.

Although the number of coronavirus infections has risen sharply in recent weeks, hospitalization rates remain low. Between June 21 and June 27, the weekly hospitalization rate was 1.9 per 100,000 people, the same as it was the previous week.

The hospitalization rate has increased slightly over the past month, rising from 1.1 admissions per 100,000 people in early June, according to the agency’s data. But it remains considerably lower than during England’s surge last winter, when the hospitalization rate peaked at more than 35 admissions per 100,000 people.

The data suggest that countries with high vaccination rates are unlikely to see major surges in hospitalization rates from Delta. Nearly 75 percent of adults in England — including 95 percent of those who are 80 or older — have had at least one shot, according to the agency’s numbers.

Earlier this month, England had delayed its plans to reopen after Delta caused a spike in new cases.

Case rates are highest among young adults, who are the least likely to be vaccinated, Public Health England reported. (Among those under 40, just 34 percent have been at least partially vaccinated.) Young people are less likely to develop severe Covid-19, which could explain why the spread of Delta has not resulted in a wave of hospitalizations.

Breakthrough infections, or those that occur in people who are fully vaccinated, tend to cause mild or no symptoms.

At a separate news conference on Thursday, the European Medicines Agency noted that vaccination should provide good protection against Delta.

“We are aware of the concerns that are caused by the rapid spread of the Delta variant and all the variants,” Marco Cavaleri, the head of biological health threats and vaccine strategy at the agency, said at the briefing. Given the research that has been done so far, the four vaccines that are approved in the European Union — Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Jonson — all seem to protect against the Delta variant, he said.

In one recent study, for instance, researchers found that the Pfizer vaccine was 88 percent effective at protecting against symptomatic disease caused by Delta, a performance that nearly matches its 95 percent effectiveness against the original version of the virus. A single dose of the vaccine, however, is much less effective.

“Expediting vaccination and maintaining public health measures remain very important tools to fight the pandemic,” Dr. Cavaleri said. “In particular, making sure that vulnerable and elderly people complete their vaccination course as soon as possible is paramount.”

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Health

CDC group says there is not sufficient information but to suggest booster pictures

CDC group says there isn't enough data yet to recommend booster shots

A group of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists said Wednesday that currently there isn’t enough data to support recommending Covid-19 booster shots to the general population but that more-vulnerable groups, such as elderly people or transplant recipients, may need an extra dose.

The Covid-19 working group of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices didn’t rule out the possibility that the general population eventually may need booster shots if immunity from the vaccines wanes or a variant reduces the effectiveness of current shots.

“Boosters may be required for a broad population. However, it could also be that the need for boosters of Covid vaccine may only be demonstrated in some populations,” said Dr. Sarah Oliver, co-lead of the working group and a medical epidemiologist with the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

A recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that booster shots may be beneficial for people with weakened immune systems. Oliver said the agency should monitor residents of long-term care facilities, elderly people, health-care workers and immunocompromised people.

The working group recommended that the CDC consider booster shots only “after evidence of declining protection,” Oliver said, meaning if the vaccines became less effective over time or antibodies guarding against Covid waned over time. The agency could also consider using booster shots if a variant emerged that substantially reduced the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Vials with Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine labels are seen in this illustration picture taken March 19, 2021.

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

“I would have to agree with the interpretation of the working group in the sense that there’s no data to support recommendations to support boosters at this time,” said Dr. Sharon Frey, a member of ACIP and clinical director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Saint Louis University Medical School. “There’s no evidence against declining protection at this time.”

But Frey said she would be open to giving a third shot to transplant patients or if infections rise in the general population, indicating a lot of breakthrough cases in fully vaccinated individuals. So far, there have been at least 3,729 breakthrough infections in the U.S. that resulted in hospitalization or death, according to CDC data.

“I think the only thing we can do at this moment is, if we start to see an uptick in reinfection in people or new infections in people who have been vaccinated, that’s our clue that we need to move quickly,” Frey said.

Dr. Grace Lee, who chairs the ACIP safety group and is a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, also said she would like to see more evidence of breakthrough cases before recommending a booster shot.

“I would want greater certainty on the safety data if we’re talking about boosting before it’s clear what the risk data will look like,” Lee said. “If we’re seeing severe breakthrough cases then I think the decision-making moves forward even if there’s uncertainty with the safety data.”

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Politics

Apple Says It Turned Over Information on Donald McGahn in 2018

Apple Says It Turned Over Data on Donald McGahn in 2018

The Mueller report — and Mr. McGahn in private testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this month — described Mr. Trump’s anger at Mr. McGahn after the Times article and how he had tried to persuade Mr. McGahn to make a statement falsely denying it. Mr. Trump told aides that Mr. McGahn was a “liar” and a “leaker,” according to former Trump administration officials. In his testimony, Mr. McGahn said that he had been a source for The Post’s follow-up to clarify a nuance — to whom he had conveyed his intentions to resign — but he had not been a source for the original Times article.

There are reasons to doubt that Mr. McGahn was the target of any Justice Department leak investigation stemming from that episode, however. Information about Mr. Trump’s orders to dismiss Mr. Mueller, for example, would not appear to be a classified national-security secret of the sort that it can be a crime to disclose.

Yet another roughly concurrent event is that the subpoena to Apple that swept up Mr. McGahn’s information came shortly after another that the Justice Department had sent to Apple on Feb. 6, 2018, for a leak investigation related to unauthorized disclosures of information about the Russia inquiry, ensnaring data on congressional staff members, their families and at least two members of Congress.

Among those whose data was secretly seized under a gag order, and who were only recently notified, were two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee: Representatives Eric Swalwell and Adam B. Schiff, both of California. Mr. Schiff, a sharp political adversary of Mr. Trump, is now the panel’s chairman. The Times first reported on that subpoena last week.

Many questions remain unanswered about the events leading up to the subpoenas, including how high they were authorized in the Trump Justice Department and whether investigators anticipated or hoped that they were going to sweep in data on the politically prominent lawmakers. The subpoena sought data on 109 email addresses and phone numbers.

In that case, the leak investigation appeared to have been primarily focused on Michael Bahar, then a staff member on the House Intelligence Committee. People close to Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein, the top two Justice Department officials at the time, have said that neither knew that prosecutors had sought data about the accounts of lawmakers for that investigation.

It remains unclear whether agents were pursuing a theory that Mr. Bahar had leaked on his own or whether they suspected him of talking to reporters with the approval of lawmakers. Either way, it appears they were unable to prove their suspicions that he was the source of any unauthorized disclosures; the case has been closed, and no charges were brought.

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DOJ watchdog will probe reported Trump-era subpoenas of Apple for Democrats’ knowledge

DOJ watchdog will probe reported Trump-era subpoenas of Apple for Democrats' data

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) speaks outside of a closed session before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees of the House of Representatives in Washington, DC on October 28, 2019. Capitol in front of media representatives. Also pictured are (LR) Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA).

Mark Wilson | Getty Images

The Justice Department’s internal watchdog office will investigate after a bomb report alleged that the Trump administration clandestinely summoned Apple over the House Democrats’ data, the office said on Friday.

The investigation will review the “use of subpoenas and other judicial authorities to obtain communications records” by members of Congress, their staff and the news media “in connection with the recent investigations into alleged unauthorized disclosure of information to the media by government officials”. This was announced by Inspector General Michael Horowitz in a statement.

The move follows a growing chorus of Democratic lawmakers, including the two whose records have reportedly been subpoenaed, demanding that the Justice Department inspector-general open an investigation into Trump-era behavior.

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The New York Times reported Thursday night that Trump’s Justice Department seized records in 2017 and early 2018 from at least a dozen people associated with the House Intelligence Committee, including the House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-California, and that Committee member Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.

The agency also reportedly obtained data from the accounts of carers and family members, one of whom was a child.

Prosecutors for the DOJ, then headed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, were looking for sources of harmful news of contacts between Trump employees and Russia, the report said.

When Trump’s prosecutors investigated the source of the leaks, they reportedly investigated the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, whose members have access to sensitive documents.

The investigation did not link the House committee to the leaks – but Sessions replacement, William Barr, kept the investigation going, the Times reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump (left) speaks with William Barr, U.S. Attorney General, during the 38th annual National Peace Officers Memorial Day service at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, May 15, 2019.

Kevin Dietsch | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple was silenced by a gag order that expired earlier this year, according to a company spokesman who confirmed the subpoena in a statement to CNBC on Friday evening.

“It would have been virtually impossible for Apple to understand the intent of the information you want without sifting through the accounts of the users,” said Apple spokesman Fred Sainz. “In accordance with the request, Apple limited the information it provided to account subscriber information and did not provide content such as emails or images.”

Microsoft similarly confirmed a 2017 subpoena and gag order regarding a personal email account on Friday.

“As soon as the gag rule expired, we notified the customer who told us that he was a congress employee. We then gave a briefing to the agent’s employees after this announcement, ”a Microsoft spokesman said in a statement to CNBC.

Assistant Attorney General Lisa Monaco referred the matter to the Department of Justice’s inspector general, an agency official told CNBC on Friday.

Schiff welcomed the move in a statement as “an important first step”. But the watchdog investigation “will not eliminate the need for other forms of oversight and accountability – including public oversight by Congress – and the ministry must work together in those efforts too,” Schiff said.

Monaco, the second official in the Justice Department, was ratified by the Senate in April. Horowitz has been Inspector General since 2012.

Horowitz said Friday that his investigation “will investigate the ministry’s compliance with applicable DOJ policies and procedures, and whether such use or investigations were based on improper considerations.

“If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider other issues that may arise during the review,” he said, adding, “The review does not replace the OIG’s judgment on the legal and investigative judgments made in matters raised by OIG are checked, have been taken. “

The Times article came weeks after reports that the Trump administration had secretly received records from journalists from several news outlets.

On Thursday evening, Schiff called for an investigation into the Trump DOJ’s actions in “these and other cases that indicate the arming of law enforcement by a corrupt president”.

Trump had “tried to use the ministry as a club against his political opponents and media representatives,” Schiff said in a statement. “It is becoming increasingly clear that these demands have not fallen on deaf ears.”

Swalwell said in his own statement that Apple informed him last month that his files had been turned over to the Trump administration “as part of a politically motivated investigation into his supposed enemies.”

“Like many of the most despicable dictators in the world, former President Trump showed utter contempt for our democracy and the rule of law,” said Swalwell. “This kind of behavior is unacceptable, but unfortunately on the mark for a president who has repeatedly shown that he would put our constitution aside for his own benefit.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., and Senate Justice Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Added Friday that Congress must obtain testimony from Sessions and Barr.

“The revelation that the Trump Justice Department secretly subpoenaed metadata from members and staff of the House Intelligence Committee and their families, including a minor, is shocking,” Schumer and Durbin said in a joint statement on Friday.

“This is a gross abuse of power and an attack on the separation of powers. This appalling politicization of the Justice Department by Donald Trump and his flatterers must be investigated immediately by both the DOJ Inspector General and Congress, ”said the Senate leaders.

“Former Barr and Sessions attorneys-general and other officials involved must testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee. If they refuse, they will be summoned and forced to testify under oath, ”said Schumer and Durbin.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Also joined calls for a full investigation, saying he plans to introduce laws to increase transparency and reform “abuse of gag orders”.

“The current Justice Department needs to act with much greater urgency to both detect abuses and ensure full accountability of those responsible,” said Wyden.

Read the full New York Times report.

—Sara Salinas of CNBC contributed to this report.

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Politics

Fewer Migrant Kids Arriving Alone at US Border, Knowledge Reveals

Fewer Migrant Children Arriving Alone at US Border, Data Shows

The number of migrant children and teenagers arriving alone at the United States border with Mexico decreased last month compared to a month earlier, according to newly released Customs and Border Protection data.

There was a slight increase in the number of border crossings, encounters and apprehensions overall during the same time period, a sign that the record surge of migrants trying to get into the country this spring could be starting to stabilize.

But the problem is far from over for the Biden administration, which is currently trying to safely place more than 16,000 migrant children in government custody with family members living in the United States. The administration on Monday threatened to sue the state of Texas if Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, follows through with his threat to shut down more than 50 shelters in the state where thousands of migrant children have been living.

Mr. Abbott’s action, which was part of a disaster order issued at the end of last month, was seen by many as a deliberate swipe at the Biden administration’s more compassionate posture on immigration compared to the restrictive measures of the Trump administration.

It is typical for the number of migrants traveling to the United States through the southern border to increase during spring months, but this year the turnout has been much higher, with a nearly 50 percent increase in border crossings, encounters and apprehensions in March, April and May compared to a similar surge over the same period in 2019.

Republicans have seized on the surge along the southern border, calling it a crisis — a term the Biden administration has avoided.

Most of the adult migrants who have been arriving at the southern border this year have been barred from entering the country because of a public health rule put in place during the Trump administration, which is responsible for more than 463,000 expulsions on the southern border between January and May of this year.

While the last administration also barred children for public health reasons, the Biden administration has been allowing migrant children to enter the country and stay in shelters overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services until they can be placed with a family member or other sponsor. Since the beginning of the year, more than 65,000 migrant children and teenagers arrived alone on the southern border, with record numbers arriving during the spring months. Nearly 2,900 fewer migrant children arrived alone at the southern border in May compared to a month earlier.

Because of a shortage of shelter space at the federal government’s network of state-licensed facilities earlier this year, migrant children were forced to stay in overcrowded holding cells along the southern border long past the legal limit. Earlier this year, the Biden administration moved to set up about a dozen emergency shelters where the children could stay in Health and Human Services custody until they are placed with a family member or sponsor inside the United States.

Recently, migrant children and teenagers have been staying in H.H.S. custody for an average of 37 days, according to government statistics. Children’s advocates have said ideally a child would not have to stay more than 20 days in a government shelter.