Bloomberg investigation revealed DOJ subpoenaed X for an anonymous ICE critic's identity, address, and banking data

Bloomberg reported on May 28, 2026, that the U.S. Department of Justice, under U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, issued a federal grand jury subpoena to X seeking the name, address, and banking information of an anonymous user who posted sarcastically about donating to the ICE officer who fatally shot Minneapolis protester Renee Good, including an address the user's attorney says was already public elsewhere. The user, represented by attorney Joshua Koltun, learned of the demand from X. DOJ had first sought the same information via an administrative summons, which requires no judicial involvement; after Koltun challenged it, DOJ withdrew the summons and instead obtained the grand jury subpoena, a criminal-investigation tool far harder to quash. Neither DOJ nor the user has been told what offense is under investigation; Koltun said the post "does not contain a trace or an inkling" of intended violence.

The X subpoena came roughly two months after DOJ used the identical escalation -- administrative summons withdrawn, then secret grand jury subpoena -- against Reddit, to identify a different anonymous ICE critic represented by Civil Liberties Defense Center attorney Lauren Regan. Both followed a broader Department of Homeland Security campaign, reported in February 2026, of hundreds of administrative subpoenas to Google, Reddit, Discord, and Meta seeking ICE critics' identities.

Both users have moved to quash their grand jury subpoenas in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, before Chief Judge James Boasberg. Regan called the pattern of abandoning summonses for grand jury subpoenas once challenged "further proof" of "a bad faith attempt to unmask the user" rather than a genuine investigation. Reddit said it reviews government data requests and objects to overbroad ones; an X spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. The First Amendment Coalition said the effort threatens protected anonymous political speech.