The Trump administration issued subpoenas over the weekend to several New York Times reporters—including Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt—as part of a federal investigation. The subpoenas came two days after the paper reported that President Trump chose to fly back from Turkey on an older Air Force One rather than a new luxury plane received from Qatar, due to security concerns related to the absence of advanced protective measures on the new aircraft.
2+The Justice Department clarified that the investigation targets not the journalists but officials within the administration who leaked classified information. A Justice Department spokesperson said: “To the extent that we need to investigate breaches in national security, that’s something we will continue to do. To be clear, the journalists are not the target, but rather those who leak classified information.”
New York Times leadership were outraged over the move. Executive Editor Joe Kahn wrote in a memo to staff that “the administration is using vague excuses of threats to national security to try to force journalists to appear before a grand jury.” Administration officials countered that the Justice Department’s responsibility is to ensure that those entrusted with state secrets don’t share them with reporters.
2+The current investigation comes against a backdrop of the administration’s hardline policy toward the media, including restricting access to federal facilities and legal threats. In recent months, the administration has issued similar subpoenas to journalists at the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, though in those cases the subpoenas were later withdrawn.
Tensions around the subpoenas escalated after a meeting between FBI Director Kash Patel and White House officials to discuss the investigation into leaks about the presidential plane. Before the article was published Wednesday, a senior FBI official contacted Times reporters and editors asking them not to publish for national security reasons and demanding they reveal their sources—a demand the paper refused.
2+Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche addressed the importance of protecting state secrets last month: “I have an important role to make sure that people who are entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information—which means, spoiler alert, not sharing it with reporters.” Trump administration officials said these actions are part of a determined effort to strengthen enforcement against leaks of sensitive national security information.