The Trump administration issued subpoenas on Friday to several journalists for The New York Times, after the news outlet reported this week on security concerns involving President Trump\u2019s new Qatari-donated Air Force One.<\/p>\n
The subpoenas \u2014 which seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday \u2014 were an extraordinary escalation in President Trump\u2019s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations.<\/p>\n
In some cases, the subpoenas were delivered by federal agents who showed up at reporters\u2019 homes.<\/p>\n
The Times denounced the administration\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,\u201d said David McCraw, The Times\u2019s top newsroom lawyer, in a statement on Friday evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur journalists report the facts and advance the American public\u2019s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used,\u201d Mr. McCraw wrote. \u201cThis brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The subpoenas contain few specifics, asking only that the journalists testify \u201cin regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.\u201d They were issued by Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. Mr. Clayton, who leads one of the country\u2019s most prominent law enforcement offices, was recently nominated by Mr. Trump to serve as director of national intelligence.<\/p>\n
Representatives for the White House did not respond to inquiries on Friday evening.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Saturday, a Justice Department spokeswoman said that \u201creporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe value and appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country, but D.O.J. also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation\u2019s secrets do what they\u2019re supposed to do with that information,\u201d said the spokeswoman, Emily Covington. She added, \u201cWe recognize there may always be natural tension there, but we are not going to ignore the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Times journalists who received subpoenas included Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, who reported<\/a> on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had departed Turkey on the old Air Force One as a security precaution at the urging of the Secret Service. On Thursday, The Times reported<\/a> that the new Air Force One, a Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8, lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities. Both articles cited sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues.<\/p>\n Before the Wednesday article was published, a senior official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation contacted a reporter and a senior editor at The Times to ask that the article be held, calling it an issue of national security, according to a person familiar with the conversation. The F.B.I. official declined to explain the security issue. The official also asked The Times to disclose its sources for the article; the newspaper refused to do so. (A spokesman for The Times, Charlie Stadtlander, confirmed the account.)<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has long been a harsh critic of the news media. But in his second term in office, he has moved aggressively to use the immense powers of the federal government in his efforts to attack the press.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the Justice Department sought to compel testimony from journalists at The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. The Justice Department withdrew the subpoenas<\/a> after both news organizations fought back in sealed filings.<\/p>\n Both Democratic and Republican administrations have initiated leak investigations into the disclosure of classified information. But subpoenas aimed at journalists are not common, and First Amendment advocates say they can chill the work of news gathering.<\/p>\n In January, F.B.I. agents took the rare step of searching the home of a Washington Post reporter, Hannah Natanson, as part of an investigation into a government contractor\u2019s handling of classified material. The agents seized phones, laptops and a smartwatch after executing a search warrant. Ms. Natanson had spent months speaking with government employees while reporting on the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to shrink the federal work force.<\/p>\n The Times is a party to several lawsuits involving Mr. Trump and his administration.<\/p>\n The president sued<\/a> The Times last year, accusing it of defaming him, disparaging his reputation and seeking to undermine his 2024 candidacy.<\/p>\n In December, The Times sued<\/a> the Defense Department after it imposed restrictions on reporters who cover the military. The company sued again<\/a> after the agency reduced reporters\u2019 physical access to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n In May, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued The Times<\/a>, accusing it of employment discrimination. On Friday, The Times filed a counterclaim<\/a>, saying the lawsuit was an act of retaliation for its coverage of the Trump presidency and a violation of its First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n Glenn Thrush and Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration issued subpoenas on Friday to several journalists for The New York Times, after the news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[112003,112002,1452,4469,1082,9,11,10,980,4468,112001,23328,15945,1069,1876],"class_list":["post-293527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-air-force-one-jet","tag-confidential-status-of","tag-donald-j","tag-freedom-of-the-press","tag-justice-department","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-times","tag-news-and-news-media","tag-news-sources","tag-newspapers","tag-subpoenas","tag-trump","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}