Trump administration calls New York Times reporters after Air Force One report
The US Department of Justice has subpoenaed New York Times reporters after they reported on security breaches involving the new Air Force One, marking a dramatic escalation of President Donald Trump’s campaign against the media.
The new jet, which Trump received as a gift from Qatar, entered service last week.
The complaints, issued on Friday, seek to compel the journalists to testify before a grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday, the newspaper said, adding that federal agents brought the journalists to their homes.
The complaints were issued after FBI director Kash Patel and other Justice Department officials met at the White House on Friday to discuss the matter, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The appearance of law enforcement on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the freedom of the press it protects,” said David McCraw, an attorney for the Times, in a statement.
Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that “Trump’s war on the media is looking for another victim.”
In a statement, he said the subpoenas “violate the Justice Department’s longstanding practice of protecting the public interest and independence by requiring prosecutors to seek information from reporters as a last resort when all other options have been exhausted.”
However, the Ministry said “to be clear, journalists are not the target, they are the ones leaking confidential information.”
Its statement said “we appreciate and appreciate the important role played by the media in this country, but the DOJ also plays an important role in ensuring that the people entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they are supposed to do with that information, which is not to share classified information.”
While recognizing that “there may always be disagreements there,” the Department said, “we will not ignore the law and stop investigating people who work in administrative positions and think it’s okay to leak classified information that affects national security.”
A pattern of anti-pressure actions
Issuing the subpoenas represents a major development in the Republican president’s effort to threaten new independent organizations by using the power of the federal government against them.
It’s also part of Trump’s systematic pattern of trying to undermine press freedom to protect himself from misinformation.
Earlier this year, the Justice Department issued subpoenas seeking to compel testimony from reporters at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. In both cases, the Department later withdrew the summons.
During his first term, Trump suggested that the media was an “enemy” of the American people. Since returning to the White House last year, he has waged an aggressive campaign against the media unlike any in modern US history.
Trump’s pattern of attacks on news channels and media figures he believes are too critical of him has included suing companies he doesn’t like, threatening to revoke broadcast licenses and seeking to bend news organizations and social media companies to his will.
NYT reports on aviation safety concerns
The president took the new Air Force One to a NATO summit in Turkey this week. But he traveled on Wednesday in an older model Air Force One to Mildenhall, the Royal Air Force base in Suffolk, England.
A new plane also flew to Mildenhall. Trump then transferred to that plane to fly home to Joint Base Andrews.
The sudden exchange of airstrikes came at a time of the collapse of the ceasefire agreement with Iran, when the US launched airstrikes against Iran, and Tehran attacked three Gulf Arab states.
Iran and Turkey share a border, provoking speculation that the Qatari gift plane, which received a refund of 400 million dollars from the US, did not have some sophisticated security systems and countermeasures.
The newspaper, citing anonymous sources, reported that the replacement came at the behest of the US Secret Service and that the new plane does not have the advanced security features of the old plane, including anti-missile capabilities.
Trump has denied any security concerns, posting on social media that the stopover at Mildenhall was to allow service members to view the new aircraft.
US President Donald Trump walked out of an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press after becoming frustrated with Kristen Welker’s questions. Andrew Chang lays out Trump’s negotiating tactics, and how they present a unique challenge to reporters. (Image credits: The Canadian Press, Reuters, Adobe Stock and Getty Images)
The White House denies any security concerns
During the flight, Trump denied to reporters who were traveling with him that security concerns involving Iran were the reason for the two flights home. Asked if he was aware of credible threats against Air Force One by Iran, Trump dismissed the question.
“I’m always a threat. I’m number 1 on their list,” he said.
The White House later denied any security flaws in the new plane.
“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft equipped with state-of-the-art security systems to ensure the safety of the President and his staff,” his spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“As the President recently said, there are many enemies of America targeting him, and we are using every tool at our disposal – including disruption and disinformation – to deal with those threats.”
Times reporters who received subpoenas include Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, the newspaper reported.
