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The U.S. Department of Justice has subpoenaed New York Times journalists after they reported on security concerns 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 subpoenas, issued on Friday, seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday, the newspaper said, adding that federal agents delivered some subpoenas to the reporters at their homes.
The subpoenas were issued after FBI director Kash Patel and other Justice Department officials met at the White House on Friday to talk about the matter, according to a person familiar with the discussions who was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“The 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,” David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times, said in a statement.
Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Trump’s “war on the press is looking for another victim.”
In a statement, he said the subpoenas “break from longstanding Justice Department practice to protect the public interest and press independence by requiring prosecutors to only seek information from reporters as a last resort when all other avenues have been exhausted.”
However, the department said that “to be clear, reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”
Its statement said that “we value and appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country, but DOJ also plays an important role to make sure that the people entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information, which means not sharing classified information.”
While recognizing “there may always be natural tension there,” the department said, “we are not going to ignore the law and stop investigating the people who work in the administration and think it’s okay to leak classified information impacting national security.”
Pattern of anti-press actions
Issuing subpoenas represents a major escalation in the Republican president’s effort to threaten independent new organizations by leveraging the power of the federal government against them.
It is also part of a systematic pattern by Trump to attempt to undermine press freedom in order to shield himself from negative coverage.
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 subpoenas.
During his first term, Trump suggested that the press constituted 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 U.S. history.
Trump’s pattern of attacks against news outlets and media figures he believes are overly critical of him has included filing lawsuits against outlets whose coverage he dislikes, threatening to revoke TV broadcast licences and seeking to bend news organizations and social media companies to his will.
NYT reports on security concerns with aircraft
The president flew the new Air Force One to a NATO summit in Turkey this week. But he departed on Wednesday on one of the older-model Air Force One jets for Mildenhall, a Royal Air Force base in Suffolk, England.
The newer plane also flew to Mildenhall. Trump then switched to that plane for the flight home to Joint Base Andrews.
The abrupt plane swap came as a shaky ceasefire with Iran had collapsed, with the U.S. launching airstrikes on Iran, and Tehran attacking three Gulf Arab states.
Iran and Turkey share a border, sparking speculation that the Qatari-gifted jet, which underwent a $400-million US retrofit, lacked certain sophisticated security and countermeasure systems.
The newspaper, citing anonymous sources, reported the switch had come at the urging of the U.S. Secret Service and that the newer plane lacked some of the advanced security features of the older aircraft, including antimissile capabilities.
Trump denied any security concerns, posting on social media that the stop in Mildenhall was so that service members there could view the new jet.
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(Photo credits: The Canadian Press, Reuters, Adobe Stock and Getty Images)
White House denies security issues
During the flight, Trump denied to the reporters accompanying him that security concerns involving Iran were a factor in flying two planes home. Asked if he was aware of any credible threats against Air Force One by Iran, Trump brushed off the question.
“I have a threat all the time. I’m No. 1 on their list,” he said.
The White House later denied any security shortcomings on the new plane.
“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff,” spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“As the President has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal — including distraction and misdirection — to address those threats.”
The Times journalists who received subpoenas included Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt, the newspaper reported.