Trump’s DOJ Targets New York Times Journalists for Exposing Air Force One Scandal
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The Trump administration’s Justice Department has escalated its war on press freedom, issuing grand jury subpoenas to four New York Times reporters who uncovered questionable dealings involving a Qatar-donated Air Force One. Press-freedom advocates condemn this authoritarian overreach.
In a chilling attack on the free press, four New York Times reporters were served with subpoenas Friday evening, compelling them to appear before a Manhattan federal grand jury next week. The subpoenas are retaliation for a story published Wednesday that exposed how the Secret Service, under President Trump’s administration, advised Trump to use an outdated Air Force One instead of a newly donated Boeing 747 from Qatar, due to the newer plane’s lack of defensive systems. The article, written by Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt, relied on anonymous sources to reveal these troubling details.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, a Trump loyalist and nominee for national intelligence director, issued the subpoenas. This follows an earlier attempt by a senior FBI official to pressure the Times into delaying publication and betraying its sources—demands the newspaper rightly refused.
David McCraw, senior vice president and deputy counsel for the Times, condemned the federal agents’ intimidation tactics, saying their actions "should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects." Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, warned that the subpoenas violate longstanding Justice Department norms, which treat reporter information as a last resort.
This aggressive move comes amid a pattern of Trump-era crackdowns on journalists, including the FBI’s search of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s devices earlier this year. The Times, meanwhile, faces ongoing legal battles with the Department of Defense and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as the administration continues to undermine the Fourth Estate.