FBI Director Patel Briefed at White House Over New Plane Reporting, Reporters Subpoenaed
Select a version of the text written from a presumed ideological perspective. This is not the original text, but a hypothetical version — how someone with that viewpoint might have phrased it. Tapping the current version again will return to the original or select cleaned version.
The FBI director met with White House officials to discuss a New York Times report on President Trump's gifted aircraft, after which four reporters received subpoenas to testify.
The FBI's director, Kash Patel, met with senior White House officials on Friday to discuss a New York Times story about President Trump’s gifted aircraft. According to two sources familiar with the matter, Patel cancelled a planned trip to Chicago and spent several hours at the White House reviewing the reporting.
The Times article raised questions about the security features of the Qatari-owned Boeing VC-25B that Trump has been using, noting that the aircraft had undergone a rapid ten-month conversion and that some experts expressed concerns about its security compared with the older Air Force One plane.
Following the briefing, four Times reporters who authored the story were served with subpoenas requiring them to appear for testimony in New York on Wednesday. The subpoenas were delivered to the reporters’ home addresses.
White House communications director Steven Cheung said the president’s priority is “helping the American people and keeping them safe.” An FBI spokesperson confirmed that Patel and White House officials met to brief an ongoing matter and declined to comment further, describing additional speculation about the meeting as “false."
The New York Times called the subpoenas a “brazen act” intended to intimidate journalists, and its attorney, David McCraw, said the appearance of federal law-enforcement agents at reporters’ homes should alarm supporters of press freedom.
Two former national-security officials told media outlets that the gifted aircraft, originally built as a 747-8 passenger jet, may lack the secure communications and defensive systems required for presidential use, describing it as built for aesthetics rather than mission requirements.