Federal agents delivered subpoenas to the homes of several New York Times journalists this week, demanding they testify before a federal grand jury about their reporting on security concerns with President Donald Trump's new Air Force One – a plane gifted by Qatar. The Justice Department said it was investigating illegal leaks and insisted that reporters were not the targets. But David McCraw, the Times's top newsroom lawyer, called the summons a “brazen act” and “nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”
The subpoenas, which require the journalists to appear before a grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday, come after the Times published stories alleging that the Qatari-gifted plane was not secure enough. The reports, citing unnamed sources, said the Secret Service had urged Trump to switch planes on his way home from a Nato summit in Turkey. While the president flew to the summit on the new Air Force One, he left on an older plane on the advice of the Secret Service, the Times reported. Security officials were concerned the newer plane lacked advanced features, including antimissile capabilities.
“US federal agents subpoenaed New York Times journalists over security reports on Trump's Qatari-gifted Air Force One.”
The Justice Department told the BBC: “Reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.” It added: “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.”
Other outlets, including CBS News, published similar reports. A former US government official told CBS that there was not enough time to fully secure the new plane. The Times’s lawyer, McCraw, said: “Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public's right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used.”
The move drew immediate criticism from Democratic senators and press advocacy groups, who accused the Trump administration of targeting journalists for doing their job. The grand jury will decide whether there is enough evidence to charge anyone with a crime, but the constitutional protections for press freedom remain a central point of contention in a case that tests the limits of government secrecy.