The Trump administration has subpoenaed several journalists at the New York Times following their report surrounding security concerns over the president’s new Air Force One aircraft, the paper announced.
Background
The legal action comes after the new jet, a newly retrofitted Boeing 747-8 gifted to President Donald Trump from Qatar, took its inaugural flight earlier this month.
The subpoenas were issued to the journalists — identified as Eric Lipton, Julian E. Barnes, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt — on Friday and seek to require those served to testify before a grand jury in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, the paper said.
The Times added that federal agents delivered some of the subpoenas directly to the reporters’ homes.
Earlier this week, Trump flew on the new aircraft to a NATO summit in Turkey, but later departed for the Mildenhall Royal Air Force Base in Suffolk, England on an older Air Force One jet.
Response from the Department of Justice
In a statement to Fox News Digital, the Department of Justice doubled down on the legal escalation, while vowing that the reporters themselves are not being targeted by the administration.
“Every administration has addressed the crime of leaking national security information. To the extent that we have to investigate breaches of national security, that’s something that we will continue to do,” the DOJ spokesperson said.
“To be clear, reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are. 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,” the statement continued.
Original reporting: Fox News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
