The Department of Justice has subpoenaed New York Times journalists after they reported on security concerns involving the new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One, marking a dramatic escalation of President Donald Trump’s campaign against the media that has drawn condemnation for eroding a fundamental freedom of American democracy.
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The subpoenas seek to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan next week, the Times 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.
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“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.
Hey it’s not our consciences on the line. The appearance of the feds should shock us; it’s Patel and his thugs who need their consciences shocked.
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.”
He said in a statement that 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.”
The department said that “to be clear, reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”
Cool. Question: who classified the information, and why? Is it classified for reasons of public safety and the like, or is it classified because it’s dirty and they want to keep it secret?
Issuing subpoenas represents further ramping up of Trump’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 the Republican president to attempt to undermine press freedom in order to shield him[self] from negative coverage.
And by “negative coverage” we mean truthful reporting on his many violations of longstanding norms and outright crimes.
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.
They were just kidding both times, right? Funny stuff.
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 licenses, and seeking to bend news organizations and social media companies to his will.
He’s just doing what any self-respecting dictator does.
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