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Several New York Times reporters have been sworn in after reporting on President Donald Trump’s new Air Force One plane as a security threat, the US newspaper reported.
Federal agents have issued subpoenas to the journalists’ homes, asking them to appear before a federal grand jury investigating possible crimes, the Times said.
The newspaper published stories alleging that the Qatari-powered plane was not sufficiently secure, and the Secret Service urged Trump to switch planes on his way home from a NATO meeting in Turkey.
The Department of Justice told the BBC it was investigating illegal leaks: “Reporters are not targets, they are leakers.”
David McCraw, the Times’ senior newsroom attorney, called the call “outrageous” and “an attempt to keep the public from knowing what’s going on in the country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”
The subpoena — a legal requirement by a court or government agency that compels someone to appear or produce records or evidence — requires the journalists’ testimony “regarding violations of federal criminal law,” the Times reported.
The subpoena calls for the reporters to appear before a grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday, the Times said. Grand juries are made up of members of the public and assembled by the US government to examine evidence and decide if there is enough evidence to charge a person or people with a crime.
The New York Times cited unnamed sources about the security threat to the president’s plane. Although it is a crime to tell the media about classified information, the United States Constitution protects the freedom of the press to report information in the public interest.
“We appreciate the important role that the press plays in this country, but the DOJ plays an important role in ensuring that those entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they are expected to do with that information,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) told the BBC in a statement.
The Times reported on Wednesday that while Trump was flying to a NATO meeting in Turkey on the new Air Force One, he left the meeting on an older plane on the advice of the Secret Service. The next day, the newspaper reported that security officials were concerned that the new aircraft did not have advanced security features, including anti-missile capability.
“Our journalists report the facts and advance the American people’s right to know how their government is working and how their taxpayer dollars are being used,” said McCraw, the Times attorney.
Other outlets, including CBS News, the BBC’s American news partner, published similar reports. A former U.S. government official told CBS that there is not enough time or money to update the plane to meet safety standards to serve as Air Force One.
As these reports are emerging, tensions with Iran over a negotiated ceasefire are escalating, and the US is on the offensive.
