NYT Journalists Subpoenaed Over Trump Air Force One Reporting Draws Fire

Press advocacy groups panned the federal government’s move on Friday to subpoena a group of New York Times journalists who reported on security issues plaguing President Donald Trump’s new Air Force One plane.

The Times wrote in a story published Saturday that its journalists — which included Tyler Pager, Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton and Eric Schmitt — had been told to testify by a grand jury in Manhattan this coming week. The subpoenas, according to the newspaper, were issued by Jay Clayton, whom Trump nominated last month to serve as his next director of national intelligence and is able to issue subpoenas in his current role as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Groups that advocate for reporters roundly criticized the Justice Department’s move.

“The National Press Club calls on the Justice Department to immediately withdraw these subpoenas and reaffirm a principle that has long distinguished the United States: a free and independent press serves the people, not the government,” National Press Club President Mark Schoeff Jr. said in a statement.

White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang said the organization stands with the Times reporters, saying they were “targeted for doing their jobs to uphold the public’s right to know how its government operates.”

“The WHCA condemns any act of intimidation against journalists, including attempts to pressure them into revealing sources,” Jiang added.

And Stephen J. Adler, chair of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said, “When the public’s right to know is crushed, as the Trump Administration is trying to do with its subpoenas against The New York Times, all of us suffer irreparable harm, as does the freedom upon which this nation is built.”

Democrats in the Senate, too, took aim at the subpoenas. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) panned them as “another slap in the face of the First Amendment from this administration and an attempt to silence journalists they don’t like” in a social media post.

“Reporters have the right and duty to report the truth,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer wrote on X. “It’s not their fault his foreign-gifted plane is a national security threat.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Every administration has addressed the crime of leaking national security information,” DOJ wrote on X Saturday. “To the extent that we have to investigate breaches of national security, that’s something that we will continue to do. To be clear, reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

The reported subpoenas are the latest step in the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on unauthorized disclosures of sensitive government information. Last month, the DOJ also issued grand jury subpoenas seeking testimony from reporters at The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal in separate leak investigations involving national security reporting. Those subpoenas were later withdrawn after the outlets challenged them.

David McCraw, senior vice president and deputy general counsel at the Times said Saturday in a statement that 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. 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.” McCraw added that the subpoenas “should be seen as 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 latest subpoenas stem from the Times’ reporting that Secret Service officials urged Trump to return from this week’s NATO summit aboard the older Air Force One because the new Qatari-gifted plane lacked some of the defensive capabilities of the traditional presidential aircraft. The White House has denied the reporting, saying the new aircraft is equipped with “high-level security protocols” and that operational decisions involving the president’s travel included elements of “distraction and misdirection” to protect his safety.