Last week, just two days after publishing a report contradicting Trump's claims about the new Air Force One gifted by Qatar, a New York Times reporter received a subpoena for allegedly violating federal criminal law. The reporter strongly suspects the subpoenas were hastily issued by Trump out of anger over the reporting. In a memo to staff, New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn stated that the subpoenas were "impulsive" and condemned this "blatant intimidation of individual journalists" to stop reporting. Kahn stated that the law protects journalists from this retaliatory abuse of prosecutorial power, and the courts must reaffirm this protection and stop such overreach. "We are confident they will do so in this case," he said.
While the "abuse" of legal power by journalists has always been highly controversial, officials in previous administrations have sometimes argued that it is a last resort after exhausting other investigative avenues. In this case, the subpoenas appear to be more of a first step. FBI Director Cash Patel was summoned to the White House on Friday for a meeting regarding the leak investigation shortly before the subpoenas were delivered to the New York Times reporter. Renowned First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams stated that he could not think of any precedent for the president himself to intervene so directly in such a matter. He also could not imagine any situation where there was such strong evidence that the president personally made the decision to pressure the media to hand over their sources. "And most importantly," Abrams continued, "I can't think of any other topic that would make the public so eager to know the truth, and that this desire to know is entirely legitimate."
