New York Times seeks to quash subpoenas for reporters’ phone records

The Justice Department, in trying to uncover confidential sources who spoke to the New York Times for its reporting on the security systems on the Qatar-donated Air Force One plane, attempted to gain access to phone records of several Times reporters and their family members.

The Times said earlier this month that several journalists at the company received grand jury subpoenas on the same day that the news organization first reported that the Secret Service had advised that President Trump should take the old presidential aircraft to depart from Turkey. Mr. Trump had flown on the new plane to the NATO summit in Ankara, but while he was at the meeting of defense alliance leaders, questions arose about the new jet’s defensive military capabilities. 

The subpoenas did not allege anything specific, the Times said, only that the reporters had been asked to testify “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.” They sought to force the reporters to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan last week.

The Times said the subpoenas were signed by Jay Clayton, Mr. Trump’s nominee to serve as director of national intelligence who was previously the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. 

On Wednesday, David McCraw, the paper’s senior vice president and deputy general counsel, said that the company moved to quash the “abusive and improper subpoenas.”

In court filings published Monday by the Times, the paper sought to block new subpoenas sent to third-party phone service providers for the phone records of the reporters and their relatives, including the spouses of two reporters and one of the reporter’s mothers.

The lawyers said the government’s disclosures in the case “are deeply troubling for obvious reasons” and part of the Justice Department’s “bad-faith efforts to intimidate the Journalists and chill their ability to report,” on Mr. Trump’s second term. 

Lawyers for the Times said in the filings that two of the subpoenas seek phone records going back to Jan. 1, months before the company or other news organizations began reporting on security concerns with the new plane. 

“That timeframe strongly suggests that the department is using this investigation not to focus on any purported concerns arising from the July 8 and 9 articles, but instead to forage for information about the journalists’ source relationships more broadly,” the lawyers wrote to U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, who was assigned the case.

The lawyers also asserted that the Justice Department violated its own policies for subpoenas to news organizations when it waited a week to notify the Times about the phone record subpoenas. 

A Justice Department spokesperson said the DOJ subpoenas are “in full compliance with federal law and internal department policy.” 

Subramanian ordered the enforcement of all subpoenas to be paused until he rules on the paper’s motions, and the Times said that a hearing is scheduled on the matter Thursday. 

WTX US News also reported that the Secret Service had advised Mr. Trump to fly on the old plane. U.S. officials told WTX US News earlier this month that the new plane was hurried into service and lacked some desired security features. A former U.S. government official who spoke to WTX US News expressed concern that there wasn’t enough time or money to outfit the new plane with defensive capabilities to fully meet the requirements to serve as Air Force One.  

Mr. Trump and the White House initially denied any security concerns about the new jet, and the president has brushed off questions on recent credible threats against him or his plane by Iran.

“I have a threat all the time. I’m No. 1 on their list,” Mr. Trump said of Iran. 

The White House spokesman Steven Cheung said earlier this month in a statement that the new plane “is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the President and his staff.” 

However, Monday morning, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Mr. Trump would keep using the old Air Force One while the new plane is modified with new security upgrades. 

“The new Air Force One is perfectly safe for the President’s travels, but will receive additional upgrades and enhancements in the fall which will take approximately one month to complete,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to WTX US News. “During that time, the President will fly on the old Air Force One.” 

On Sunday, Mr. Trump said that the plane would be “maxed out” and would take “about a month” to be upgraded.

Qatar’s royal family gave the jet to Mr. Trump last year, and he has faced criticism from lawmakers who raised both security and ethics concerns about accepting the plane. The new plane underwent approximately 10 months of work before Mr. Trump flew on it for the first time on July 1.