The New York Times on Wednesday asked a federal judge to quash Justice Department subpoenas to journalists who reported on security flaws in President Donald Trump's new Air Force One plane.
David McCraw, the paper's top lawyer, called the subpoenas "abusive" and "improper" in a statement.
"As we set out in our motion, these subpoenas are brought in bad faith to punish The Times for its coverage," McCraw said. "They violate the constitutional rights of The Times and its journalists. We are going to court to defend our journalists' rights to report freely on the administration and to provide the public with stories that matter."
The subpoenas were signed by Jay Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan and President Donald Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence. A spokesperson for Clayton's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The five Times reporters who were subpoenaed Friday — Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, Eric Schmitt, and Adam Goldman — published an investigation the previous day about the security concerns with the new Air Force One, which was donated by Qatar. The modified Boeing 747-8 plane lacks the same sophisticated antimissile defense capabilities of the old aircraft, the Times reported.
The subpoenas require the reporters to testify before a grand jury in Manhattan and initially demanded they appear on Wednesday, the Times previously reported.
McCraw said he filed the motion to quash under seal due to a court order and is seeking to have the papers unsealed. US District Judge Ronnie Abrams — who leads the Manhattan federal courthouse's media access committee — is assigned to oversee grand jury issues this week.
The subpoenas became a topic during separate Capitol Hill hearings on Wednesday, as senators on the Intelligence Committee questioned Clayton about what Sen. Ron Wyden termed a "flagrant attack" on journalists, and Todd Blanche, Trump's pick for attorney general, was asked by a Democratic senator on the Judiciary Committee about "targeting reporters."
At Clayton's confirmation hearing, Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, asked why he took the unusual step of signing off on subpoenas to journalists. Clayton said they were part of "an ongoing national security investigation."
"I'm happy to talk to you and this committee about our approach with the First Amendment, and our efforts in all cases to limit to the greatest extent possible any intrusion into the operation of the free press," Clayton said.
Clayton told Wyden that he followed "the process that we were required to follow."
"I operate by asking my team, 'What do you think?'" Clayton said. "Any action in this regard, you can be assured, was a consultative exercise with the prosecutors in my office."
The White House directed FBI Director Kash Patel to oversee the leak investigation into the Times' reporting about Air Force One, according to the Times. During Blanche's confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which took place at the same time as Clayton's, Sen. Peter Welch asked him if he supported Patel's effort to subpoena the Times journalists.
Blanche told Welch, a Vermont Democrat, that the Justice Department saw the journalists as "material witnesses, just like reporters would be witnesses to a car crash."
"The question we want to ask them is who provided them with classified national security information, which everybody in this body should want to protect — I would hope," Blanche said.
A spokesperson for The New York Times declined to comment on Blanche's and Clayton's comments to the Senate committees.
In an email to the newsroom Saturday, Times Executive Editor Joe Kahn called the subpoenas a "retaliatory abuse of prosecutorial power."
"This is a naked attempt to intimidate individual reporters and to prevent The Times and other independent news media from doing important reporting protected by the First Amendment," he said. "We will mount a full defense of our staff, of course. We will also fight to ensure that this blatant effort to suppress coverage of a matter clearly in the public interest in no way impedes accountability reporting of this or any other administration."
During the Trump administration, the Justice Department has taken a more aggressive stance toward journalists. Last year, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi made it easier for prosecutors to obtain search warrants and subpoenas for members of the media by scrapping Biden-era policies that required department officials to weigh alternative ways to obtain the information they sought.
This story has been updated.
