Stay up to date with our Up First newsletter sent every weekday morning.The New York Times will argue in a federal court hearing Thursday that the White House is abusing the justice system to fish for its reporters' sources in a story that outraged President Trump.More broadly, the newspaper contends, the Trump administration is seeking to deter those same reporters from intense coverage of the president.The offending stories, according to the Times, focused on security concerns surrounding the new luxurious Air Force One jet, a gift from the Qatari government."The Government's actions violate the most basic First Amendment protections for newsgathering activity," the Times legal team, led by David A.O'Neil of Debevoise & Plimpton, wrote in filings this week.
"They represent the latest salvo in an escalating series of attacks on journalists to intimidate them from engaging in reporting that the Trump Administration openly detests."In recent years, including under Trump, it has been customary for the FBI to deliver subpoenas for reporters' testimony and materials directly to news organizations so that their lawyers could fight them in court.Compelling evidence and testimony from reporters is supposed to be a last resort, not a first move, even under Trump's then Attorney General Pam Bondi last year.Agents instead went to several reporters' homes on the night of Friday, July 10 — just two days after the first story was published — with subpoenas compelling their testimony before a grand jury.
And the FBI pursued records involving all five reporters and several reporters' family members, the paper said."When something like this happens, it's very frightening," says Katherine Marsh, the wife of Times reporter Julian E.Barnes.
"You almost feel like you're being treated as an enemy of the state and we're just reporters and reporters' families."The paper pointed to its own subsequent reporting that FBI Director Kash Patel, while at the White House, personally ov...