The newspaper asked the court to quash the subpoenas.Image: AP/AP
The New York Times is defending itself against subpoenas of several of its journalists.
Jul 16, 2026, 4:44 amJul 16, 2026, 4:44 am
They were “abusive and inadmissible” and “obtained in bad faith to punish the Times for its reporting,” said the editor’s lawyer, David McCraw, according to the statement. The newspaper therefore asked the court to quash the subpoenas.
According to the New York Times, several of its journalists received subpoenas from the federal prosecutor’s office in Manhattan last week after reporting on alleged security concerns with Donald Trump’s new presidential plane. The reporters should therefore testify before a grand jury.
According to the newspaper, the only reason for the summonses was an unspecified violation of federal criminal law. Some of them were personally delivered to people’s residences by federal officials.
Presidential machine in focus
The four journalists, citing anonymous sources, reported that Trump had completed the flight from the NATO summit in Turkey to the British Mildenhall air base on the old Air Force One on the advice of the Secret Service. Accordingly, it was about safety concerns. There he switched to the new machine donated by Qatar.
In another report, the newspaper wrote that the new aircraft does not yet have all the security and defense systems of the previous presidential aircraft. The government and Trump himself denied that safety concerns were the reason for the aircraft change.
Trump has increasingly taken action against the media since the beginning of his second term in office. The Justice Department had already tried this year to force statements from journalists from the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post in investigations into revelations. After legal resistance from the media companies, these subpoenas were later withdrawn. (sda/dpa)