On Friday, President Donald Trump defended the Justice Department’s efforts to identify the source of a leak involving his Qatari-donated Air Force One after court filings revealed Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google was also subpoenaed in the criminal investigation.
Trump Says Probe Targets Leakers, Not Journalists
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump backed the Department of Justice’s now-withdrawn subpoenas, CNBC reported.
The subpoenas were seeking testimony and phone records from The New York Times reporters as investigators pursue the source of leaked information about security concerns surrounding the president’s new Air Force One aircraft.
“We’re not after journalists,” Trump said. “We’re after leakers. We’re after people that are cowards, people that are unpatriotic, people that are treasonous in many cases.”
Trump argued that reporters are often the only link to identifying those responsible for leaking sensitive national security information.
“And the way you find them is through journalists,” he said. “That person should be found, and the way you find them is to tell the journalist, if it’s something having to do with national security, you tell the journalist: ‘Who is it?'”
He added, “We have a long way to go with that case.”
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DOJ Withdraws Reporter Subpoenas After Judge’s Warning
Trump’s remarks came one day after the DOJ informed a federal judge in New York that it was withdrawing grand jury subpoenas issued to The New York Times reporters and requests for their phone records, the report noted.
The subpoenas were part of a criminal investigation into the disclosure of information published by the newspaper earlier this month regarding security measures on the president’s Qatari-donated aircraft.
U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian had indicated he would quash the subpoenas if prosecutors did not voluntarily withdraw them.
Google Subpoena Revealed in Court Filing
Separately, an unsealed court filing revealed that Google received a grand jury subpoena on July 16 seeking subscriber information tied to a phone number connected to the same investigation.
The company also received a nondisclosure order barring it from notifying the subscriber about the request.
Google challenged the order, arguing it violated the First Amendment because the investigation was already publicly known. Judge Subramanian later granted Google’s request and vacated the nondisclosure order.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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