Donald Trump slapped a sticky note bearing the word “treason” on a pile of news clippings he personally handed to his acting attorney general—who’s reportedly now weighing investigations into the outlets that published them.
The Wall Street Journal reported the bizarre Oval Office exchange in a report on Tuesday. The story, drawn on inside accounts from administration officials, outlines how Trump’s fury at leaks on his war with Iran has now seen Todd Blanche vow to subpoena any national security reporters whose work has gotten under the president’s skin.
Blanche is Trump’s former personal defense lawyer. He stepped up to become acting AG after the president canned Pam Bondi in April. Trump is thought to have fired Bondi for not prosecuting his enemies aggressively enough, as well as her botched handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files saga.
The articles Trump shoved at Blanche reportedly concerned the massive rescue operation launched after a U.S. fighter jet was downed inside Iranian airspace on April 3. Trump and other senior officials apparently believed coverage of the recovery effort to recover two airmen lost in the crash had risked sinking the mission.
“We’re going to go to the media company that released it, and we’re going to say, ‘National security: give it up or go to jail!’” Trump declared at a news conference last month. He held that event after the operation had been reported by multiple media organizations.
Blanche doesn’t appear to have flinched at the president’s demands. He insisted the following day that the Justice Department would never sit back at classified leaks deemed to have endangered soldiers or agents. “If that means sending a subpoena to the reporter, that’s exactly what we should do, and that’s exactly what we will be doing,” he said.
Senior DOJ officials have since met with Pentagon counterparts to coordinate the leak hunt, officials told the Journal. Trump is thought to have reserved particular venom for an April 7 New York Times piece detailing how Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, lobbied him on bombing Iran.
The report vividly captured internal debates and skepticism from intelligence officials about the credibility of Netanyahu’s arguments for regime change in Iran, and the viability of his plans to achieve it.
The Justice Department has slapped the Journal with March 4-dated grand jury subpoenas. They target reporter records tied to a February scoop that revealed General Dan Caine and other Pentagon officials warned Trump about the dangers of a prolonged Iran campaign.
The president launched his war on Feb. 28, five days later. It continues to limp along under a fragile ceasefire.
Ashok Sinha, communications chief at WSJ parent company Dow Jones, called the subpoenas “an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering” and vowed to fight them.
Bruce Brown of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press noted that, historically, prosecutors have hit news outlets with subpoenas only when all other options fail. Bondi gutted that norm last year by scrapping Biden-era restrictions on going after reporters.
The Daily Beast contacted the White House and the Justice Department for comment on this story.
A DOJ spokesperson said: “In all circumstances, the Department of Justice follows the facts and applies the law to identify those committing crimes against the United States.”
