The White House reportedly instructed FBI Director Kash Patel to investigate a leak to the New York Times over the newspaper’s reporting of President Donald Trump’s Qatari-donated Air Force One alternative.
Patel was planning to fly to Chicago last week to see his girlfriend Alexis Wilkins, a country music singer, and to visit an FBI field office in the city when he abruptly cancelled the trip.
It emerged that Patel was called in to the White House, where he spent “roughly eight hours running the investigation from there rather than FBI headquarters,” on Friday, the newspaper reports. The Times noted the move marked “a major departure from historical practice.”
Two people familiar with the situation told the Times that Patel briefed senior administration officials about the investigation into the paper’s Air Force One report. One person told the newspaper that the FBI director “had his own concerns about the type of information publicly disclosed about the plane.”
On Friday night, following the meeting at the White House, several of the paper’s reporters were sent subpoenas. Tyler Pager, Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton and Eric Schmitt have been ordered to testify before a Manhattan grand jury next week.
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson disputed the newspaper’s reporting. “Director Patel and White House officials agreed to meet on Friday at the White House to brief an ongoing matter. While we would not comment further, other speculative reporting regarding the nature of the meeting is absolutely false,” Williamson said in a statement to the paper.
“President Trump is laser focused on helping the American people and keeping them safe. That will always be his priority,” added White House communications director Steven Cheung.
The Independent has approached the White House and the FBI for further comment.
Trump was furious following the newspaper’s reporting on Thursday that his Qatari-donated airplane allegedly lacks the robust countermeasures found on the previous Air Force One.
The president used the new jet during a NATO flight to Turkey earlier this week, but switched to the previous plane after Secret Service agents raised safety concerns, according to the outlet. He told reporters that he switched planes to give U.S. service members stationed in the U.K. a chance to tour the aircraft.
Emily Covington, the Justice Department Office of Public Affairs director, told the paper that the reporters were not the ultimate targets of the investigation.
“To be clear, reporters are not the targets. Those leaking classified information are,” she said.
TheTimes learned that, despite Trump’s claim that his opulent new plane cost American taxpayers nothing, it still cost regular Americans hundreds of millions in tax dollars to upgrade its security.
While Trump has claimed that the aircraft has been outfitted with all the “bells and whistles” it needs to protect him, theTimes report found that lacked the countermeasure systems present on the previous Air Force One.
Experts told the paper that the lack of defensive measures posed a risk not only to Trump, but to the gaggle of staff, administration officials, and journalists who travel with him.
Before media outlets published stories about the plane, an FBI official reportedly asked the organizations to hold the story, citing national security concerns. According to theTimes, the official refused to explain the security issue and further asked the paper to reveal its sources for the article.
The paper refused to reveal its sources. The protection of sources is a long-held ethical red-line amongst news organizations, to the point where some reporters have been fined and even jailed for refusing to comply with government demands.
The newspaper’s lawyer, David McCraw, condemned the Trump administration for sending subpoenas to the reporters.
“This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs,” he said.
Freedom of the Press Foundation Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern accused the Trump administration of retaliating against reporters.
“We’ve long said that when the government claims it needs to investigate journalists to protect national security, it really means its own reputational security,” he said. “This is as clear an example as you can get. The administration’s embarrassment that it reportedly charged taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit a flying bribe that still isn’t secure enough for hostile times does not supersede the need for a free and independent press.”
“These kinds of stories show us exactly why we need to protect journalists and whistleblowers — without them, we’d never know about this sort of waste and incompetence,” Stern added.
Patel lashed out at new organizations after stories about his cancelled trip began appearing online.
One source reportedly told MSNOW that Patel was only flying to Chicago to visit his girlfriend, and claimed he tacked on the visit to an FBI office to justify using the bureau’s plane for the trip.
“Patel was coming (to Chicago) today for a fake office visit for his girlfriend’s country concert this weekend,” the source reportedly said.