The United States Department of Justice has subpoenaed four New York Times journalists — Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmitt — ordering them to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan, after the newspaper reported on security vulnerabilities in President Donald Trump's new presidential aircraft. Federal agents delivered some of the subpoenas directly to the reporters' homes, a move that press freedom advocates condemned as an alarming act of intimidation. The subpoenas were issued following a Friday meeting at the White House that included FBI Director Kash Patel and other senior Justice Department officials.

The reporting at the centre of the dispute concerned Trump's new Air Force One — a Boeing 747-8 donated by Qatar, a U.S. ally in the Gulf, and retrofitted at a cost of approximately $400 million. The Times, citing anonymous officials familiar with the aircraft's modification process, reported that the jet lacks the advanced antimissile capabilities and other protective features present on the older presidential aircraft it is replacing. The security gap came into sharp focus this week when Trump, returning from a NATO summit in Ankara, departed Turkey aboard an older Air Force One model at the urging of the Secret Service. The switch coincided with a collapse of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran — which shares a border with Turkey — and subsequent U.S. airstrikes on Iranian territory. Trump dismissed any security concerns, telling reporters the detour to RAF Mildenhall, a British air base in Suffolk, England, was simply to allow service members to view the new aircraft. When asked whether Iran had made credible threats against Air Force One, he replied: