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President Donald Trump is angry with the New York Times again and has deployed his usual tactics, weaponizing his position of power to take the newspaper to court. Four reporters for the outlet wrote a story detailing how the jet donated to Trump by Qatar last year was abandoned during his recent trip to Turkey because, according to anonymous sources within the government who spoke to the Times, the plane did not yet have the necessary security features that the original Air Force One did. This forced the president to switch planes as he returned home to Washington. The fact that the Times reported on it apparently enraged Trump, who has praised the gift for being “considered the world’s most luxurious plane.” One day after the Times published the piece, federal agents were at the reporters’ homes, hand-delivering grand jury subpoenas.

This is now the third time the Trump administration has attempted to subpoena journalists, following its targeting of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Both of those outlets pushed back with their own legal actions, and the Justice Department subsequently withdrew its subpoenas. It’s not yet clear whether the Times will challenge the subpoenas, which seek to force the four journalists to testify before a grand jury in Manhattan this week. Spokespeople for the DOJ have claimed that the subpoenas are an effort to “make sure that the people entrusted with our nation’s secrets do what they’re supposed to do with that information,” adding, “Reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

The Times story in question makes reference to “multiple officials who have been briefed on how the jet was retrofitted” but “who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe its security features.” Journalists often use anonymous sources in order to report on sensitive information, as well as to protect the identities of sources, who often risk their jobs and safety to share critical information with the world. And the Constitution shields this work under the First Amendment, which declares that Congress shall make no law that abridges the freedom of speech or of the press. The Trump administration, though, has been one of the most aggressive and antagonistic in U.S. history against journalists who report things it does not like.

Trump caught immense flak for accepting the Qatar-donated plane, which looked, according to experts, like the “definition of corruption.” That aircraft, further, is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit with necessary security defenses, and now it seems it’s not even usable. Instead of owning up to this, as the vessel was expected to require two years’ worth of work to be ready to transport a U.S. president, the administration has resorted to lashing out at the press and weaponizing the DOJ and FBI to compel anonymous sources to identify themselves for causing the president reputational harm. On Wednesday, things seemed to escalate, with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles getting involved, working with FBI Director Kash Patel to demand that officials hand over their phones to investigators.

In order to understand what rights the Times reporters have in this case, and the legal strategy the administration is likely to use, I spoke with Gabe Rottman, vice president of policy at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a practicing attorney focused on the intersection of press freedom, newsgathering, and technology. He’s also an Espionage Act expert, deeply familiar with its implications for journalists who use anonymous sources.

Here’s our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Shirin Ali: How seriously do you view these subpoenas and the way the White House seems to be going after the New York Times?

Gabe Rottman: It’s extremely aggressive, and these types of investigative steps are very rare. We’re talking about national security, what are pejoratively called leak cases, and dealing with, presumably, government sources disclosing government secrets in the public interest to reporters. Historically, those cases were not treated as crimes.........

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