It could destroy his work and possibly put his life in danger.
So Caldwell and his colleagues gathered his tapes, notes and unpublished reporting. They pulled the recordings apart, shredded the files and filled two garbage cans. The government hadn’t forced him to reveal a source, but it had already destroyed years of journalism.⁹
Caldwell fought the subpoena all the way to the Supreme Court. In 1972, the Court ruled that reporters don’t have a blanket First Amendment right to refuse relevant questions from a federal grand jury.¹⁰ The government won and then never called him.
Perhaps it didn’t need to. The warning had already been delivered.
Richard Nixon also called the Times an enemy. During the Pentagon Papers fight, he said “somebody’s got to go to jail,” and his fury over leaks eventually produced a White House investigative unit known as the Plumbers.¹¹ There is no evidence that today’s officials are planning another Watergate. That isn’t the point. The useful historical lesson is much simpler: A president’s grievance becomes more dangerous when it is given a staff, a budget and government authority.
Three days after the Times subpoenas were delivered, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a joint Pentagon–Justice Department task force to investigate leaks to the news media.¹² Bondi had already reopened the legal door to subpoenas and searches involving reporters. Trump provided the plain-English version in April: “National security, give it up or go to jail.”¹³
The grievance now has a memo, a chain of command and a place on the organizational chart.
This is how censorship often works in a modern democracy. No one padlocks the newspaper office, and no official stands beside the editor deleting paragraphs. The pressure is applied earlier, to the mechanic who sees that an expensive government aircraft has a dangerous problem, the intelligence analyst who realizes that the public is being told something untrue or the contracting officer who discovers that taxpayers are being cheated.
That person considers calling a reporter, remembers the agents at the front door and decides against it. The call is never made, the article is never written and the rest of us never learn what happened.
A federal judge will decide whether these particular subpoenas can stand. The government says the reporters aren’t the targets.
They were still the ones who answered the door.
Reporting current through July 16, 2026.
Bibliography
1. Associated Press. “New York Times Files Motion to Quash Subpoenas Served on Journalists Over Air Force One Coverage.” July 15, 2026.
2. Associated Press. “New York Times Files Motion to Quash Subpoenas Served on Journalists Over Air Force One Coverage.” July 15, 2026. Reporting on Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s description of the reporters as material witnesses and the government’s effort to identify their confidential sources.
3. Reuters. “New York Times Seeks to Block Subpoenas to Reporters Over Air Force One Reporting.” July 15, 2026.
4. Reuters. “Reporter Subpoenas Part of ‘Security’ Operation, Trump Spy Nominee Says.” July 15, 2026.
5. Downie, Leonard Jr., with research by Stephanie Sugars. “The Trump Administration and the Media: Attacks on Press Credibility Endanger U.S. Democracy and Global Press Freedom.” Committee to Protect Journalists, April 16, 2020.
6. Associated Press. “Trump Says AP Will Be Curtailed at the White House Until It Changes Its Style to Gulf of America.” February 18, 2025.
7. Associated Press. “White House Says It ‘Will Determine’ the Press Pool.” February 26, 2025.
8. Bondi, Pamela. “Updated Policy Regarding Obtaining Information From, or Records of, Members of the News Media.” Memorandum for all Department of Justice employees, April 25, 2025.
9. Loewinger, Micah. “A Reporter Caught Between the FBI and the Black Panthers.” On the Media, WNYC Studios, May 26, 2023.