Trump publicly declared the way to identify government leakers is 'through the journalists,' endorsing pursuit of reporters

On July 24, 2026, President Donald Trump stated in the Oval Office that identifying government leakers requires going "through the journalists," publicly endorsing the use of federal criminal investigative tools against reporters as a source-identification mechanism. Speaking to reporters one day after the Justice Department withdrew grand-jury subpoenas against three of four targeted New York Times journalists, Trump said: "We're not after journalists. We're after leakers. We're after people that are cowards, people that are unpatriotic, people that are treasonous in many cases. And the way you find them is through the journalists." When asked whether subpoenaing journalists' relatives was appropriate, Trump replied, "I don't know what's appropriate and what's not. We do it legally." He also stated that federal authorities should press journalists directly — "Who is it?" — to compel disclosure of sources in national security matters.

Trump's remarks came in direct defense of the DOJ's subpoena campaign targeting New York Times reporters over the July 2026 reporting on security deficiencies in the Qatari-gifted Boeing 747 being outfitted as Air Force One. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian had sharply criticized the government's handling of the subpoenas, ordered the DOJ to turn over internal communications, and ultimately quashed them. The DOJ had also sought call and messaging records of reporters' relatives — including spouses and a parent — before withdrawing those subpoenas as well.

Trump's statement constitutes a direct presidential endorsement of the practice of using journalists as investigative conduits for identifying government sources, extending into explicit policy declaration the institutional framework built earlier in July. On July 13, 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced a joint Defense Department and Justice Department task force to investigate and prosecute media leaks. Trump's Oval Office remarks go further: a sitting president stating, on the record, that pursuing journalists is the correct and ongoing method for exposing government leakers — a statement that press-freedom advocates and legal scholars condemned as a direct threat to the confidential sourcing that public-interest journalism depends on.