‘I Don’t Know What’s Appropriate and What’s Not’: Trump Maintains NYT Subpoenas Were Strictly To Find ‘Leakers’

President Donald Trump maintained Friday that his administration’s subpoenas of journalists from The New York Times were only meant to find the “leakers” responsible for unfavorable stories, admitting, “I don’t know what’s appropriate and what’s not.”

On Thursday, the Department of Justice withdrew subpoenas seeking phone records and grand jury testimony from three Times reporters after Federal Judge Arun Subramanian sharply criticized the government’s handling of the case and indicated he would quash the subpoenas, questioning whether prosecutors had even followed the legal standards for subpoenaing journalists.

Importantly, the subpoenas were issued just two days after the Times published its initial report that security concerns prompted the president not to use his gifted Qatari jet for his July 8 trip out of Turkey.

During the Friday press briefing in the Oval Office, Trump was asked whether he supports these types of subpoenas to journalists, responding, “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… If it’s something having to do with national security, you tell the journalist, ‘Who is it?’ and we have a long way to go with that case.”

The president was then questioned on whether he thinks it’s “appropriate to subpoena family members of journalists to find out information,” as was the case for at least one Times reporter.

Trump responded:

I don’t know what’s appropriate and what’s not. We do it legally. [Former President] Barack Hussein Obama did it all the time. He went after journalists and nobody said anything about it. He went after journalists. They’d say, “Who was the leaker? Who was the leaker? And if you don’t give us the leaker, you’re going to jail.” You know that. But when, you know, Obama does it, it’s okay, but when I do it, it’s not. In many cases, that’s the only way you’re gonna find out who a leaker is, and it has to do with national security.

Um, it’s amazing. He did it many times, and nobody said anything about it, but when a Republican does it, when, in particular, Trump does it, everybody makes a big deal. Now, the way you find out is you say to the journalist — if it’s national security. I would say I really put it down to national security, not in all cases, but when you have somebody doing a national security leak, or a leak of great importance, and you have somebody inside the walls of, let’s say, the White House leaking, I think that’s a national security concern.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!