Donald Trump handed his acting Attorney General a stack of Iran war news articles with a single word scrawled on a sticky note: ‘Treason.’
The President privately raged to Todd Blanche last month about the leaks, prompting the Justice Department to launch an aggressive pursuit of reporters’ sources behind sensitive national security stories, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Subpoenaing reporters has for decades been treated as a nuclear option, deployed only after every other investigative avenue is exhausted, but former AG Pam Bondi shredded Biden-era protections last year, clearing a path for the crackdown.
Among the stories that sparked Trump’s fury was an April 7 New York Times bombshell, which revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally lobbied the President to launch the war during a secret Situation Room presentation.
The article said that Vice President JD Vance warned the war could ‘break apart Trump’s political coalition’, CIA Director John Ratcliffe dismissed Netanyahu’s pitch as ‘farcical,’ and Secretary of State Marco Rubio branded it ‘bulls***.’
The Wall Street Journal was subpoenaed over a February 23 article that revealed General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had warned Trump about the risks of an extended military campaign in Iran.
