Trump’s latest leak hunt against The New York Times is deeply personal | CNN Business

For President Donald Trump, this latest leak hunt is really personal. Last week, reporters at The New York Times received subpoenas referencing “an alleged violation of federal criminal law” just two days after they published a story contradicting Trump’s claims about the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One. Journalists involved in the matter strongly suspect that the subpoenas were rushed out in response to Trump’s anger about the news coverage. Joe Kahn, the executive editor of The Times, called the subpoenas “impulsive” in a memo to staffers denouncing the “naked attempt to intimidate individual reporters” and to prevent reporting. The court orders compel the reporters to testify before a grand jury about their anonymous sources, though The Times will fight to stop that from happening. “The law protects news gatherers from this sort of retaliatory abuse of prosecutorial power,” Kahn wrote. “It is essential that the courts reaffirm that protection and quash this overreach. We are confident they will in this case.” While the use of subpoena power against journalists has always been highly controversial, officials in past administrations sometimes justified it b