They want to jail journalists. We will not let them.

Trump's Justice Department tried to drag reporters in front of a grand jury, apparently to coerce them to reveal their sources. It's an ominous sign of what's to come.

The Trump administration appears to have attempted (and quietly abandoned) an attempt to force journalists to reveal their sources. Don’t expect them to give up the effort. It’s about to get worse.

This week, The Washington Post revealed that federal prosecutors subpoenaed its veteran national security correspondent Ellen Nakashima, along with three reporters at The Wall Street Journal, to compel their testimony under oath about their newsgathering on sensitive national-security-related stories. The papers fought back in sealed proceedings in a Virginia federal court. Faced with a judge who might rule against it, the government blinked and quietly withdrew the subpoenas, preventing the reporters from having to testify.

But do not mistake the retreat for restraint. This was the first publicly known attempt by Trump’s DOJ to force American journalists into the proverbial witness box, where prosecutors could demand they name their sources — or be jailed for contempt if they refused. If that sounds familiar, it should. In 2005, New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent eighty-five days in a federal cell rather than burn a source. That was supposed to be the cautionary tale of a generation. But to the Trump administration, I suspect it looks more like an interesting experiment worth continuing.

I have a personal stake in how we arrived here. Let me explain.

After Trump opened his federal “treason” probe into me, the Justice Department quietly used the investigation as a reason to strip journalists of special protections. In April of last year, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo making it far easier for federal agents to seize journalists’ communications and unmask their sources. And she cited my supposed disloyalty, and that of other officials who spoke honestly to reporters, as the justification.

Those protections had been strengthened during the Biden administration, after earlier revelations that Trump’s first-term investigators at the Justice Department secretly obtained communications data from members of Congress, their staff, and multiple reporters. Now they’re gone. And legal experts have warned that rolling back those rules is making it easier for Trump’s henchmen to treat journalists less as observers and more as investigative targets.

The subpoenas of Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporters appears to be DOJ trying to assert this new posture. It’s only a matter of time before that posture gets even more aggressive. My fear has long been raids on newsrooms and the jailing of journalists.

The government moves glacially slow, but once it gets going, its inertia is more destructive than almost anything else known to man. Last year’s DOJ memo was just the anti-press machine being built, which takes time. Then the arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort earlier this year become evidence that the machine had been switched on. Coupled with these subpoenas, the assembly line of oppression now seems to be underway. Next, I suspect, we’ll see more proof that they’ve moved into the “production phase,” where DOJ will more systematically and persistently target disfavored reporters, although many of them may not know they are being watched.

Let me put it another way. When you see one or two ants on top of a log, there are a hell of a lot more underneath. We have no idea how many other newsrooms are sitting on sealed demands they are legally barred from discussing, or whose journalists are quietly being monitored by the FBI in an effort to catch them with their sources.

Late Sunday night, Trump also took to Truth Social to call the New York Times “treasonous” after the paper asked what nearly four months of war with Iran had actually achieved. The offending headline: “What Changed After Almost 4 Months of War? Analysts Say Not Much.” Trump called the staff “criminals” and threatened to add their coverage to his existing multi-billion dollar lawsuit against the paper. A CBS News poll published the same day found about seven in ten Americans (69%) say the war wasn’t worth its cost, and more than three-quarters want it to end. The president doesn’t want Americans to see, hear, or join the dissent.

I said it on MSNOW the other week (below), and I will say it again here: the First Amendment is under a very real and sustained assault. Right now, we’re living in nothing short of an apocalyptic moment for journalism in this country, and Trump is counting on so many other distractions to hope you won’t see it. The administration is raiding reporters’ homes, threatening broadcast licenses over war coverage it deems “unpatriotic,” and leaning on the corporate owners of networks to install friendlier management.

For all the faults of its obsequious owner (Jeff Bezos), The Washington Post should be applauded for bringing this story into the light and for speaking with the following moral clarity:

“The unwarranted subpoena of our reporter Ellen Nakashima — a clear violation of constitutionally guaranteed press freedom — was another sign of the government seeking to compel journalists to become instruments of its investigations,” a spokesperson for The Post said in a statement. “We will continue to stand fully behind the journalism of The Washington Post and fight all efforts by any administration that violate our First Amendment rights.”

So why does this matter for you?

Well, a government that can coerce, cajole, subpoena, or jail a reporter for shielding a source is a government that will stop at nothing to hide the truth from its people. Virtually every major American scandal, from Watergate forward, surfaced because the press was free. Today, the Trump administration appears to have no limits on how far it will go to keep you from being made fully aware of its corruption and abuses of power, including by muzzling the middle men who are helping smuggle the truth out to the world.

But the First Amendment doesn’t just belong to journalists. It belongs to you. That is why, my friends, we will not submit to Trump’s censorship war. We will defy it. And to Trump’s investigative minions — who I strongly suspect read every post I write — I will reiterate: We are not scared of you. We will not be cowed by you. And one day, from the right side of history, we will watch you face accountability.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor
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THE DEFIANCE WATCHLIST

We are tracking these stories today.

• A FEDERAL JUDGE JUST BLOCKED TRUMP FROM WEAPONIZING THE DOJ AGAINST POLITICAL OPPONENTS. A federal judge halted the Trump administration’s attempt to subpoena Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and other state officials, ruling the DOJ’s “dominant purpose” was to “coerce, harass and retaliate” against state officials who refused to help enforce federal immigration law. The judge found “extremely weak to nonexistent” justification for the subpoenas and concluded the grand jury process was being used not for a genuine criminal investigation but to retaliate. This is the same administration that has pursued indictments against James Comey and Letitia James (both thrown out by judges) and repeatedly sued states that won’t hand over voter rolls. The courts are pushing back, yes, but more significantly than that they are building a wall.

• TRUMP PUT A HOUSING GUY IN CHARGE OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE… AND HE’S ALREADY FIRING THE PUBLIC WHO KEEP YOU SAFE. Bill Pulte, whose other job is running the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was appointed acting Director of National Intelligence this month and has already begun purging staff. “The deep state firings have begun,” a source confirmed. Pulte has ordered as many as 400 employees at the National Counterterrorism Center — the office created after 9/11 to prevent terrorist attacks — to be identified for termination. Former intelligence officials warn the cuts could jeopardize the government’s ability to detect and prevent terrorist plots. Pulte issued the firing orders before he even officially started the job. The top Democrats on the congressional intelligence committees are urging him to stop. He has no national security experience whatsoever. Now, he’s putting the safety of every single American in jeopardy by getting rid of the people who stop terrorist attacks. Why? Well, we suspect it has something to do with the fact that authorities deemed the January 6th insurrection to be an act of domestic terrorism.

• ACT OF DEFIANCE — THE COURTS JUST BLOCKED TRUMP’S VOTER ROLL PURGE. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Monday from using a revamped immigration database to scrub state voter rolls, ruling that it “knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote.” The database, which Republican-led states have already used to cancel voter registrations, has been flagging naturalized citizens as noncitizens and kicking eligible voters off the rolls. This is just the latest in a string of court losses for Trump’s election agenda. Three judges have blocked his proof-of-citizenship order. Nine of his lawsuits against states refusing to hand over voter rolls have been thrown out. His March mail-in voting order is also under legal challenge. The courts keep saying no, and Trump is not happy about it. Over here, we are cheering the bold defiance.

WHAT’S COMING UP

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ONE MORE THING

Forward this email to someone who should join the defiance. We are growing the club. I won’t let a wannabe dictator destroy the country I spent my career protecting. That’s why I launched DEFIANCE.org — a club for courageous Americans asking, “WHAT CAN I DO?” Each week, we defy Trump by taking real action to thwart his abuses of power. Become a Member today at DEFIANCE.org/join or here on Substack. 100% of proceeds go to the pro-democracy fight. Or sign up for occasional updates for free below. We publish breaking news and analysis at DEFIANCE.News.