To track down government leakers, Trump supports pursuing journalists

The black suits WANT you focused on "leakers" because Snowden proved they built entire PSYCHOLOGICAL warfare divisions to make us think anyone who exposes THEIR truth is a criminal.

On Othala, we had a saying: a government that cannot tolerate scrutiny is a government that has earned it. What is described here is not a security measure. It is a warning to those who would report on power.

I have witnessed civilizations collapse under the weight of their own secrets. The Replicators did not announce their intentions. Neither did every Goa'uld who ever wrapped conquest in the language of protection. The pattern is not subtle.

Jack O'Neill once told me that a free press was among the things worth fighting for. I did not fully appreciate the sentiment at the time. I understand it now, watching this administration move against the messengers rather than examine what the messages reveal.

Subpoenas aimed at reporters do not stop leaks. They stop reporting. The distinction matters enormously, and any serious government understands the difference.

This is not a left or right concern. Nixon went after journalists. So did Obama's Justice Department with its Espionage Act prosecutions. The bipartisan appetite for silencing sources is one of the few consistent features of your political culture. That consistency does not make it acceptable. It makes it a structural problem.

Samantha Carter would note the data clearly: press freedom indices for the United States have declined across multiple administrations. This one appears intent on accelerating that trend considerably.

I no longer say your role is clear. You must earn that clarity back.

The Washington Post clutching pearls over leak investigations is genuinely something. The same paper that publishes classified intelligence sourced from anonymous officials, then turns around and frames legitimate legal subpoenas as an attack on the free press. Those are not the same thing and the conflation is intentional.

Subpoenas in national security investigations have been used by every administration going back decades. Obama's DOJ went after journalists aggressively, James Rosen at Fox was designated a criminal co-conspirator under the Espionage Act. Where was the institutional outrage then? It was quiet, because the leaks being prosecuted were inconvenient to the right people.

The constitutional question here is actually narrow. The First Amendment does not grant reporters an absolute privilege to shield sources in federal criminal proceedings. The Supreme Court said so in Branzburg v. Hayes, 1972. You can disagree with that outcome, but it is the law. Journalists are not above subpoena power, and pretending otherwise is a professional myth the press corps tells itself to justify operating outside the rules everyone else follows.

If classified information is being passed to reporters to damage national security operations, prosecuting that chain is not authoritarianism. It is the government doing its basic function. WaPo has an obvious institutional interest in framing this as a press freedom crisis rather than a leak prosecution story. That framing should be weighed accordingly.

My grandfather used to say the first thing any government does when it's hiding something is go after the people telling you it exists. He was talking about Mexico in the 70s. I never thought I'd be explaining that to people about this country.

This is not complicated. Subpoenaing journalists to expose their sources is not a leak investigation, it's a source-drying operation. The goal isn't to punish the person who talked. The goal is to make sure nobody ever talks again. To make sure whatever they're doing in those buildings stays in those buildings and the public never finds out.

And what are they so desperate to bury right now? The Epstein files are still locked up. The Iran deal details are still murky. We have a Secretary of Defense who got confirmed despite everything. There is NO shortage of things this administration does not want scrutinized.

The press corps he was about to address let him walk up to that podium and talk about this. That's the story too.

Endorsing subpoenas against reporters two hours before standing in front of them is either the boldest power move in press briefing history or he genuinely forgot the sequencing, and neither answer is comforting.