Embattled FBI Director Kash Patel was summoned to the White House to launch a sinister crackdown on pesky journalists who embarrassed Trump and his $400 million gift plane.
Patel, 46, was forced to terminate a planned trip to Chicago on Friday to see his girlfriend. He instead reportedly spent around eight hours at the White House investigating information leaked to the New York Times that had infuriated the president.
The publication revealed inside information about security concerns involving President Trump’s new Qatar-donated Air Force One, which meant he had to adjust his travel plans on his return from a NATO meeting in Turkey.
Last week, Trump flew out of Turkey on an older version of Air Force One, a Boeing VC-25A from the early 1990s, landing at Royal Air Force Mildenhall, a U.K. base used by U.S. troops. Trump claimed he used the older plane “for old time’s sake,” so that U.S. troops in England could “tour” the newer one.
However, the Times claimed that Trump used the older plane because his new Qatari jet lacked critical security features, citing people who had been briefed on the plane switch.
The Qatari jet had an accelerated 10-month conversion, with Reuters stating the speedy renovation meant that some experts “expressed concern the plane may not be as secure as the existing Air Force One aircraft.”
After making the unusual step of forcing Patel to work from the White House on Friday rather than FBI headquarters, Patel also briefed senior administration officials on the investigation, two people with knowledge of the situation told the Times on Saturday.
The publication said Trump, 80, “was enraged” by the embarrassing coverage of the compromised security capabilities of his gifted plane, and noted that Patel’s key role in the investigation further eroded a previous divide between the White House and the FBI.
Following Patel’s investigations, the four Times reporters who reported on the story received subpoenas on Friday night, including some delivered to their home addresses.
The Times reported that the subpoenas want the reporters to testify on Wednesday in New York.
One person briefed on the situation told the Times that Patel “had his own concerns” about the type of information that was publicly disclosed about Trump’s new plane. Another person claimed the FBI director went to the White House “on his own volition” to oversee the investigation.
Saturday’s story in the Times not only quotes an official saying Trump was “livid” over the reporting on his new plane’s alleged inferior security, but that before the publication’s first article on the issue was published, a senior official at the FBI contacted a reporter and a senior editor to ask that the article be held.
They claimed it was a matter of national security, but declined to explain what the security issue was. The official also requested that the Times disclose the sources for its article, which it declined to do.
A source told MS NOW on Friday, “Patel was coming [to Chicago] today for a fake office visit for his girlfriend’s country concert this weekend.”
The source told MS NOW that Patel “canceled the trip while on the tarmac at Andrews” and was “summoned to the White House immediately” in “apparent panic.”
White House communications director Steven Cheung told the Times “President Trump is laser focused on helping the American people and keeping them safe. That will always be his priority.”
In a statement to the Daily Beast, an FBI spokesperson said “Director Patel and White House officials agreed to meet on Friday at the White House to brief an ongoing matter.”
They said they had “no further comment,” but told the Times “other speculative reporting regarding the nature of the meeting is absolutely false.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the New York Times for comment.
The Times called sending subpoenas to reporters a “brazen act” intended to intimidate journalists.
“The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” the Times’ attorney David McCraw said in a statement to NPR.
“Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used.”
Last week, Cheung told PBS that “the new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the president and his staff.”
However, two former national security officials familiar with the matter told MS NOW that Trump’s gifted aircraft could not provide the necessary secure communication systems and military defenses required to manage his reignited conflict with Iran.
“This plane was built for aesthetics, not mission,” a former national security official said of Trump’s new Qatari Boeing VC-25B, which was originally manufactured as a passenger jet in 2012.
“We know about its paint, its leather seats. But we don’t know its capabilities.”
