With Donald Trump set to return to the White Home, there’s a lot hypothesis on how his second administration will have an effect on press freedom. The quick reply is that we don’t know, however prognosticators do take pleasure in an essential dataset: his first time period.
Issues have been quiet on that entrance for the final 4 years, however the first Trump administration inherited and expanded the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of sources who disclosed authorities secrets and techniques to the press.
And President-elect Trump has usually decried nationwide safety leaks and referred to as for aggressively investigating and prosecuting them.
It could be silly for press advocates to low cost the opportunity of a repeat of his first time period, and maybe an escalation.
The Espionage Act
There are a number of federal legal guidelines that may be learn to criminalize the general public disclosure of nationwide safety secrets and techniques. Probably the most outstanding is the Espionage Act of 1917, a World Warfare I-era regulation that was initially used in opposition to home opponents of the conflict however applies to the act of speaking, delivering or transmitting “information relating to the national defense,” a broad time period, to anybody not entitled to obtain it.
In different phrases, if somebody had been to anonymously slip a manila envelope underneath a reporter’s door with authorities secrets and techniques — even secrets and techniques that the general public has a transparent curiosity in figuring out, such because the warrantless home wiretapping by the George W. Bush administration — the Justice Division has constantly claimed the authority to research and prosecute the supply, in addition to the journalist, underneath the Espionage Act. There isn’t a “public interest” protection.
The reason being easy. When the reporting is within the public curiosity, taking the leaker or journalist to courtroom could be a “political firestorm,” as a federal appeals courtroom decide put it in a type of few exceptions, a Eighties case involving a leak of categorised pictures.
However the Bush and Obama administrations marked a shift in apply.
Underneath President George W. Bush, the Justice Division introduced the primary Espionage Act case aside from Russo in opposition to people exterior authorities, who had not sworn to guard authorities secrets and techniques. The Bush administration additionally featured the Valerie Plame case, which began as a leak investigation, through which Judith Miller of the New York Instances spent 85 days in jail for refusing to determine a confidential supply from her reporting concerning the run-up to the Iraq conflict. And the Bush Justice Division issued a subpoena in 2008 to drive the New York Instances’ James Risen to determine his supply in one other leak case, which the Obama administration pursued till 2015.
Then the Obama administration began to convey Espionage Act prosecutions in opposition to journalists’ sources in earnest. Relying on the way you depend, his administration introduced 10 such instances. That’s greater than all different presidents mixed.
Trump’s first presidency
Trump’s first time period adopted that development. The Justice Division introduced eight instances in opposition to journalist sources, together with two underneath financial institution secrecy legal guidelines, in addition to the Julian Assange case. The Assange case is difficult, however he was charged partially underneath the novel and harmful authorized concept that publishing secrets and techniques is a criminal offense.
The historical past of leak investigations underneath Presidents Bush, Obama and Trump exhibits that the menace to the free movement of knowledge is bipartisan and spans administrations. President Biden’s time period has been a notable exception, however a reprise could also be coming.
Gabe Rottman is the coverage director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. ©2025 Los Angeles Instances. Distributed by Tribune Content material Company.
