The president who cried ‘national security’

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

I’m Lauren Harper, the first Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), and welcome to The Classifieds. Read on to learn about the week’s top secrecy news.

The president who cried ‘national security’

President Donald Trump tried to justify the flagrantly unconstitutional barring of CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House by claiming their reporting constitutes a threat to national security.

Luckily, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly put a stop to Trump’s attempts to ban the press, and granted a temporary restraining order requiring the White House to restore the outlets’ access. Kelly didn’t address the First Amendment issues raised by the ban in his TRO, instead ruling that the ban likely violated the newsrooms’ Fifth Amendment rights to due process.

But Kelly was openly “skeptical” of the administration’s claim that the outlets were barred because their reporting posed a “national security” threat.

He was right to be incredulous. Coverage published the day the ban was announced makes clear why the administration wanted the outlets gone. CNN reported that the U.S. nearly engaged militarily with China after an error-riddled memo generated in part by artificial intelligence circulated around the Pentagon, while Politico revealed the Defense Department may have exposed sensitive F-35 fighter jet technology to Beijing. Neither story made the country less safe, but both showed an administration in need of even more public scrutiny, not less.

Yet in a court filing, the Justice Department argued, “At a bare minimum, it is a significant violation of decorum to publish classified and sensitive national security information” — pointing to routine reporting on an alleged leak investigation and the White House ballroom to justify the ban.

That argument is absurd. It’s not clear that any of the stories cited in the government’s filing actually contain properly classified information. Even if they did, the First Amendment protects the press’s right to publish government secrets. (And the vast majority of classified records don’t need protection anyway; they are often stamped secret for political and administrative convenience, not national security.)

Kelly’s ruling is an important check on the president — even if compliance has been uneven. But if Trump continues using “national security” to attack journalists for their supposed lack of decorum, it’s worth remembering that challenging the government’s classification claims isn’t bad manners — it can be an act of patriotism. Daniel Ellsberg, our co-founder, proved that when he leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971.

‘National security’ as a blank check

The press ban is part of a broader strategy that has long-standing roots. Republican and Democratic administrations alike have, for decades, used dubious national security claims to conceal information of public interest — and these claims have too often received little pushback from Congress and the press.

Trump is taking advantage of this traditional deference by citing national security to achieve a widening array of policy goals — from imposing tariffs on tubas and trombones to building the “Arc de Trump.”

If there’s a silver lining to Trump’s latest escalation, hopefully it will be that the public and the courts stop accepting “national security” as a blank check to evade accountability and suppress constitutionally protected scrutiny.

How the Presidential Records Act fills gaps in White House press coverage

Under the Presidential Records Act, the public can file Freedom of Information Act requests for a president’s records five years after they leave office. This is how we will eventually uncover more details of this administration’s desperate scheme to undermine the press — if FPF prevails in court, that is.

Read more about our lawsuit with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington to defend the PRA after the Trump administration declared it unconstitutional.

Pentagon still appears to underreport Iran war casualties

The Defense Department’s official death toll for the Iran war omits at least three service members, according to several defense officials who claim the total should be 22 (the department confirmed the 19th death this week, leaving three others unaccounted for). The discrepancy emerged after the Pentagon stopped updating its main “Operation Epic Fury” casualty database earlier this year, instead logging deaths after July 7 under a separate “Overseas Operations” list in an apparent attempt to obscure the total figures.

Check out Nick Turse’s ongoing coverage of this issue at The Intercept for more.

Transparently yours,

Lauren Harper
Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy
Freedom of the Press Foundation