'Lie' behind Trump admin's dubious hunt for leaks exposed by analyst as story unraveled

The bombshell report that President Donald Trump used a third plane to depart Turkey last month, deceiving some of his own staff and reporters, has opened up questions about a DOJ investigation of New York Times reporters.

According to a report from the Washington Post on Monday, Trump boarded the old Air Force One jet before he was "secretly shuttled" to a smaller Air Force C-32A plane while inside a catering truck typically used to transport meals and other supplies, making the old jet a "decoy" while some White House staff and reporters remained on board.

According to CNN's Brian Stelter, writing on X, the timeline of events points in a disturbing direction.

Trump initially justified the aircraft switch with a "lie' by claiming he wanted to give servicemembers stationed at Mildenhall Air Force Base in the UK "a chance to tour the aircraft." The explanation unraveled when news outlets reported the actual reason: security concerns over an apparent Iranian threat.

The disclosure of the real security threat reportedly enraged Trump and triggered an aggressive leak investigation within the government, with the Department of Justice issuing subpoenas to multiple New York Times reporters, the CNN analyst pointed out.

The Times contested the subpoenas and ultimately prevailed. The newspaper subsequently published an investigation revealing that Trump's eagerness to fly the new Qatari-gifted aircraft "led to ballooning costs and trade-offs in safety features."

According to Stelter, legal analyst Chris Geidner identified a troubling pattern underlying the episode. "This is a story about the way the Trump administration lies to the public and to the press, as well as how senior administration officials—up to and including Trump—might have been willing to go so far as to put the lives of others, including members of the media, at risk," Geidner wrote.

That led the CNN analyst to point out, "Geidner says the subpoenas issued to the NYT should be re-examined in light of this new information," before agreeing and suggesting, "Were the leak hunts partly an effort to cover up the plane ruse?"