During his press conference at the NATO summit, Trump was asked why he wasn’t flying home on his new Qatari gift, Bribe Force One.
The president answered, “It’s flying to Europe to one of the big bases, two or three of the big bases where we can show it to the people, and we’ll be going home by, uh, normal methods. But we, uh, we have it going to Europe to a couple of bases, actually one in particular, but it’s gonna go to a couple of bases.”
This answer was a lie. The plane was headed to a military base, but not for show-and-tell.
The plane was going there because it lacked important security features and wasn’t safe for the president to fly on.
The New York Times reported this, and then the DOJ started investigating them and tried to subpoena the three reporters who wrote the story.
On Thursday, the Trump DOJ withdrew the subpoenas due to legal errors.
Before the subpoenas were withdrawn, a hearing was held, and the judge read the DOJ the riot act, not in writing, not in private, but in a public hearing.