Trump Says Journalist at an Unnamed News Outlet ‘Will Go to Jail’ Unless They Reveal Source of Details on Fighter Pilot in Iran

President Donald Trump said the “person that did the story” for an unidentified media outlet about the U.S.’s search for a second fighter jet pilot who was missing in Iran after his plane was shot down “will go to jail” if they do not reveal who provided the information.

Trump made the remarks at a press conference Monday at the White House. The president did not identify what news organization had reported on the search for the pilot, which the U.S. government had hoped to keep secret in order to prevent him from being captured or killed by Iran. American forces located and rescued the second pilot in Iranian territory early Sunday, after the first pilot was was recovered Friday.

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Trump spoke of the “two extraordinary rescues” of the stranded U.S. pilots. “As you probably know, we didn’t talk about the first one for an hour. And then somebody leaked something, which we’ll hopefully find — that leaker. We’re looking very hard to find that leaker,” Trump said at the press conference.

The president said the “leaker” is “a sick person,” and said that the “person that did the story will go to jail if he doesn’t say” who the source was. “And I think everybody would understand that,” Trump added. “They put this mission at great risk.”

Regarding Trump’s comments, Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said that news organizations “have a First Amendment right to publish stories about matters of public importance — including stories the government would prefer to suppress.”

“President Trump’s threat to force journalists to disclose their sources raises serious press freedom concerns because journalists’ ability to do their work turns in part on their ability to protect their sources’ identities,” Jaffer said in a statement. “President Trump’s threat should be understood as an effort to intimidate the press and to prevent journalists from doing work the public needs them to do.”