Blog: Leak prosecutions under Trump chill national security beat

When President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, William Barr, was asked at his confirmation hearing in January whether he would ever consider jailing a journalist, Barr paused for about eight seconds, then said he could "conceive of a situation" where a journalist is jailed as a "last resort." Such equivocation was troubling to press freedom advocates. And it was alarming given the Trump administration's emerging record of prosecuting those who allegedly leak information to the press.