WSJ reports it received a subpoena for the sources behind one of a number of stories reporting Dan Caine's February warnings to Trump in real time.

The Wall Street Journal received grand jury subpoenas dated March 4 for records of Journal reporters.

The request related to a Feb. 23 article that reported that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others at the Pentagon warned the president about the risks of an extended military campaign against Iran. Other news outlets, including Axios and the Washington Post, published similar stories that day. Trump launched the war five days later, on Feb. 28.

In a statement, Ashok Sinha, the chief communications officer of Dow Jones, which publishes the Journal, said: "The government's subpoenas to The Wall Street Journal and our reporters represent an attack on constitutionally protected newsgathering. We will vigorously oppose this effort to stifle and intimidate essential reporting."

Representatives of the Washington Post and Axios declined to comment.

Last month, officials said, Trump was specifically angry about an April 7 article in the New York Times that outlined how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pitched Trump on bombing Iran. That reporting provided vivid detail about senior-staff meetings on the topic, including ones in the secretive Situation Room. It described how U.S. intelligence officials skeptically viewed Netanyahu's argument for a war that would end in regime change.

A spokeswoman for the Times declined to comment.

In recent months, prosecutors have sent subpoenas to media organizations as well as to email and phone providers seeking information in leak inquiries, according to people familiar with the requests.

Much of the WSJ story, as well as this CNN story matching parts of the WSJ one, cover more recent reporting on the rescue of two airmen shot down inside Iran, at least one of which Trump labeled as "treason" and ordered DOJ to investigate. I may return to that, but it's worth noting that the rescue on which those stories was based was detailed in real time by OSINT investigators and Middle Eastern sources, with substantive details provided by former Special Forces soldier turned journalist Jack Murphy. The rescue story was in no way exclusively reliant on senior level access journalism.

The earlier set of stories, about Dan Caine, presumably were. And for all the alarm about further infringements on journalism, which are utterly justified and will be others' focus, it's the access journalism angle of this that make the tactics interesting.

Trump could be, wittingly or not, investigating his top aides. Indeed, given that DOJ has been investigating at least some of these stories for two months, it's worth asking whether Trump believes some of his White House aides are working the press for political or influence operation reasons.

. . .