The Trump administration sat on information that a New York Times reporter was about to be arrested in Egypt and reportedly planned to let it happen, the newspaper's publisher revealed on Monday in an op-ed about the growing threat to journalism around the world.

According to New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, in 2017 a US government official contacted the newspaper to say Declan Walsh — the publication's Cairo-based reporter — was at risk of imminent arrest.

Just that day, Walsh had put out a story on Giulio Regeni, an Italian student who was found murdered in Cairo in 2016 and whose death Egyptian police have been accused of orchestrating.

Though warnings about potential arrests of overseas reporters is fairly common, "this particular call took a surprising and distressing turn," Sulzberger wrote.

"Rather than trying to stop the Egyptian government or assist the reporter, the official believed, the Trump administration intended to sit on the information and let the arrest be carried out," he wrote.

The unnamed government official warned the New York Times "without the knowledge or permission of the Trump administration" and "feared being punished for even alerting us to the danger," Sulzberger wrote.

Since leadership at the New York Times could not trust the Trump administration to protect Walsh from being imprisoned in Egypt, they reached out to diplomats from Ireland, the reporter's native country.

Less than an hour later, Irish diplomats met Walsh at his home and took him to the airport before he could be arrested.

"We hate to imagine what would have happened had that brave official not risked their career to alert us to the threat," Sulzberger wrote.

A spokesperson for the Trump administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.