DOJ to Charge ABC News Journalist Who “Fell Off the Face of the Earth” After FBI Seized Classified Documents From His Laptop in Home Raid

 

James Gordon Meek

An Emmy-winning investigative journalist went missing after the FBI raided his Virginia home and seized classified information from his laptop in April.

James Gordon Meek, 52, went missing after the feds raided his Arlington penthouse apartment, the Rolling Stone reported.

Meek produced the Hulu documentary “3212 Unredacted” which detailed the 2017 Pentagon coverup of the deaths of US special forces in Niger.

The “lightning raid” was conducted after a search warrant was approved by a federal magistrate judge in the Virginia Eastern District Court, Rolling Stone reported.

 

“If agents got hold of Meek’s records, the move would have had to have been approved by US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.” The New York Post reported.

Meek’s attorneys lashed out at the US government for leaking information to Rolling Stone.

“The allegations in your inquiry are troubling for a different reason: They appear to come from a source inside the government,” Meek’s attorney Eugene Gorokhov told Rolling Stone. “It is highly inappropriate, and illegal, for individuals in the government to leak information about an ongoing investigation.”

“We hope that the DOJ promptly investigates the source of this leak.”

Meek’s last public statement was in the form of a tweet on April 27 – His colleagues at ABC said Meek “fell off the face of the earth.”

Now this…

The Rolling Stone is now exclusively reporting that 7 months after the FBI raid on Meek’s home, Biden’s Justice Department is preparing to charge him for crimes unrelated to his work as a journalist.

“In the months leading up to the raid, Meek was finishing up work on a book for Simon & Schuster titled Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan, which he co-authored with Lt. Col. Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret. Several top-tier production companies, including Brad Pitt’s Plan B (Moonlight) and producers like Dana Brunetti (Captain Phillips), had been vying for the rights to Operation Pineapple Express, which was quietly acquired by Basil Iwanyk (Sicario).” The Rolling Stone reported.

“Sources say Meek had been running point on negotiations but then abruptly cut off communications. “He was texting and doing Zoom calls every day, and then he just stopped,” says one person involved with film rights negotiations. Sometime in the spring, Simon & Schuster mysteriously scrubbed Meek’s name from all press materials for the book as well as in most instances within the book itself, in which he played a central role in the narrative as a journalist who helped American-trained commandos escape Afghanistan amid the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal in 2021. (Meek is included in the character list in the book.) A Simon & Schuster representative declined comment.” The Rolling Stone reported.

The Rolling Stone reported:

MORE THAN SEVEN months after ABC producer James Gordon Meek was the subject of a dramatic Federal Bureau of Investigation raid, an indictment is being prepared by the Department of Justice to present to a grand jury, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The FBI had been tracking Meek for suspected criminal activity unrelated to his work as a journalist long before the April 27 raid, according to those sources as well as two others. Additionally, new details have emerged surrounding the matter. Rolling Stone has learned that the FBI seized nearly a dozen electronic devices belonging to the Emmy-winning investigative journalist during the predawn raid of his Arlington, Virginia, home, after which Meek abruptly resigned from ABC via email.

The FBI has previously confirmed that the agency had been “conducting court-authorized law-enforcement activity” on the morning of April 27 at Meek’s address. Meek’s attorney Eugene Gorokhov says, “I cannot comment on any pending investigations, but any decisions that need to be made right now are entirely within the government’s discretion.”

The Department of Justice is said to be taking extra precautions given Meek’s status as a journalist. The investigation, details of which are not publicly available, is moving at a deliberate pace that is typical for a high-profile subject, sources say. Complicating matters, the FBI allegedly found classified information on Meek’s laptop following the seizure, multiple sources say. The alleged possession of classified material would remain a separate matter, two of those sources add, and would likely not result in criminal charges.

The national-security investigative producer frequently worked on stories that involved sensitive materials and sourcing. He was best known for deep dives that included a series of reports on a 2017 ISIS ambush in Niger that left four American Green Berets dead. His reporting, which poked holes in the Pentagon’s official narrative of what really happened during the botched mission, was adapted into the 2021 feature-length documentary 3212 Un-Redacted for ABC’s sister company Hulu.