Award-winning journalist missing since FBI ‘seized classified docs’ in home raid: report

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Award-winning journalist missing since FBI ‘seized classified docs’ in home raid: report

By 

Ariel Zilber

October 19, 2022 1:19pm 

 Updated

An Emmy Award-winning ABC News journalist who broke several high-profile national security and terrorism-related stories has gone missing since the FBI reportedly seized classified information from his laptop during a raid on his Virginia home, according to published reports.

James Gordon Meek, a 52-year-old investigative reporter and producer of Hulu’s acclaimed documentary “3212 Un-redacted,” has not been seen in public since heavily armed federal agents raided his penthouse apartment in Arlington in April, according to Rolling Stone.

The magazine cited “sources familiar with the matter” as saying that federal agents found classified information on Meek’s laptop computer.

Meek’s attorney, Eugene Gorokhov, told Rolling Stone: “Mr. Meek is unaware of what allegations anonymous sources are making about his possession of classified documents.”

“If such documents exist, as claimed, this would be within the scope of his long career as an investigative journalist covering government wrongdoing,” the attorney told Rolling Stone in a statement. 

It is unclear which news story prompted the federal government to set its sights on Meek, whose groundbreaking reporting on the 2017 Pentagon coverup of the deaths of US servicemen in Niger served as the basis for the Hulu documentary.

 

Meek broke several high-profile terrorism- and national security-related stories for ABC News and other outlets.

James Gordon Meek/Twitter

“The allegations in your inquiry are troubling for a different reason: They appear to come from a source inside the government,” Meek’s attorney 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 [Department of Justice] promptly investigates the source of this leak.” 

Meek’s whereabouts are unknown. Before working for ABC News, he also covered national security for the New York Daily News.

The Post has sought comment from ABC News and the FBI. The Justice Department declined to comment.

 

A spokesperson for Disney-owned ABC News told Rolling Stone: “He resigned very abruptly and hasn’t worked for us for months.”

Phone calls to Meek’s family went unanswered.

Meek’s last public statement was a tweet from April 27, in which he wrote one word: “Facts.”

The tweet was a reaction to a post about the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

According to Rolling Stone, federal agents staged a lightning raid on his home on the top floor of the six-story Siena Park apartment complex that lasted around 10 minutes.

Meek reportedly lives on the top floor of a luxury apartment building in Arlington.

Google Maps

The agents were executing a search warrant that was approved by a federal magistrate judge in the Virginia Eastern District Court.

Last year, the Biden administration put in place a policy prohibiting federal investigators from seizing journalists’ records without authorization from the deputy attorney general.

If agents got hold of Meek’s records, the move would have had to have been approved by US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

Since the raid, Meek’s neighbors have not seen him, Rolling Stone reported. Witnesses also told the magazine that it appears his apartment has been vacant.

 

Meek’s reporting served as the basis for an acclaimed Hulu documentary about the Pentagon cover-up of the 2017 deaths of US servicemembers in Niger.

ABC via Getty Images

ABC News staffers who worked with Meek told Rolling Stone that he “fell off the face of the Earth.”

According to IMDb, Meek was part of the Emmy-winning team of journalists who produced a documentary about the 2016 Orlando nightclub