In a very strange tale, Rolling Stone recently reported that an acclaimed military journalist who has exposed shocking military cover-ups, friendly fire deaths, and foiled terror plots, disappeared after his home was raided by the FBI in April.
The magazine cited “sources familiar with the matter” as saying that the ABC producer James Gordon Meek was found with classified material on his laptop by the team of heavily armed FBI agents who appeared at his high-end, penthouse apartment in Virginia.
But this made no sense to friends and outside observers who noted that anything like that on his computer would be for a story he was likely working on.
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.”
Prior to his 13 years at ABC, Meek was a senior investigator for the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee.
There was a great deal of speculation about what happened to Meek since he resigned from ABC immediately after the raid and declined a prestigious award soon thereafter.
He totally disappeared for the next several months, fueling even more speculation.
Some say his situation is a case of the Biden Justice Department targeting a journalist who had been extremely critical of Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan retreat.
“Independent observers believe the raid is among the first—and quite possibly, the first—to be carried out on a journalist by the Biden administration,” the magazine reported.
But later reports dismissed those concerns.
As the Daily Beast reported:
Inside ABC News, however, staffers were baffled by this framing, since Meek resigned from the network via email on April 27—the same day as the raid—citing “personal reasons” and told friends it was to “save colleagues and the company any embarrassment,” according to two people familiar with the situation.
Although the FBI declined to comment on the probe, the DOJ was more forthcoming, suggesting in a statement to Confider that the raid was not actually about Meek’s reporting work, despite what the Rolling Stone article seemed to indicate. “While the department cannot speak to any specific case or activity, the Department strictly adheres to the Attorney General’s July 2021 memorandum prohibiting the use of compulsory process with regards to members of the news media acting within the scope of newsgathering activities,” wrote Dena Iverson, principal deputy director in the DOJ’s Office of Public Affairs.
ABC News sources similarly poured cold water on the idea that Meek was being probed for his journalism: “If the purpose of the FBI’s search is to find classified documents the first call you’d be making would be to ABC’s lawyers because you want the protection of the company,” one such insider told Confider. “We would’ve defended him; ABC’s lawyers would be right there,” another network insider said.
In the aftermath of the FBI raid Meek also suddenly ended his involvement in a book he was co-writing with Lt. Col. Scott Mann, a retired Green Beret, entitled ‘Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan.’
Mann told Rolling Stone: ‘He contacted me in the spring, and was really distraught, and told me that he had some serious personal issues going on and that he needed to withdraw from the project.
Interestingly, Meek, who has not been charged with any crime, has since reportedly deleted photos of firearms and ammunition from his personal Facebook page.
Meanwhile, more recent reports have shown that Meek is now living discreetly with his elderly mother in McLean, Virginia.
The Daily Mail reported: “‘Missing’ ABC producer James Gordon Meek has emerged from hiding – but refuses to discuss the mysterious FBI raid that brought his storied journalism career to an abrupt halt.”
The reasons for the raid and his ‘disappearance’ from journalism remain a mystery.
