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The Department of Justice on Wednesday announced the arrest of an award-winning investigative reporter on charges related to child pornography.
In a statement, the DOJ said that it was charging James Gordon Meek, a former foreign correspondent for ABC News, with the alleged transportation of images depicting the sexual abuse of children.
The DOJ said that an online username associated with Meek “received and distributed child sexual abuse materials,” and devices owned by Meek allegedly contained images depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Wednesday’s arrest came after months of speculation around the circumstances of a federal investigation into Meek. Last April, the FBI raided Meek’s Arlington, Va. home, a move that the DOJ clarified at the time was unrelated to his work as a journalist. Meek abruptly resigned from ABC following the raid without giving any clear explanation to network bosses.
Earlier on Wednesday, Semafor reported that the DOJ was preparing to announce Meek’s arrest.
Meek’s lawyer, Eugene Gorokhov, didn’t respond to email inquiries or to messages left with his office. The Department of Justice didn’t respond to repeated inquiries.
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The raid last April prompted a wave of speculation on whether Meek’s coverage of national security, and of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, were connected to the arrest.
“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,” Rolling Stone reported.
As Fox News’s Tucker Carlson summarized the situation, “An ABC News reporter gets a visit from armed men with guns from the Biden Administration and then disappears and hasn’t been heard from since.”
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Rolling Stone has covered the Meek case closely, and first reported in October on his apparent disappearance. The Daily Beast followed up in October by raising questions of whether Meek’s arrest was tied to his journalism.