James Gordon Meek, an Emmy-winning producer and a highly respected national-security-focused investigative journalist who colleagues and friends say was at the pinnacle of his career, seemingly dropped off the face of the planet after his apartment was reportedly raided by the feds in April.
According to a Rolling Stone piece Tuesday on Meek’s seeming disappearance, his neighbor, John Antonelli, described the scene he witnessed outside of Meek’s Arlington, Virginia-based apartment building in the early morning hours of April 27.
Antonelli told the outlet that he witnessed a black SUV with blacked-out windows blocking the road in front of Meek’s apartment building and, upon further observation, spotted a Lenco BearCat G2, an armored tactical vehicle often used by FBI agents in raid situations.
The neighbor said in addition to those vehicles, a few local police cruisers were parked in front of the Siena Park apartment complex, where Meek lived on the top floor. Several unmarked vehicles also were present, he said. However, not a single vehicle bore markings that would indicate which federal agency was in charge, Antonelli said.
According to the eyewitness neighbor, the incident was over in about 10 minutes.
The prevailing theory is that Meek was raided by the FBI for reasons likely related to his award-winning journalism work in the national security field.
The 52-year-old also was finishing up a book about President Joe Biden’s botched U.S. troop and ally withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, Rolling Stone reported.
The outlet reported that “multiple sources” familiar with the situation confirmed that Meek was raided by the FBI.
This story is legit crazy. The guy was an Emmy award winning national security reporter at the top of his profession and all of a sudden fell off the face of the Earth after the FBI raided his home. Source in the story just says he had “classified information” on his computer.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 19, 2022
A bureau representative told Rolling Stone that on that morning, federal agents were “at the 2300 block of Columbia Pike, Arlington, Virginia, conducting court-authorized law-enforcement activity. The FBI cannot comment further due to an ongoing investigation.”
“They didn’t stick around. They took off pretty quickly and headed west on Columbia Pike towards Fairfax County,” Antonelli told Rolling Stone.
“Most people seeing that green vehicle would think it’s some kind of tank. But I knew it was the Lenco BearCat,” he said. “That vehicle is designed to be jumped out of so they can do a raid in that kind of time. It can return fire if they’re being fired upon.”
Given what the seemingly politically weaponized FBI and Department of Justice have done to former President Donald Trump, pro-life protesters and other conservatives, Meek’s situation is certainly not as surprising as it should be, making it all the scarier.
Notably, nobody can even say where Meek went, as that April morning was the last time he was seen by his colleagues and neighbors.
It also marked the last day he posted anything to social media, where he was considerably active before that morning. The tweet was in response to the unfolding situation in Ukraine.
Facts: https://t.co/VNyhbFETvT
— James Gordon Meek (@meekwire) April 27, 2022
Meek had not only vanished from the public, according to Rolling Stone, but he also left his presumably lucrative job at ABC News before the end of his contract, raising even more suspicion. His ABC colleagues told the outlet they have no earthy idea where the 6-foot-7 journalist went.
“He fell off the face of the Earth,” one of his colleagues said. “And people asked, but no one knew the answer.”
An ABC News representative told Rolling Stone, “He resigned very abruptly and hasn’t worked for us for months.”
The report said “independent observers” have concluded that the raid that made Meek vanish was the first of its kind in the Biden administration.
Some speculated the raid was carried out because Meeks might have had classified information on his computer. However, others said someone at Meek’s level of professionalism would know better than to risk getting caught up in such a situation.
Meek’s lawyer, Eugene Gorokhov, strongly denied that illegally possessed classified information triggered the raid.
“Mr. Meek is unaware of what allegations anonymous sources are making about his possession of classified documents,” Gorokohv said in a statement, according to Rolling Stone.
“If such documents exist, as claimed, this would be within the scope of his long career as an investigative journalist covering government wrongdoing,” he said.
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“The allegations in your inquiry are troubling for a different reason: they appear to come from a source inside the government. 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.”
Rolling Stone said it couldn’t pinpoint a particularly sensitive subject that might have been an obvious trigger for the raid.
Nobody is even sure whether Meek was left in his apartment after the reported raid or hauled away by the feds, it said.
One might assume it would be somewhat easy to verify the raid’s outcome, but where it gets even more bone-chilling is the fact that the documents pertaining to his case have been sealed.
Clearly, the powers that be do not want the public to know what’s going on in this particular case, at least not at the current time.
Politics aside, this is another terrible look for the Biden administration and the FBI.
Journalists from all outlets, from every part of the political spectrum, should be not only concerned but outraged over this case — and should dedicate their resources to discovering exactly what happened to James Gordon Meek.
