James Gordon Meek

In 1990, Meek had crossed the Darien Gap from Panama into Colombia.[9] Meek served as the drummer in the Virginia Teenbeat rock music band "Scaley Andrew and the Lizards from Hell" (1990-2014) fronted by Andrew Beaujon of the Eggs who later served as senior editor of the Washingtonian magazine.[10][11][12][13] Both Meek and Beaujon appeared in the Butch Willis biopic documentary "Amateur on Plastic".[14]

Meek initially wrote political articles for the CD-ROM Magazine "Blender", which offered him accreditation with the Periodical Press Galleries in 1995.[15][16] Meek and his partner Mike Rosenberg used the Gridlock webzine to apply for accreditation to the Senate Periodical Press Gallery but were denied as the webzine could not be the pair's primary source of income.[15] In August 1996, both men were "shown the door" from Blender for a "poor attitude" Meek attributed to a specific article.[17]

Meek and Rosenberg then founded "Digital Culture Interactive News", which wrote stories about their Gridlock webzine,[18][19] and he ended up sending submissions to Readers Digest and Ladies Home Journal for the money they sent readers who submit amusing anecdotes. He also started an unsuccessful "Spookhouse Media Services". On Election Night 1996, both Rosenberg and Meek were in the Bob Dole Media Center.[20] Meek wrote of the US role in the Balkans War, "Our government is ruthless and efficient, showering its foes with disinformation fabricated by geniuses to soften up the opposition just before everything goes BLAM".[21] When Rosenberg chose to leave UPI, Meek was "told to pack [his] bags as well" and went back to working on Gridlock webzine which had to relocate its webspace to reside on the servers of the libertarian patriotnews.com.[22] He bemoaned in 2001 that he "has always been skilled at attracting unwarranted attention to himself".[23]

Meek became a reporter for the New York Daily News, for which his friend Ken Bazinet covered the White House and had helped Meek and Rosenberg with stories for their webzine,[24][25] covering national security and wrote several stories investigating the death of Dave Sharrett II, whose father had taught Meek at Langley High School.[26][3] Meek wrote of his "deep friendship" with the family of Caitlan Coleman, and is a personal friend of constitutional lawyer Mark Zaid.[27][28]

In 2011 Meek left the Daily News and served as a senior counter-terrorism investigator for the United States House Committee on Homeland Security.[26][29] He noted that he was unsure why Congressman Peter King had offered him the role and it seemed like a spontaneous choice,[30] but noted he accepted the position as he'd written largely on terrorism for the Daily News and his cousin had been killed in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.[31]

Meek and Josh Margolin were hired the same day in 2013 as investigative producers for ABC News.[29][32] Meek worked on 20/20, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight and Nightline programming.[33][34]

Meek appeared as a panelist at the 2021 Double Exposure Film Festival related to his work on the documentary 3212 Un-redacted on the Tongo Tongo ambush.[35][36][37] In 2022, Meek was named as the winner of the top award by the Foley Foundation.[38][39][40][41]

On April 27, 2022, Meek's home was raided by the FBI, more than a year after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children[42] received a tip from Dropbox that five videos depicting the sexual abuse of children had been uploaded by an account associated with Meek, leading to an investigation alongside Project Safe Childhood.[43][44][45][46] The FBI seized digital devices allegedly containing hundreds of images of child pornography. Meek was also accused of participating in group chats that traded child abuse materials.[46] Investigators allegedly found that Meek engaged with minors on social media, including posing as a female minor himself, and sextorted nude photos of minors.[47][48][49][7] The FBI alleges he had written about cooperating with a younger woman to bear a child together who wanted to sexually molest the infant together with him.[50]

On January 31, 2023, Meek was arrested and charged with transporting child pornography, which calls for a minimum of five years and up to 20 years in prison.[49] The Department of Justice released the FBI Affidavit that reports Meek writing to another individual "Have you ever raped a toddler girl? It’s amazing.”, and shared a video showing the rape of an infant girl.[51][52][53][52][54]

The FBI allegation cover other "extremely disturbing details" about the actions of Meek, which included engaging "in sexually explicit conversations where the participants expressed enthusiasm for the sexual abuse of children".[55] The US Attorney's office reported that “In speaking with law enforcement after the search, [Meek] told them that his life was over”.[29] In denying bail, the US District Judge expressed concerns about Meek engaging in the "grooming process".[56] Meek will remain in jail pending trial.[56]

Following the initial raid, Meek "resigned very abruptly" from ABC News and public life.[57] Rolling Stone suggested the raid may be related to classified materials found on his laptop related to his work as a journalist.[29][58][59][54] Following Meek's arrest, it was revealed that Rolling Stone editor Noah Shachtman had rewritten the original 2022 story before publication, without the journalist's knowledge, to remove the fact the raid had been in relation to child sexual abuse.[60]

The Rolling Stone article which "lionized Meek's record and swashbuckling style", combined with friends and colleagues consistently reporting that Meek had simply "vanished" without explanation, led to "dark speculation" Meek had been targeted for his work as a journalist.[61][62][63] Tucker Carlson opined that "armed men with guns from the Biden administration" raiding a journalist was evidence of "a dictatorship".[64] KARN-FM offered their conclusion that "Maybe [Meek]'s in a gulag, maybe they killed him and they threw his body into a woodchipper and he's mulch",[65] Glenn Beck said the federal raid against Meek as a journalist was the biggest story of 2022.[66]

• James Gordon Meek at IMDb
• Appearances on C-SPAN