New York Times reveals DOJ subpoenaed freelance journalist over North Korea SEAL Team 6 reporting

On August 1, 2026, The New York Times revealed that the Justice Department had subpoenaed one of its freelance contributors, Matthew Cole, in an effort to identify the confidential sources for his reporting on a failed 2019 Navy SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea. According to the Times, FBI agents delivered the previously undisclosed grand-jury subpoena to Cole's New York home in February 2026; it was issued by federal prosecutors in Newport News, Virginia, and seeks two years' worth of Cole's contacts, conversations, and testimony. The targeted story, co-written by Cole, described how Navy SEALs killed several unarmed North Koreans in early 2019 during a mission to plant a listening device near the North Korean coast, citing roughly two dozen unnamed sources.

The Cole subpoena is the second the administration has directed at sources for New York Times reporting within a matter of months. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York separately subpoenaed four Times staff reporters over their coverage of security problems with the Qatari-gifted aircraft being outfitted as Air Force One; the Justice Department fully withdrew those subpoenas on July 24, 2026, after a federal judge called the government's legal work "slipshod." Cole's subpoena, issued out of Virginia rather than SDNY, targets a freelancer rather than a Times staff member, but the Times said it reflects "the government's escalating attacks on journalists."

Times spokesperson Charlie Stadtlander called the subpoena "another brazen and illegal attack from the administration designed to deny the public information of vital importance," saying "the demand that he disclose his sources" should "concern all Americans." The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said it is the fourth attempt in a matter of months by the administration to force a reporter to name sources in a national-security leak case, compared with three such attempts by the Justice Department in the preceding 25 years. The Times is paying for Cole's legal representation; the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.