A freelance reporter has been fighting a subpoena from the Trump administration seeking to force him to reveal his sources for a New York Times article about a failed top secret mission in North Korea, according to people familiar with the matter.
In February, F.B.I. agents showed up at the New York home of the reporter, Matthew Cole, to deliver the grand jury subpoena, which was issued by prosecutors in Newport News, Va., according to the people familiar with the matter, who described the private conversations on the condition of anonymity.
The investigators are seeking his testimony about two years’ worth of information about Mr. Cole’s contacts and conversations, as they try to identify his sources for the article about the operation in North Korea, the people familiar with the matter said. It is unclear if the administration has also sought Mr. Cole’s phone and email data, as it has done in other cases.
Last fall, Mr. Cole, along with a staff reporter for The Times, Dave Philipps, revealed the details of a Navy SEAL Team 6 mission in 2019 that went awry. The article described how the SEAL members killed two or three unarmed North Koreans who appeared to have stumbled upon the mission, a classified operation to plant a secret eavesdropping device near the country’s coastline. The Times’s account, published in September, drew on interviews with two dozen people.
The article also noted that the Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission, an omission that may have violated the law.
Mr. Cole disclosed more details of his reporting on his Substack newsletter, stating that despite learning about the mission in 2023, he waited for months before making calls to find out more given the sensitive nature of the reporting.
The Justice Department has not subpoenaed Mr. Philipps, according to people familiar with the matter. He declined to comment.
In the months since Mr. Cole’s subpoena, The Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have faced similar subpoenas seeking information about their reporting. The news organizations have resisted, and judges have voiced skepticism about the government’s efforts, prompting the administration to back down in those cases.
However, the Justice Department has so far refused to withdraw its subpoena of Mr. Cole, despite his efforts to challenge it.
Mr. Cole is also the author of “Princes and Thieves,” a coming book about the finances and global entanglements of President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and “Code Over Country: The Tragedy and Corruption of SEAL Team Six,” a 2022 book about the elite Navy unit.
The Times is providing a legal defense to Mr. Cole.
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