A story on SEALs in North Korea, met with subpoenas from the DOJ.
A freelance reporter helped expose what happened when a Trump-ordered commando raid inside North Korea went wrong. The government's answer was not to investigate the raid. It was to send the FBI to his door with a subpoena for two years of his notes — and to keep that subpoena secret.
This page grades what is documented: the subpoena, the mission, the killing it ended in — which the U.S. government itself concluded took civilian lives — the reporter's forthcoming book, and the pattern this fits. The grimmer, source-only detail — that the team mutilated the bodies to hide them — and the label “war crime” we leave as open questions rather than stamp ourselves.
DOJ subpoenas NYT freelancer Matthew Cole for more than two years of his notes and his testimony, over the sourcing of his North Korea reporting
U.S. Department of Justice · Grand-jury subpoena (kept secret) · Served February 2026; disclosed August 1, 2026
The government used a secret subpoena to try to compel a journalist to surrender two-plus years of newsgathering material and testify about his sources — an attempt to unmask the people who exposed a botched covert mission.
View source →What this page is about
In 2019, President Trump authorized a top-secret SEAL Team 6 (Red Squadron) mission into North Korea to plant an electronic device that could intercept Kim Jong-un's communications, ahead of the two leaders' nuclear diplomacy. The mission failed. In September 2025, The New York Times published an investigation of it, co-reported by national correspondent Dave Philipps and freelancer Matthew Cole.
In February 2026 the Trump Justice Department served Cole with a secret subpoena, demanding more than two years of his notes and his testimony about who talked to him. The FBI tried to deliver it to his home. The subpoena stayed hidden until the Times revealed it on August 1, 2026. This page grades the documented facts — including the killing the mission ended in — and poses the unconfirmed specifics, and the “war crime” label, as questions rather than verdicts.
The record, claim by claim
The DOJ secretly subpoenaed a New York Times freelancer for two-plus years of his notes and his testimony.
FACTIn February 2026, the Justice Department served Matthew Cole with a grand-jury subpoena seeking more than two years of his reporting materials and his testimony about his sources, as part of a leak investigation into his North Korea story. The FBI attempted to serve it at his New York home. The subpoena was kept secret until the Times disclosed it on August 1, 2026; the paper is paying Cole's legal costs and called it 'another brazen and illegal attack from the administration.'
Trump personally authorized a covert 2019 SEAL Team 6 mission into North Korea to plant a listening device on Kim Jong-un.
FACTPer the Times's investigation (Philipps and Cole, Sept 2025), President Trump approved a top-secret mission tasking SEAL Team 6's Red Squadron — the unit that killed Osama bin Laden — with planting an electronic device to intercept Kim Jong-un's communications during the 2018–19 nuclear diplomacy. The mission fell apart and the device was never planted. A dedicated public record of the operation now exists.
The mission ended in the SEALs killing the people on a North Korean boat — whom the U.S. government itself concluded were civilians.
FACTAs the SEALs moved in, in what they believed was a deserted area, a small boat appeared; fearing they had been spotted, the team opened fire and killed everyone aboard, then withdrew without planting the device. The U.S. government's own internal conclusion, as reported by the Times, was that the dead were civilians — divers gathering shellfish, not soldiers or lookouts. That the killing happened, and that the government assessed the victims as civilians, is the documented core of the story — and it is exactly what the subpoena is trying to trace to its sources.
Cole has a forthcoming exposé of Jared Kushner and the UAE's Mohammed bin Zayed.
FACTMatthew Cole's book 'Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohammed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East' is scheduled from Simon & Schuster's One Signal/Atria imprint (publishing October 27), billed as an exposé of Kushner's financial and political dealings with Gulf leaders during and after his White House tenure. Cole confirmed it on his own Substack. It is a separate, documented fact about the reporter now under subpoena.
The subpoena fits a documented pattern of Trump-DOJ subpoenas aimed at journalists.
FACTCole's subpoena is not isolated. The administration subpoenaed New York Times reporters over their story about security concerns with the new Air Force One jet (those subpoenas were later withdrawn), and in March 2026 the Wall Street Journal received subpoenas seeking its sources for an article about Pentagon warnings on the U.S.–Israel war against Iran. The through-line is the use of leak investigations to pierce newsroom source protection.
The subpoena may reach beyond the North Korea story — toward the reporter about to publish on Kushner.
SOME SMOKEGraded SOME SMOKE: a real thread, no proven causation. The documentable pieces — Cole is weeks from publishing a Kushner/UAE corruption exposé; the subpoena reportedly demands more than two years of his notes, far broader than the sourcing for a single 2019-mission article; the administration's established pattern of press subpoenas; and Cole's own public line that 'the rich and powerful… file lawsuits to prevent journalists from exposing their secrets.' What holds it at SOME SMOKE: neither Cole nor any outlet connects the subpoena to the book, and the DOJ frames it strictly as a leak probe tied to the North Korea story. We raise it; we do not assert it.
The subpoena is certain; the raid is reported; the motive is argued
- What we grade vs. what we pose. The subpoena, the mission, the killing it ended in — which the government itself concluded took civilian lives — the book, and the pattern are documented; we grade them. The grimmer, source-only detail — that the SEALs mutilated the bodies to sink them — and the “war crime” label are unconfirmed by the Pentagon; those we pose as questions rather than stamp with a grade.
- A leak probe, or something wider. Demanding a reporter's notes in a leak case is not new. Demanding two-plus years of them, in secret, from a journalist about to publish on the president's son-in-law, is the part worth watching — which is exactly why we keep it at SOME SMOKE and not below or above.
- The story is the point. Whatever the subpoena's true scope, its effect is to make source protection costly for the people who exposed a covert operation. That is the press-freedom stake, and it stands regardless of motive.
Punishing the messenger is a surveillance-state move
When a government responds to a story about a lethal covert failure by trying to unmask the reporter's sources — secretly, and with a multi-year dragnet for his notes — the target is not one journalist. It is everyone who might tell a reporter what the state did in their name. That is why this belongs in Surveillance State(s) and the Criminalization of Dissent, and why it cross-links CIA Crimes — the covert-operations record the reporting exposed.
Questions worth taking seriously
What's established about the killing, and what isn't?
Established, and graded FACT on this page: the SEALs opened fire on a small boat and killed the people aboard, and the U.S. government's own conclusion — as reported by the Times — was that the dead were civilians diving for shellfish. What is not confirmed, and what we therefore pose rather than assert, is the grimmer specific: that the SEALs then mutilated the bodies (punctured their lungs) so they would sink. That detail rests on the Times's roughly two dozen sources and has not been confirmed by the Pentagon. Whether the whole amounts to a “war crime” is a legal judgment for others to make; the subpoena is the government's attempt to trace this reporting to its sources.
Isn't subpoenaing a reporter's notes normal in a leak investigation?
Leak investigations do sometimes seek reporters' materials, and the DOJ frames this one as routine. What stands out here is the breadth and the secrecy: more than two years of notes and compelled testimony, kept hidden until the Times disclosed it. Press-freedom advocates argue that scope turns a source hunt into a chilling effect on all national-security reporting.
Is the subpoena connected to Cole's Kushner book?
We grade that possibility SOME SMOKE, not fact. The book is real and imminent, and the subpoena's two-year sweep is broader than one story would seem to need — but no one, including Cole, has connected the two on the record, and the DOJ ties it to the North Korea leak. It's a question worth watching, not a conclusion.
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This site aggregates and grades a record that other outlets and primary sources have already put on the record. Every FACT-graded claim above is sourced to court filings, government reports, sworn whistleblower disclosures, published investigative journalism, or named-source statements. The citations are the accountability mechanism; this section is how you get on the record too.
The record
- Al Jazeera — New York Times reveals Trump administration subpoena over North Korea story
- Reuters (via AOL) — US Justice Department subpoenas New York Times freelancer over North Korea story
- NPR — ‘New York Times’ investigates Navy SEAL mission in North Korea
- Wikipedia — 2019 SEAL Team Six operation in North Korea (with sources)
- Simon & Schuster — Matthew Cole, Princes and Thieves (ISBN 9781668095324)
- Matthew Cole — “Hey, it’s been a while” (Substack)