Dispatches from Muckraker Lab - June 1, 2026

Rough Notes from Under the Hood of the Machine

Date Line: June 1, 2026

If you joined us on Friday, you got part one of our series on the importance of free expression to a free society. We'll continue that this Friday with a look at some of the things the powers that be have done historically to control speech. Before we do, let's take a look today at a few things in the news that are on point.

With Malice: Kash Patel’s FBI is going after reporters and news organizations for routine newsgathering practices.

Kash Patel’s FBI is going after reporters and news organizations for routine newsgathering practices.

Columbia Journalism ReviewJem Bartholomew

Let's get this straight right from the jump: Nothing here is partisan. These just happen to be the morons in charge right now, so they are the morons we will most often write about. When other morons are in charge, those will be the morons we will write about. Also, if one side happens to have more morons than the other side, well, that's just life in the big leagues, Bubba.

There isn't much that is more antithetical to the notion of free speech than a person in authority using that authority to attempt to silence people who write unflattering things about them.

In the Patel cases - yes, plural, he's done this more than once - we're talking about the filing of a civil lawsuit alleging defamation. The defendants in those suits will go to great expense to get to the inevitable dismissal, which makes the harassment of having to defend themselves the whole point. Well, not the whole point. It also operates to chill the speech of others who might not want to find themselves the target of such a frivolous lawsuit.

And none of this is new. Just ask John Peter Zenger, who we'll talk about on Friday, who was accused of libel while working as a printer and journalist in New York in 1734, before we even had a Constitution.

Libel is a civil lawsuit today, but in Zenger's day, it was charged as a crime. Patel's defamation suits might be a waste of time and money, they might just a backdoor way to chill free speech and never intended to succeed, but at least a person accused of defamation in 2026 doesn't face a threat to their liberty. To their freedom.

Right?

James Comey indicted in probe over online post officials say constituted Trump threat

The criminal case is the second in a matter of months against Comey and is part of the Trump administration Justice Department’s relentless effort to prosecute political opponents of the Republican president.

PBS NewsAlanna Durkin Richer, Associated Press

Well ... shit.

But, I mean, what's the big deal, right? It's one guy, who obviously has a rough past with the powers-that-be, and it's not like the government has begun making a practice of launching criminal investigations into its critics or opponents or something.

Right?

Trump’s Enemies List: DOJ Launches “Egregious” Criminal Probe into Trump Accuser E. Jean Carroll

The Justice Department has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into the writer E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued Donald Trump twice, for sexual abuse and defamation. According to CNN, The New York Times and other outlets, the investigation is focused on whether Carroll committed perjury in a deposition, even though a federal appeals court upheld the rulings in 2024. In 2019, Carroll published a memoir describing an encounter in the 1990s when she says Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store. When Trump denied the account, Carroll sued him and won $5 million in damages, with a unanimous New York jury finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. After Trump made disparaging remarks about Carroll, she sued him again and won a second defamation judgment for over $83 million. (She has yet to collect any money pending appeals by Trump.) “The use of the Justice Department to go after E. Jean Carroll in this way is completely unprecedented,” says law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer, who says the probe is part of an obvious “vendetta” by Trump. “It’s frankly galling.” See our interview with director Ivy Meeropol about her documentary Ask E. Jean.

Democracy Now!Democracy Now!

Document shows DOJ examining the handling of mortgage fraud investigation into Sen. Schiff

The Justice Department is examining the handling of the mortgage fraud investigation into Sen. Adam Schiff, including the potential involvement of people who claimed to be acting at the behest or direction of two Trump administration officials who have been pushing the probe of the California Democrat, according to a document reviewed by The Associated Press.

PBS NewsBrian Slodysko, Associated Press

Trump’s Pick to Help Run the FBI Has a History of Prosecuting Influential Democrats

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s targeting of Democrats is legally questionable, experts say, but it’s helped to further his career nationally: “The more outrageous you are, the more you are going to attract the attention of Donald Trump.”

ProPublicaJeremy Kohler

Read the full indictment of John Bolton, ex-Trump national security adviser turned critic

News of the charges broke during the president’s conversation with reporters in the Oval Office. Trump said he hadn’t known about the indictment and then criticized his former national security adviser, who has been an outspoken critic. “I think he’s a bad person,” Trump said. “He’s a bad guy.”

PBS NewsAssociated Press

Well ... shit.

Now, listen: If people commit crimes, particularly those entrusted with the power of the citizenry, and particularly when they use their positions to do the crimes to further their own agendas, then those people should face whatever consequences they deserve. But there is a reason that we have historically chosen to protect the ability of journalists and critics to speak freely, and there is a reason that few administrations before this one have attempted to use the Department of Justice to silence citizens.

It's un-American.

But don't take my word for it. Let Micah Reddy tell you what happens in countries where journalism or criticism can be criminalized, and expression can be controlled.

‘Power is exercised arbitrarily’: Lessons from a reporter’s arrest in Equatorial Guinea - ICIJ

An ICIJ reporter tried to capture the “opulence and neglect” inside a tiny African state that had squandered its oil riches — and experienced the dangers of reporting in a country with no free press.

International Consortium of Investigative JournalistsMicah Reddy

We'll be back on Friday with the next part of our series on the death of American journalism and the importance of free expression to a free society. We'll consider the defamation trial of John Peter Zenger, and the Founders' debates over the Constitution and the First Amendment.

Until then, have a great week and don't get captured.

Echoes from Muckraker Lab