KS Newspaper Raided After Story Involving GOP Rep

August 12, 2023 Politics, Republicans

The Kansas Reflector reports:

In an unprecedented raid Friday, local law enforcement seized computers, cellphones and reporting materials from the Marion County Record office, the newspaper’s reporters, and the publisher’s home. Eric Meyer, owner and publisher of the newspaper, said police were motivated by a confidential source who leaked sensitive documents to the newspaper, and the message was clear: “Mind your own business or we’re going to step on you.”

The city’s entire five-officer police force and two sheriff’s deputies took “everything we have,” Meyer said, and it wasn’t clear how the newspaper staff would take the weekly publication to press Tuesday night. The raid followed news stories about a restaurant owner who kicked reporters out of a meeting last week with U.S. Rep. Jake LaTurner [photo], and revelations about the restaurant owner’s lack of a driver’s license and conviction for drunken driving.

Courthouse News reports:



Emily Bradbury, executive director of the Kansas Press Association, described the raid as unprecedented in the Sunflower State. “An attack on a newspaper office through an illegal search is not just an infringement on the rights of journalists but an assault on the very foundation of democracy and the public’s right to know,” she said. “This cannot be allowed to stand.”

The search warrant appears to violate federal law that protects journalists from having reporting materials seized, requiring that authorities subpoena them instead, the nonprofit reported. Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody did not immediately respond to an email from Courthouse News Service on Friday night.

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