Over 20 press freedom groups have slammed Congress for its subpoena of journalist Seth Harp, author of a recent book that exposed crimes within the most secretive ranks of the military, saying that Congress is trying to chill inquiry into the military as the Trump administration threatens numerous countries.
Last week, the House Oversight Committee voted to issue a subpoena for Harp after he made a post on X with a picture and biography of a Delta Force commander who he said was in the chain of command for the U.S.’s illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife. Delta Force is an elite unit of the U.S.’s special operations forces, and alleged abuses by and within the unit are a central focus of Harp’s 2025 book, The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces.
Far right Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) accused Harp of trying to “dox” the commander and leak “classified information.” Republicans struck a deal with the Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Robert Garcia (California), to issue a subpoena for Harp, as well as two co-executors of Jeffrey Epstein’s estate. In a post online, Luna said: “Seth Harp will be held accountable for his actions.”
In a letter to House leaders, the groups call on Congress to rescind the subpoena for Harp.
“The subpoena has few parallels or precedents in recent history and poses a grave danger to the First Amendment’s guarantee of press freedom,” said the groups, including prominent organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, PEN America, and Reporters Sans Frontières.
Last week, Harp said that the assertions of doxxing were “ludicrous,” explaining that the information he posted was publicly available, pulled from Duke University’s website. In a statement, he said that X locked his account in response and forced him to delete the posts in order to regain access to his account.
“If you serve in the U.S. military, your personnel documents are public records, as they should be. Because I served in the Army myself, anyone can obtain my records, which show the units in which I served. Nothing exempts Delta Force from this basic transparency,” Harp said.
“Every civilian official and military officer in the American chain of command who participated in this outrageously illegal and provocative act of war — which a supermajority of Americans oppose — is the legitimate subject of journalistic scrutiny, and X has no business censoring my timely and accurate reporting,” Harp added.
Even if the information Harp posted was classified, his actions would be legal as journalists also have a right to report on classified information, the press freedom groups said, bringing up the case of Julian Assange.
Defending Rights & Dissent Policy Director Chip Gibbons called the subpoena “shameful” in a statement. Defending Rights & Dissent spearheaded the letter effort.
“Rep. Luna’s subpoena of investigative reporter Seth Harp is clearly designed to chill and intimidate a journalist doing some of the most significant investigative reporting on U.S. Special Forces,” Gibbons said. “Her own statement makes clear that far from having a valid legislative purpose, she seeks to hold a journalist ‘accountable’ for what is essentially reporting she dislikes.”
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