This is a story about a story — one that I haven’t finished reporting.
Federal prosecutors are so consumed by my efforts to report on a terrorism court case that they accused me in a recent filing of having “improper motives.” They said that, by doing routine reporting, I was somehow colluding with a terrorism defendant to “taint the jury pool and undermine the fairness of the trial.”
These dangerous claims are the subject of an evidentiary hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Thursday.
My reporting so far suggests potential constitutional violations.
The attack by the Justice Department should be seen for what it is: a breathtaking assault against journalism by the Biden administration.
Although President Joe Biden boasts that his administration defends press freedoms around the world, his Justice Department’s public claims are an egregious attack against me filled with baseless assumptions and statements taken wildly out of context.
Prosecutors appear to have subjected me to this attack for no reason other than that I was doing journalism in the public interest. (Lawyers for The Intercept submitted a letter to U.S. District Judge Jonathan J. C. Grey and will be present at the hearing Thursday.)
While shocking for its content, the government’s attack on me is not entirely surprising. The case I’m investigating raises thorny issues about the FBI’s conduct, and federal prosecutors have complained in filings and court hearings over the past year about my contact with the defendant in the case.
My reporting so far suggests that the terrorism case involves questionable dealings between federal and local law enforcement agents; intrusive surveillance over a period of years that yielded little evidence; and even potential constitutional violations. (The prosecutors in the case did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)
For digging into this, Biden’s Justice Department is accusing me of having ulterior motives — and using the allegation as an excuse to keep information from the public.
FBI on a Local Robbery Case?
My involvement with this saga began five years ago, when I was reporting on a related terrorism case. I’d been secretly communicating with Russell Dennison, an American who had traveled to Syria and joined the Islamic State terrorist group.
Until his 2019 killing by an airstrike in eastern Syria, Dennison had sent me hours of recordings over more than six months, describing his life and involvement with ISIS as the so-called caliphate collapsed around him. Dennison’s recordings and my reporting about them became “American ISIS,” an eight-part documentary podcast for The Intercept and Audible.
After Dennison’s death, I spent months tracking down people he’d known, including those he mentioned in his recordings. One was a slender Iraqi-born Michigan man named Aws Naser.
Naser had his own story arc. He’d come to the United States from Iraq as a boy before the 9/11 attacks and, after graduating high school, returned to Iraq as a U.S. military translator. His path crossed with Dennison’s when the latter was still living in Florida and Naser had returned to Michigan. The two met through YouTube, and their paths, even after Dennison’s death, have crisscrossed to this day.
After the FBI arrested one of his friends on terrorism charges in 2012, Dennison flew to Michigan and stayed with Naser before traveling to Iraq. Naser visited Dennison in Iraq later that year, though at the time, Dennison wasn’t associated with ISIS or other terrorist groups.
When Naser returned to the U.S. from the trip, he found himself subjected to intense FBI questioning and surveillance. And he wasn’t alone. Dennison was an unwitting pawn for the FBI. Anyone who communicated with him became a target.
At the time, based on the FBI scrutiny, Naser falsely assumed that Dennison had been working for FBI. In truth, the FBI was struggling to build a case against Naser.
Then Naser gave the FBI an opening. He had a dispute with his boss at a convenience store. Frustrated over unpaid wages, Naser pepper-sprayed a co-worker and took what he believed he was owed from the cash register. He was arrested for armed robbery.
Following his arrest, the FBI obtained the search warrant for Naser’s home — not the local police, as you’d expect.
Following his arrest, the FBI obtained the search warrant for Naser’s home — not the local police, as you’d expect in a state robbery investigation.
The evidence the FBI collected from the search, which I obtained from state prosecutors, made clear that federal agents weren’t interested in the robbery case. Instead, the FBI took photos of Naser’s passport, plane tickets, business cards for a taxi driver and a jeweler in Iraq, and a piece of paper with a handwritten phone number for Dennison’s mother in Florida.
Naser was found guilty of armed robbery at trial and sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, but the FBI wasn’t finished with him.
The Dennison Connection
Naser was in state prison for this robbery conviction when I first contacted him in 2019.
He was sent back to prison for violating his parole. I clarified to him that Dennison was not an FBI informant but had become an ISIS fighter wanted by the FBI. Naser mentioned in 2019 that the FBI was always asking about Dennison whenever they spoke with him, interviewed him, or searched his property.
I included Naser’s interviews in my book “American ISIS,” which was released in July 2021. I never expected to speak with Naser again, but in November 2022, the Justice Department charged him with supporting ISIS, a charge he denies. The charges seemed related to Dennison.
Naser and I resumed phone conversations in February 2023, after he was transferred to a federal detention center to face terrorism charges. I have recorded over 11 hours of phone interviews with Naser for an audio documentary about his case.
The Justice Department was also listening in on our calls. In April 2023, prosecutors complained that Naser was sharing information with me. Despite this, the protective order did not prohibit Naser from discussing the evidence with me. The government’s case against Naser slowly unfolded, alleging he boasted of killing in Iraq and possessed ISIS propaganda.
There were concerns about Fourth Amendment violations in Naser’s case, as federal agents may have violated his rights during searches. The FBI could not build a strong case and used a parole officer to obtain evidence from Naser’s phones. Naser’s lawyers claimed this violated his Fourth Amendment rights, and Naser shared details of this arrangement with me in April. According to Naser, the reports indicate that the parole officer’s daughter was allegedly the victim of an unsolved sexual assault, prompting him to request FBI agents to investigate the case. Naser explained that the parole officer had agreed to assist the FBI with Naser in exchange for their help with the case.
A few weeks later, Naser’s lawyers filed a motion to unseal the reports after he shared this information with me. The government responded by accusing me of having “improper motives” and planning to publish a biased and sensationalized piece of journalism that could influence the jury.
The Justice Department claimed that Naser and I had discussed a sexual assault case involving a witness’s family member, omitting the context of a potential quid pro quo that may have violated Naser’s rights and raised concerns about FBI partnerships with local police in terrorism investigations.
The Justice Department argued that the information I sought was not of public interest, despite parts of Naser’s story being shared in a podcast and a book, as well as coverage by the Detroit News. Their attacks on me only served to increase public interest in the sealed FBI reports.
The article questions why the Justice Department is resorting to public attacks against a journalist for seeking information from sealed FBI reports. It suggests that the Biden administration should address concerns about press freedoms with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit.
Despite the challenges, the article concludes with the author’s determination to continue pursuing a larger work on Naser’s case and jokingly thanking federal prosecutors for the added publicity.
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