N.C. GOP spokesman urges reporter to drop news story, citing Trump ties; The Washington Post, October 31, 2025

 Brianna Tucker, The Washington Post; N.C. GOP spokesman urges reporter to drop news story, citing Trump ties

[Kip Currier: Memo to Matt Mercer (North Carolina GOP spokesman) re Mob-like threats (“I would strongly suggest dropping this story,”) against ProPublica reporting on North Carolina Chief Justice Paul Newby:

Pssst...Read the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

American Civics 101: Freedom of the Press. 

Meaning: You don't get to dictate what free and independent presses can report on in America.]

[Excerpt]

"A spokesman for the North Carolina Republican Party appeared to threaten the news outlet ProPublica — citing “connections” to the Trump administration — over a story it reported and ultimately published on a prominent conservative state Supreme Court judge.

The story examined state Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby, his starkly conservative transformation of the court and power over the state’s politics. When Newby declined to be interviewed and the court’s communications and media team did not respond to questions, the reporter contacted his daughter, who also serves as the state GOP’s finance director.

Instead, the publication said it received a response from North Carolina GOP spokesman Matt Mercer, attempting to coerce ProPublica to kill the story.

“I’m sure you’re aware of our connections with the Trump Administration and I’m sure they would be interested in this matter,” Mercer said in an email that ProPublica published.

He added: “I would strongly suggest dropping this story,” underlining “strongly” and putting it in bold type.

After the story published, Mercer doubled down in a social media post, urging Trump to “feed ProPublica to the USAID wood chipper,” referring to the president’s termination of thousands in funding and grants from the foreign aid agency earlier this year.

While President Donald Trump and top administration officials have targeted media organizations for critical coverage of him or his policies,it is unusual for a state party official to explicitly leverage a relationship with the administration and express a willingness to retaliate toward news organizations.

It’s unclear if and how Trump would retaliate against ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that does not receive government funding and relies on private grants and donations."

Pulitzer winner returns to the University of Pittsburgh for forum on Supreme Court ethics; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 12, 2024

ABBY LIPOLD , Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Pulitzer winner returns to the University of Pittsburgh for forum on Supreme Court ethics

"Mr. Murphy said about half of the readers of his series thought “there was an obvious breach in propriety,” but the other half thought the issue wasn’t worth reporting on."

New Federal Rules Aim to Speed Repatriations of Native Remains and Burial Items; ProPublica, December 8, 2023

Mary Hudetz, ProPublica; New Federal Rules Aim to Speed Repatriations of Native Remains and Burial Items

"The Biden administration has revised the rules that institutions and government agencies must follow to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act — a law long hampered by limited funding and the unwillingness of many museums to relinquish Indigenous remains and burial items.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to hold a U.S. cabinet position, said Wednesday that the regulations will “strengthen the authority and role of Indigenous communities in the repatriation process” by requiring institutions to defer more to tribes’ knowledge of their regions and histories in their decision-making about repatriations.

Thirty-three years ago, Congress passed NAGPRA to prevent grave looting and push museums to return human remains and items excavated from Native American gravesites to tribes. But the promise of repatriation that many tribal nations once saw in the law has not been fully realized, with federal data showing institutions continue to store about half of the 200,000 ancestral remains they reported holding following passage of the 1990 law.

This year, ProPublica’s Repatriation Project investigative series revealed that archaeologists and scientists at some of the nation’s top universities and museums have exploited loopholes in NAGPRA to delay or resist turning over holdings reported under the law."

Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel; ProPublica, August 10, 2023

 Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica; Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel

"This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount.

While some of the hospitality, such as stays in personal homes, may not have required disclosure, Thomas appears to have violated the law by failing to disclose flights, yacht cruises and expensive sports tickets, according to ethics experts.

Perhaps even more significant, the pattern exposes consistent violations of judicial norms, experts, including seven current and former federal judges appointed by both parties, told ProPublica. “In my career I don’t remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served for years on the judicial committee that reviews judges’ financial disclosures. “I think it’s unprecedented.”"

Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel