Journalist threatened with jail: ‘For now, I am a free man’
A journalist who was threatened with jail time after reporting on transgender terrorism may have narrowly escaped being locked behind bars.
Threatened with contempt
Michael Patrick Leahy is the editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, which last week published the manifesto of transgender terrorist Audrey Hale. The FBI has reportedly been trying to conceal the manifesto from the public.
Shortly after The Tennessee Star published Hale’s manifesto, Leahy was ordered to appear in Davidson County court on Monday for a contempt hearing. Judge I’Ashea Myles had ordered Leahy to explain why the “publication of certain purported documents” does not “violate the Orders of this Court subjecting them to contempt proceedings and sanctions.” Judge Myles did not specify which orders.
Leahy filed an emergency appeal, demonstrating how the order violates constitutional and Tennessee laws. The appeal was denied.
Judge pulls back
But when Leahy appeared in court yesterday, Judge Myles suddenly appeared to pull back from her threat, at least for the time being. She told Leahy and his attorney, Daniel Horwitz, that she was just trying to “understand the landscape” of the case and that there would not be contempt proceedings. At the end, Myles said she “understood” what it was she needed to know about the case and will issue a ruling. It is unclear if she was considering ordering another contempt hearing for Leahy.
Horwitz expressed confusion as to the purpose of the hearing, but registered his relief.
“I don’t know how this evolved or why, but I’m glad the press isn’t being threatened with jail time today. That’s a welcome development,” he told The Daily Wire afterward. “I don’t want reporters going to jail for lawful reporting. That’s why we were here today.”
“For now, I am a free man and can continue to exercise my First Amendment rights,” Leahy wrote on X.
What did the manifesto say?
The Tennessee Star obtained 80 pages of writings by Hale, who massacred three children and three adults at The Covenant School in March 2023. The writings reveal that Hale, a woman who claimed to be a male, was driven by an obsession with gender ideology. She repeatedly wrote about “LGBTQ rights,” complained about being “misgendered” in public, and wrote of her “pure hatred of my female gender.” Hale also railed against her parents for not supporting her gender obsession and expressed a strong disdain for Christianity.
“If God won’t give me a boy body in heaven then Jesus is a f*****,” she wrote in one instance.
Other portions of Hale’s writings reveal that she was also driven by a hatred for White people.
Since the shooting on March 27, 2023, the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) has refused to release Hale’s manifesto to the public. Reports strongly suggest the FBI pressured the MNPD not to release the shooter’s writings.
FBI: Releasing manifesto may lead to ‘false narratives,’ ‘conspiracy theories’
Earlier this month, The Tennessee Star published a memo sent by the FBI’s Behavioral Threat Assessment Center (BTAC) to Metro Police Chief John Drake. The FBI did not specifically mention Hale or The Covenant School but said it “strongly discourages public dissemination of any legacy tokens.” Legacy tokens refer to items left behind by mass shooters “to claim credit for the attack and / or articulate the motivation behind it.”
The FBI warned the MNPD that releasing the manifesto to the public would lead to “false narratives” and conspiracy theories,” without explaining how releasing the actual manifesto would lead to falsehoods.
The memo was sent two days after Leahy sued the FBI to compel the bureau to release the manifesto. Leahy filed a similar lawsuit against the MNPD.
