Seamus Hughes speaking with Anderson Cooper on CBS’ 60 Minutes
Seamus Hughes has spent years researching terrorism cases in the United States, Europe, and in the Middle East. As an extremism scholar, he researches individuals and entities charged with providing material support to foreign and domestic terrorist organizations. As part of those investigations, he developed expertise in searching the federal court records system, often uncovering interesting results beyond his academic focus on homegrown terrorism. The depth of his expertise and his knack for investigating public records was recognized by the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, BBC, PBS, and CBS’ 60 Minutes. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on multiple occasions.
Hughes’ favorite pastime remains scouring state and federal court records. Over the years, his hobby has morphed into what can only be described as an uncanny ability to unearth what every American wants to and needs to know about topics ranging from public corruption to corporate espionage, based largely on PACER searches. As The Columbia Journalism Review notes: “[Hughes’] research and investigative work has repeatedly broken news that the press would have otherwise missed.”
Hughes also assists as a New York Times research journalist, working with their D.C. and Investigative Bureaus on myriad of stories related to the federal court system. In 2022, he was part of a New York Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting on law enforcement in America.
Academics, researchers, analysts, and reporters frequently seek out Hughes’ expertise on uncovering information from the PACER systems. Prominent news organizations frequently highlight his nascent findings, credit his approach, and cite him as the source that broke major stories. Hughes’ research has publicly uncovered many important stories They include:
NPR: How A 'Court Records Nerd' Discovered The Government May Be Charging Julian Assange
NYTimes: Assange Is Secretly Charged in U.S., Prosecutors Mistakenly Reveal
NYTimes: Christopher Hasson, Coast Guard Officer, Plotted Attacks at His Desk, Filings Say
Politico: FBI searched campaign office tied to Duncan Hunter
CBS: Court docs: Congressman Bob Brady under FBI scrutiny in campaign finance probe
CNN: Feds say JCC bomb threat suspect ran paid service on Dark Web
CNN: How a 43-year old American youth counselor turned to ISIS
Associated Press: Woman Injured in pipeline protest still being investigated
DailyBeast: FBI Intelligence Analyst Tipped off family to FBI Investigation
New York Times: Walmart Vendor’s Employees Face F.B.I. Inquiry for Snooping on Retailer’s Internal Emails
Associated Press: US man to be sent to Australia in Thai national’s killing