John Solomon, a reporter who gained President Trump’s favor through his work questioning the federal investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russians who meddled in the 2016 election, is in discussions to join the White House as special government employee, he confirmed in a statement.
“I am currently being vetted for a short-term S.G.E. job, and it’s an honor to be considered,” Mr. Solomon said on Thursday evening. Special government employee status historically has been given to part-time, outside advisers to the federal government who offer advice based on private-sector expertise; the Trump administration has made broad and frequent use of the designation, including for people like Elon Musk.
Mr. Solomon declined to answer further questions about the job. But a person briefed on the position said he would most likely be tasked with leading a task force on “transparency,” in which he and others would identify documents they believe should be made public.
The task force would include people who have security clearances, according to the person. It was not clear whether Mr. Solomon would be granted a security clearance.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Solomon has been pushing for years for the declassification and release of documents related to the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. Mr. Solomon’s work is often bolstered by Mr. Trump; just this week, the president posted on his social media website links to Mr. Solomon discussing material related to James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director who Mr. Trump fired in 2017.
It was not immediately clear how the new arrangement would work, including how long the role was set to last. He is expected to step down for the time being as editor in chief of Just the News, the website he created in 2020.
A longtime reporter in Washington at outlets including The Washington Post and The Associated Press, Mr. Solomon has drawn scrutiny from critics amid the praise from Mr. Trump and some of his advisers. Those critics have accused him of pushing uncorroborated theories that dovetailed with Mr. Trump’s perspective. Mr. Solomon frequently responds by pointing to information he published, such as some of his Hunter Biden reporting, that was later corroborated by other information.
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By 2019, Mr. Solomon was known for his work as a conservative opinion contributor for The Hill, during which time he gained a reputation for writing investigative-style pieces that suggested that Mr. Trump’s enemies were involved in misdeeds. Those pieces were often promoted by allies of the president in conservative media, who long denounced the Russia investigation. After leaving The Hill, he was hired by Fox News as an opinion contributor; that relationship was said to have ended in late 2020.
He has written articles seeking to discredit the notion that Mr. Trump’s campaign conspired with Russians who interfered in the 2016 election, and suggested that the Trump campaign, not Hillary Clinton’s campaign, was the victim of foreign interference. He focused on Hunter Biden, President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son, who worked for a Ukrainian energy firm that was under investigation.
Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer during the Russia investigation, said he had provided Mr. Solomon with information; Mr. Solomon later disputed that he used information from Mr. Giuliani.
When Mr. Trump was in his final days of his first term, Mr. Solomon was briefly given a copy of a binder of information from the Russia investigation, known as “Crossfire Hurricane,” that Mr. Trump said he had declassified. The binder was given to Mr. Solomon at the direction of Mark Meadows, who was at the time the White House chief of staff.
The Justice Department had the binder retrieved soon after, concerned about violations of the Privacy Act at a time when the two F.B.I. agents whose text messages criticizing Mr. Trump had been leaked were suing the government.
In June 2022, Mr. Trump designated Mr. Solomon as one of his representatives to interact with the National Archives, along with Kash Patel, who is now the F.B.I. director. Mr. Solomon later said that Mr. Trump made the move at Mr. Solomon’s request, and that it was so that he could access the Crossfire Hurricane material that Mr. Trump said he had declassified. He wasn’t able to get it.
In 2023, the organization American First Legal, which was co-founded by top Trump White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, filed a federal lawsuit representing Mr. Solomon against the National Archives and the Justice Department, accusing the agencies of illegally concealing declassified presidential records during its investigation.
A judge denied the effort to obtain a “binder” of materials sought by Mr. Solomon; the judge said that the records weren’t covered by the Presidential Records Act, and were available under the Freedom of Information Act.
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
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