Independent journalist Andrew Callaghan—often noted for his gonzo reporting that places him at the center of the story—has been raising both money and eyebrows with his journalistic tactics.  Now the YouTube star with 3.6 million subscribers has been slapped with a second lawsuit and warns that the litigation could force his platform, Channel 5, to shut down.

Callaghan appears to have already raised more than $1.6 million for his legal defense on his GoFundMe page. He announced the GoFundMe in July and raised much of that money within one day.

The litigation centers on Dear Kelly, a documentary in which Callaghan follows around Kelly Johnson (aka Kelly J. Patriot), a former bankruptcy attorney and participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The documentary focuses on Johnson’s interest in conspiracies, as well as his accusations that moneylender Bill Joiner stole Johnson’s multimillion-dollar California home.

Callaghan says that Joiner's lawsuits are part of an effort to silence him. 

But Joiner says Johnson and Callaghan have put his family’s health and safety at risk. In a lawsuit filed in state court in California, Joiner alleges the two men stalked him and his family at his home and place of business.

The fight between Joiner and Callaghan is a “fascinating case,” says Dan R. Novack, a First Amendment lawyer who writes about media law cases on his blog, Slandertown. While “nobody should feel unsafe in their home,” there is also a “long line of cases where journalists get into places to report where people would prefer they not go,” he says.

The Dear Kelly documentary was released independently by Channel 5 in January 2025. The film's website describes it as “documenting Kelly’s radicalization, his quest for revenge against a private lender, and his family’s attempts to pull him out of the rabbit hole.”

According to Variety, Callaghan goes to “creative lengths” to find Joiner, including staking out his building in head-to-toe camouflage along with Johnson. Throughout the filming, Callaghan develops a close relationship with Johnson and tries to get at the truth as to how he lost his home, Variety writes.

Joiner has filed two lawsuits against Callaghan and Johnson. The first suit, filed May 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Central Division of California, alleged violations of the federal Wiretap Act along with privacy invasion claims. After two years of litigation, the case was dismissed without prejudice when both parties filed a joint stipulation to end it.

Joiner’s lawyers then filed a second case against Callaghan and Channel 5 in state court in Orange County, California, where Joiner lives. That case is ongoing.

Joiner’s second lawsuit accuses Callaghan of trespass, defamation, negligence and several state privacy law violations. 

In the lawsuit, Callaghan is accused of taking on Johnson’s “crusade” against Joiner as his own, including telling a crowd at a Portland, Oregon, show in November 2022 that “after we get that home back from Bill Joiner, we’re gonna F--- BILL JOINER!” The crowd responded with a chant of “F--- Bill Joiner!”

Johnson is described in Joiner’s complaint as a disbarred California lawyer who has spent more than a decade “bringing frivolous and vexatious litigation” against Joiner.

The complaint states Joiner provided Johnson with a $150,000 loan in 2007 with a monthly payment of $1,500. Johnson defaulted on the loan beginning in 2011, according to the lawsuit, which led to a settlement agreement and, ultimately, a foreclosure on Johnson’s home.

David Loy is the legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in California.

He emphasized that while newsgathering is widely protected under the First Amendment, that doesn’t mean journalists are excused from tort or criminal liability.

“There’s no First Amendment right to break an otherwise valid law to gather news,” Loy says. “You can’t break into city hall just because you want a story.”

Novack says he’s concerned that the complaint appears to unfairly treat Callaghan and Johnson as co-conspirators, rather than a journalist shedding sunlight on Johnson’s descent down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. 

As Callaghan mentions in videos posted to his channel, California’s anti-SLAPP law protects individuals from lawsuits aimed at chilling their free speech rights. However, an anti-SLAPP motion Callaghan's lawyers from Davis Wright Tremaine filed to dismiss the federal lawsuit was denied. 

"We disagree with Mr. Joiner's perspective on the documentary. We have no further comment,” said Mitchell P. Jackson, a spokesman for Callaghan.

Meghan C. Murphey, a lawyer for Joiner, says that they are singularly concerned with the “privacy and safety of our client and his family, and we will do everything we can pursuant to California law to protect them.”