According to Yahoo News, federal investigators are digging into the Sputnik "news" outlet (which is funded by the Russian government) and have even interviewed their former White House correspondent who reportedly handed over documents from the company.
Investigators are trying to determine if employees of Sputnik have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by acting as foreign agents without formally registering as foreign agents.
As part of the probe, Yahoo News has learned, the bureau has obtained a thumb drive containing thousands of internal Sputnik emails and documents — material that could potentially help prosecutors build a case that the news agency played a role in the Russian government “influence campaign” that was waged during last year’s presidential election and, in the view of U.S. intelligence officials, is still ongoing.
The emails were turned over by Andrew Feinberg, the news agency’s former White House correspondent, who had downloaded the material onto his laptop before he was fired in May. He confirmed to Yahoo News that he was questioned for more than two hours on Sept. 1 by an FBI agent and a Justice Department national security lawyer at the bureau’s Washington field office.
I may be reading too much into this report, but it appears that Feinberg has turned whistleblower unless copying thousands of internal documents right before you're fired is common practice for him.
A spokesperson for special prosecutor Robert Mueller would neither confirm or deny that the investigation of Sputnik is connected to his investigation, but it seems very likely that it is.
During the 2016 election, Sputnik participated in the dissemination of numerous fake news articles the likes of which were shared across social media by fake accounts that we now know were actually Russian trolls posing as Americans.
Investigating members of the media is obviously a slippery slope, but this is no ordinary case and their right to print utter bullshit is not being questioned. The First Amendment doesn't give you a right to act as an unregistered foreign agent nor does it give you a right to possibly commit espionage. If editorial decisions at Sputnik were handed down by Moscow, that would fall under the former category.