The Washington Post

The reporting we cite

43 stories, each opening at its source.

• The Washington Post — 'Rep. Andrew Clyde who compared Capitol riot to normal tourist visit barricaded House doors, photos show' (May 18, 2021; Roll Call photo by Tom Williams)
• The Washington Post — 'The RNC is calling Jan. 6 legitimate political discourse. So what isn't?'
• The Washington Post — video: rioters chant 'Hang Mike Pence' on Jan. 6
• The Washington Post — 'Army Conducted 239 Secret Open-Air Germ Warfare Tests' (Mar 9, 1977)
• Anderson Cooper's own 2006 CNN account ('For a couple months over the course of two summers, I worked at the CIA headquarters in Langley'), quoted by The Washington Post's Reliable Source (Oct 20, 2013)
• The Washington Post — 'Judge dismisses Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy charges against Oath Keepers' (Mehta, Aug 4, 2026)
• Washington Post, 1987
• Washington Post — Bruce Bartman pleaded guilty to voting his dead mother's ballot for Trump
• Aaron David Miller, 'Israel's Lawyer' — Washington Post, May 23, 2005
• Washington Post — Nevada Republican who claimed someone voted his dead wife's ballot is charged with voter fraud (Oct 22, 2021)
• Trump Mobile / T1 phone: launched Jun 16, 2025 as ‘designed and built in USA’; identified as HTC U24 Pro clone by teardown analysis
• Anti-Weaponization Fund retracted — Washington Post
• The Washington Post — analysis consistent with a rocket, not an Israeli airstrike (the contradicting mainstream reading)
• Starrs 1994 exhumation — Washington Post magazine cover story, 2002
• The Washington Post (2023) — the Dahiya doctrine and Israel's disproportionate-force strategy in Gaza
• Washington Post, Ghislaine Maxwell, British military, and New Hampshire (July 13, 2020)
• Washington Post — 'A comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation finds 31 credible incidents out of one billion ballots cast' (Aug 6, 2014)
• Washington Post — Schwartz pardon
• Washington Post — the 1619 Project historians' letter and the Times' response (Dec 2019)
• Washington Post — ‘Investigators try to unravel airport mystery’ — primary contemporaneous reporting on Mena federal investigations (Jul 12, 1995)
• The Washington Post — Oil-Food Official Pleads Guilty / Sevan accused of kickbacks (Aug 2005)
• The Washington Post: Penn counsels Trump (the patron switch)
• Qatari Boeing 747-8 ‘Air Force One’ gift: FAA-registered to DOD May 2025; conversion contract awarded L3Harris; House Democrats have called it a violation of the Emoluments Clause
• Washington Post — journalism professors call on the NYT to review its October 7 report
• Ellen Nakashima, Pentagon Opens Sweeping Review of Clandestine Psychological Operations, Washington Post, September 19 2022
• Washington Post — 'Before he was the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski was a Harvard experiment subject' (2023)
• Washington Post — Waltz fired amid Netanyahu-Iran coordination reporting (May 3, 2025)
• The Washington Post — 'These are the biggest individual donors in the 2026 election cycle' (FEC analysis; top-50 list, party split, as of Aug. 21, 2026)
• Mann & Ornstein, 'Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem' (The Washington Post, 2012)
• Washington Post · A whistleblower saw ‘human beings’ in the Social Security data DOGE wanted (October 20, 2025)
• Ronald Kessler, 'The Bureau' (2002) and multiple FBI historians — critical review of the Summers account; note the corroboration gap
• Washington Post (Oct 31, 2001): CNN Chief Orders 'Balance' in War News (Isaacson memo)
• The Washington Post — Epstein client Leon Black sues Oversight Committee over its investigation
• Betty Medsger, Stolen Documents Describe FBI Surveillance Activities, Washington Post, March 24 1971
• Kranish & Fisher, 'Trump Revealed' (WaPo/Simon & Schuster, 2016) — 13-chapter treatment of the Cohn–Trump relationship
• The Washington Post — CBS News contributor among journalists killed by Israel in Gaza
• Washington Post — ‘Reporter probing arms deals found dead’ — primary reporting on the death of Danny Casolaro (Aug 1991)
• Washington Post, \"Hall Tells of Altering Data, Shredding Papers for North,\" June 9, 1987
• The Washington Post — Kavanaugh's credit-card debt and the baseball-tickets explanation (Jul 11, 2018)
• The Washington Post — Covert CIA program said to be behind mysterious attacks on Galapagos boats (Aug 13, 2026)
• Washington Post — autopsy finds broken bones in Epstein's neck, deepening questions
• Washington Post — Trump asks convention crowd to pledge to him they will vote, 'cheat like hell'; audience raised hands and repeated after him
• The Washington Post — CIA Paid Millions to Jordan's King Hussein (Feb 18, 1977)

Where their work appears on this site

• A Plan That Has Been Approved →
• What Hit al-Ahli? →
• When the Army Sprayed American Cities →
• Big Money Fighting for Control of the US Government →
• The Blanche Record →
• Blue Impunity →
• How the CIA Engaged in Unethical Human Experimentation →
• Thumb on the Scale →
• Execution at Sea →
• Intelligence Ties to Media →
• Manufactured Sides →
• The Permanent Pollster →
• MKUltra: what the record establishes, and where the popular memory exceeds it →
• The Atrocity Claims, Audited →
• The Pardon Market →
• Jonathan Pollard: the largest documented US intelligence theft on behalf of a foreign ally →
• Protecting Insurrectionists →
• Suing the Subpoena →
• The Editor-in-Chief →
• The Enterprise: Oliver North, Richard Secord, and the NSC's off-books network →
• The Epstein Deaths Ledger →
• The Manufactured Center →
• The National Design Studio →
• The Rest of the Bench →
• To Coup or Not to Coup? →
• Cheat Like Hell →
• Extremely Rare →
• Voting While Republican →
• CIA Crimes →
• The Epstein Class →
• Israeli Influence on the United States →
• Fake Opposition →
• Media Ownership →
• Military Grift →
• Return on Investment →
• Self-Dealing & Crony Capitalism →
• Sowing Division →
• Surveillance State(s) and the Criminalization of Dissent →
• The Dulles Blueprint →
• The Outrage & Apathy Economy →
• The Real Voter Fraud? →
• The Tech Right →
• The Untouchables →
• Who Controls What You Get to Know →

How we graded the claims built on their work

35 FACT · 5 PROBABLY TRUE · 8 SOME SMOKE · 1 FALSE / MISLEADING. A grade is our reading of the public record on one claim, not a verdict on the person.

1. 'A normal tourist visit' — said by the congressman photographed barricading the doors.

   FACT
   Protecting Insurrectionists →

2. 'Legitimate political discourse' — the RNC's own words vs. the violence on video.

   FACT
   Protecting Insurrectionists →

3. 'Police were the aggressors' — the record is ~140 officers assaulted, under oath.

   FACT
   Protecting Insurrectionists →

4. 239 secret open-air tests, 1949–1969 — admitted to the Senate under oath.

   FACT
   When the Army Sprayed American Cities →

5. Anderson Cooper interned at the CIA for two summers — by his own account.

   FACT
   Intelligence Ties to Media →

6. August 2026: the trial judge 'reluctantly' erased the last conviction — and said so.

   FACT
   Protecting Insurrectionists →

7. Aviem Sella, indicted for recruiting Pollard, was never punished and was instead rewarded by Israel.

   FACT
   Jonathan Pollard: the largest documented US intelligence theft on behalf of a foreign ally →

8. Bruce Bartman (Pennsylvania) — cast his dead mother's 2020 ballot for Trump.

   FACT
   Voting While Republican →

9. Clinton, Oslo, and 'Israel's Lawyer' (1993–2005)

   FACT
   Israeli Influence on the United States →

10. Donald 'Kirk' Hartle (Nevada) — starred in a GOP ad as a fraud victim; he was the one who cast the dead-spouse ballot.

    FACT
    Voting While Republican →

11. Donald Trump Jr. & Eric Trump

    FACT
    Self-Dealing & Crony Capitalism →

12. Episode 03 — The tax settlement and audit-immunity clause

    FACT
    The Blanche Record →

13. Forensic Architecture concludes an Israeli-fired munition — serious methodology, but not corroborated by the mainstream investigations.

    SOME SMOKE
    What Hit al-Ahli? →

14. Frank Olson — Deep Creek Lake, November 19, 1953; Statler Hotel, November 28, 1953

    FACT
    MKUltra: what the record establishes, and where the popular memory exceeds it →

15. Frank Olson — the 1953 defenestration

    FACT
    CIA Crimes →

16. Gaza since 2023: the doctrine's logic is widely cited, and the legal questions are now before the ICJ and ICC — posed, not asserted.

    SOME SMOKE
    A Plan That Has Been Approved →

17. Ghislaine Maxwell — the operational profile

    FACT
    The Epstein Class →

18. In-person voter impersonation is near-nonexistent: 31 credible cases across roughly one billion ballots (2000–2014).

    FACT
    Extremely Rare →

19. Joseph Schwartz — Owner, Skyline Healthcare nursing home chain

    FACT
    The Pardon Market →

20. Judge Kathleen M. Williams — Trump v. IRS, No. 26-cv-20609 (S.D. Fla.)

    FACT
    The Blanche Record →

21. Left — the same mechanism, three ways.

    FACT
    Manufactured Sides →

22. Mena and ADFA — Barry Seal, Jackson Stephens, and the Arkansas node

    PROBABLY TRUE
    Military Grift →

23. No independent forensic determination with physical evidence was ever completed, and credible investigations reached opposing conclusions.

    FACT
    What Hit al-Ahli? →

24. Oil-for-Food: a real corruption scandal — the program's own chief took kickbacks, though the inquiry found no personal enrichment by Kofi Annan.

    FACT
    Blue Impunity →

25. Penn is a mercenary power broker who monetizes ‘the center’ and brands the left as unelectable.

    PROBABLY TRUE
    The Permanent Pollster →

26. Penn switched patrons — from the Clintons to Donald Trump.

    FACT
    The Permanent Pollster →

27. Saudi PIF / LIV Golf / Trump Properties

    FACT
    Self-Dealing & Crony Capitalism →

28. Sexual violence: credibly documented — but not the 'thousands,' and not 'systematic.'

    SOME SMOKE
    The Atrocity Claims, Audited →

29. Stanford Internet Observatory / Graphika — 'Unheard Voice' (August 2022)

    FACT
    Sowing Division →

30. Ted Kaczynski endured a brutal Harvard psychology study — but its MKUltra funding is CONTESTED.

    SOME SMOKE
    How the CIA Engaged in Unethical Human Experimentation →

31. The 2025-26 loop — Operation Midnight Hammer and Mike Waltz

    FACT
    Israeli Influence on the United States →

32. The 2026 update: the top 50 donors have already put $1.6 billion+ into federal politics — and it tilts ~2.5-to-1 right.

    FACT
    Big Money Fighting for Control of the US Government →

33. The asymmetry is documented — by the centrists themselves.

    FACT
    The Manufactured Center →

34. The August 26, 2025 whistleblower disclosure

    FACT
    The National Design Studio →

35. The claim that Forensic Architecture’s conclusion was ‘corroborated by the Washington Post and the New York Times.’

    FALSE / MISLEADING
    What Hit al-Ahli? →

36. The Cohn / Rosenstiel / Hoover Blackmail Triangle

    SOME SMOKE
    Self-Dealing & Crony Capitalism →

37. The disposition predates Sanders: in the 2003 Iraq run-up, a FAIR study found anti-war voices were just 3% of U.S. sources.

    FACT
    Thumb on the Scale →

38. The errant-Palestinian-rocket account is the most widely supported hypothesis among Western investigators — but it was never forensically proven.

    SOME SMOKE
    What Hit al-Ahli? →

39. The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Leon Black as part of its Epstein investigation.

    FACT
    Suing the Subpoena →

40. The Media, Pennsylvania break-in (March 8, 1971) — how the program was exposed

    FACT
    Sowing Division →

41. The Method Trump Inherited

    PROBABLY TRUE
    Self-Dealing & Crony Capitalism →

42. The network's own cameraman, killed — and not denounced.

    FACT
    The Editor-in-Chief →

43. The PROMIS predecessor — Inslaw and Danny Casolaro

    PROBABLY TRUE
    Military Grift →

44. The shredding episode and Fawn Hall (November 21-25, 1986)

    FACT
    The Enterprise: Oliver North, Richard Secord, and the NSC's off-books network →

45. The thinnest file: Kavanaugh's debt that appeared and vanished — documented, unexplained in part, but with no evidence of impropriety.

    SOME SMOKE
    The Rest of the Bench →

46. The three Ecuadorian strikes may be a separate, covert CIA program — not Operation Southern Spear.

    PROBABLY TRUE
    Execution at Sea →

47. Tier A · Jeffrey Epstein (2019) — the only death with real forensic smoke.

    SOME SMOKE
    The Epstein Deaths Ledger →

48. Trump led a convention crowd in a raised-hands pledge that included 'cheat like hell.'

    FACT
    Cheat Like Hell →

49. When charm fails, cash: the CIA paid Jordan's King Hussein roughly $750,000 a year for two decades.

    FACT
    To Coup or Not to Coup? →