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DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican - Article: The Trap Needs No Trapper
Charlie Kirk is gone. The work of keeping a coalition from devouring itself is now ours, myself included.
I would like to begin by thanking one person who provided support above all, and it might be a surprising name: James Lindsay.
James and I had a rocky start online. Gradually, over the period of over a year and slowly growing trust that we only wanted to fight Communists, we built up a friendship.
We chatted all day yesterday. He offered me support. He warned me that there was a growing plot that I was part of a Flynn network. Many others lent their support, but more than anyone, James acted like a friend. Not a cheerleader. He did not give unconditional support or endorsement. He was simply there.
Now, James has made many antagonists and that is no secret. Some of those antagonists also happen to be my friends, people who are otherwise aligned on fighting Communists and NGOs. But as I’ve learned about him: his heart is in the right place, and he’d much rather be fighting Communists than anything else.
To get some accusations out of the way:
The podcast with Lara Logan was over my book, scheduled and filmed well in advance of this week’s events. I have others coming up, but she was the first major one.
My official affiliations are with Oversight Project and DOGE. Oversight Project is a big-tent thinktank currently focused on mass deportations, but is swinging towards the emerging DSA threat.
In the less-official front, Joel Finkelstein of NCRI and I have exchanged research and promoted each other. But this is driven by friendship and research overlap (he does a lot of DSA / foreign influence work), and no money relationship exists.
The vast majority of my income comes from subscribers paying $3 a month.
Here is what happened, without embellishment. I was handed a bunch of documents marked sensitive. I had a responsibility to handle them correctly and no institutional cover while I did it. I consulted with others - for instance, Tulsi’s staffer said that such documents typically carried markings like “Authorized for Release by Order of ___.” I also confirmed with two State Department executives that what happened to me was deeply nonstandard practice for sanctioned journalist leaks. The documents were hardcopy, given to me without commentary or context, along with repeated requests to “leak” them.
My first public read was that I had been set up, that the markings were a trap. I said that with more certainty than I earned, without ruling out the explanation of an oversight.
I corrected my own record before anyone could extract the correction out of me. That being said: that is the only disavowal I am willing to perform. I will say when I got something wrong. I will not restore my standing by spending someone else’s.
To see what I mean, first look at the structure of what I walked into: Hand a person sensitive documents and every move they can make reads as guilt.
Keep the documents and it is possession.