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Racket News
Hosted by Matt Taibbi · EN
“We care if it’s true. We don’t care why.”
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Listen to This Article: Introducing: Who's That Source?
Mar 7Tap to summarizeRacket’s new feature chronicles the money behind oft-quoted sourcesNarrated by Jared MooreArt by Daniel MedinaText published 03/04/26:Listen to subscriber-only audio in your podcast appShare the free versions of Racket To Go on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts Read more
Transcribe →Livestream, 2:00 PM ET: Matt Taibbi and Ryan Lovelace on the FBI's "Prohibited Access" Files
Mar 6Tap to summarizeRyan Lovelace and I this morning put out a pair of stories about FBI secrecy that went from “No way can that be true” to finished in a week. Please join me and fellow Racket reporter Ryan at 2 p.m. ET today to discuss the FBI’s “Prohibited Access” files story: what the story means, why it’s important, what might be in them, who helped make their existence public, and what’s potentially still to come. We’ll also explore potential downsides, i.e., how we’ll know if progress toward outing this system is impeded. To tune in, just go to @mtaibbi on X or click here: SubstackYouTubeRumble<img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gdsf!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcdd21add-c7e2-4774-9da3-84c7c6b02640_1670x1004.png" width="541" height="325.1201923076923" data-attrs="{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/cdd21add-c7e2-4774-9da3-84c7c6b02640_1670x1004.png","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":875,"width":1456,"resizeWidth":541,"bytes":655967,"alt":null,"title":null,"type":"image/png","href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":"https://www.racket.news/i/190111656?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcdd21add-c7e2-4774-9da3-84c7c6b02640_1670x1004.png","isProcessing":false,"align":null,"offset":false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gdsf!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcdd21add-c7e2-4774-9da3-84c7c6b02640_1670x1004.png 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gdsf!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcdd21add-c7e2-4774-9da3-84c7c6b02640_1670x1004.png 848w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gdsf!,w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fcdd21add-c7e2-4774-9da3-84c7c6b02640_1670x1004.png 1272w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!gdsf!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-...
Transcribe →Kash’s Cache: Locating The FBI’s Secret Files
Mar 6Tap to summarizeFederal Bureau of Investigation headquarters logo is seen in Washington DC, United States on February 20, 2026, (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)Time and again, oversight of the FBI’s handling of sensitive cases hits a roadblock when investigators search for closely guarded files.Records that should exist — about misconduct and spying on federal lawmakers — do not seem to be on file anywhere, nor is there an indication they were destroyed.This is by design. The bureau developed its own system for handling its most explosive cases and has reserved the right to prohibit access to anyone, including Congress, which is charged with oversight of the bureau, and FBI agents themselves.Racket News has obtained a 2023 user guide to a top-secret database for extremely sensitive info that cannot be held in the bureau’s normal filing system because of its classification requirements. So-called “prohibited access” files can be found in this database called “Sentinel Gold,” per the guide.<path d="M2.53001 7.81595C3.49179 4.73911 6.43281 2.5 9.91173 2.5C13.1684 2.5 15.9537 4.46214 17.0852 7.23684L17.6179 8.67647M17.6179 8.67647L18.5002 4.26471M17.6179 8.67647L13.6473 6.91176M17.4995 12.1841C16.5378 15.2609 13.5967 17.5 10.1178 17.5C6.86118 1...
Transcribe →50 Years of Secrets: Why You Should Care About the FBI's 'Prohibited Access' Files
Mar 6Tap to summarizeFormer CIA Director William Colby dubbed the “Family Jewels” the “skeletons in the CIA’s closet.”The Middle East is on fire, the planet on the verge of world war, the Homeland Security director just ousted. It’d hard to pay attention to anything else. Still, if you want to know why news that the FBI has begun to turn over long-concealed “prohibited access” files to Congress might matter, just ask Seymour Hersh.Fifty-two years ago, on December 21, 1974, the famed muckraker printed “Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents In Nixon Years” in the New York Times. Hersh disclosed that “intelligence files on at least 10,000 American citizens were maintained by a special unit of the C.I.A.,” and spoke of “evidence of dozens of other illegal activities.” These misdeeds were part of a trove of dirty secrets in the CIA’s past that came to be known as the agency’s “Family Jewels.” Some sources Racket spoke with this week recalled the case in conjunction with news about the discovery of a cache of secret files at the FBI.The “Family Jewels” story came to the surface after press reports of potential CIA involvement in the Watergate scandal. The news led then-director James Schlesinger to sign a May 1973 directive mandating that subordinates compile files on all material that “might be construed to be against the legislative charter of the agency.”<div cl...
Transcribe →EXCLUSIVE: The FBI's Secret Stash Finally Uncovered
Mar 6Tap to summarizeA Federal Bureau of Investigation task force has begun excavating the separate set of books FBI keeps using an inaccessible “prohibited access” file designation, according to multiple government sources. Though an internal fight over how to handle the files continues, embattled FBI Director Kash Patel has assigned personnel to examine decades of hidden history, Racket News has learned, with some files already turned over to Congress.“This is it — the deep state,” one of the sources said.Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, whose work with whistleblowers and pressure across years was key to prying prohibited access files loose, expressed cautious optimism. “If it weren’t for whistleblower disclosures to my office, the very existence of the FBI using ‘Prohibited Access’ files for some investigations would have remained in the dark,” he said. “I’ve asked Attorney General Bondi and Director Patel to turn over certain Prohibited Access records to Congress. I’ve received some, but am still waiting on others. I urge the DOJ and FBI to keep digging – which previous administrations apparently didn’t make any effort to do – so that the facts can come to light. The FBI’s secret stash of records is scandalous.” Files given a prohibited access designation are not merely secret. They are “ghosts” which “do not exist,” records rigged to return false negatives when searched for in the FBI’s SENTINEL system. They’re digital descendants of paper records that as far back as Richard Nixon’s presidency were kept in locked offices, accessible to just a few officials, typically at the deputy director level and above. Currently, the number of people with the ability to access the files can be counted on one hand.The implications of the nation’s chief federal law enforcement and counter-intelligence organization having kept a separate, non-searchable filing system are mind-boggling.“It’s not like turning over a rock and finding a few bugs,” said retired FBI Supervisory Analyst George Hill. “It’s like turning over a manhole and finding a whole city.”“You don’t run a Constitutional republic on secret files,” added legal analyst Margot Cleveland.A current government source said the prohibited access designation is “literally designed to hide files from Congress and from the FBI itself. It’s really frigging bad.”Off-books surveillance and “disruption” of political figures in the Arctic Frost and Trump-Russia investigations comprise part of the find, but the files extend at least as far back as 1999, across Democratic and Republican Party presidencies, involving as many as a thousand distinct case numbers. There are no rules for passing access to the system from one administration to the next. Instead, operation of prohibited access files is described as an oral tradition passed down among senior FBI officials, independent of agents below and political appointees above in Congress and even the White House. Here’s how the files came to light:Subscribe now Read more
Transcribe →Introducing: Who's That Source?
Mar 4Tap to summarizeIllustration by Daniel MedinaJeff Gerth, Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter and decades-long denizen of the front page, puts it this way. “The job of any journalist,” he says, “before you quote somebody, should be to see what their track record is. And if you’re going to call them an expert, explain why they’re an expert, don’t just say they teach at Harvard.”Enter Who’s That Source? The new Racket feature goes a step beyond sites like Influence Watch, OpenSecrets, Nonprofit Explorer, MapLight, and others. Not only will we tell you whose money is behind a source quoted in the New York Times or Fox, we’ll check the track records of people called “experts,” highlight mispredictions, and compute a source’s “shill factor” — the percentage chance that the “expert opinion” is a politically predetermined conclusion. Has this Republican-funded organization ever criticized a Republican? Is this “follow the science” environmental group really a Democratic Party campaign committee?Why this feature now? A large portion of what’s consumed as journalism is a pure partisan product, with ex-politicians reading out “news” stuffed with “facts” produced by de facto political action committees. Worse, the habit of relying on paid political mouthpieces comes at a time when stylistically, editors have less shame about presenting an “Experts Say” headline as a news event, when it’s really an op-ed or de facto advertisement. Some sites are shameless enough to shove “Experts Say” headlines into print without telling you which experts — a bottom-of-barrel sourcing technique we call “The Full Windbag.” Racket News is 100% reader-supported. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Source problems come in all shapes and sizes. After the 2008 financial crash, news outlets frequently cited financial “experts” who’d whiffed on housing market predictions or required multibillion-dollar bailouts, without mentioning their records. Nearly every major news firm ran aground on 2016 electoral predictions (“The entire comme...
Transcribe →Activism, Uncensored: The War In Iran
Mar 4Tap to summarizeIt didn’t take long for the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran to spur both protests and celebrations. Left groups including the ANSWER Coalition, 50501, and CODEPINK quickly united Saturday for emergency protests in several cities. Ford Fischer of News2Share filmed one demonstration in Washington, D.C., where the crowd’s anger was directed as much at Israel as President Donald Trump.Racket News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.At 4:37 p.m., Trump announced that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed. People gathered to celebrate where protesters had been just two hours earlier.Both events are part of the Activism, Uncensored video above, along with a follow-up rally Monday night by the same coalition that organized Saturday’s emergency protests. - Greg Collard, Managing Editor
Transcribe →THE SWAMP LOG - The March To War, A President Deposed, Bigger in Texas
Mar 2Tap to summarize(This art by Daniel Medina was commissioned by Emily on Feb. 26, when she foolishly thought the Clintons’ depositions about Epstein would be the biggest news of the weekend)PRESENTED BY: Racket Readers Like You. Morning newsletters set the narrative of Washington’s bloodthirsty lobbies, sclerotic politicians and tyrannical bureaucrats in copy as stale as the air in a Senate cloakroom. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Presenting The Swamp Log, a product that demystifies Washington. We’re not insiders trading elite knowledge for a price. We’re out to prove that with public resources and a mind uncluttered by Washington’s toxic conventional wisdom, anyone can understand this town. - Emily Kopp, Editor-In-Chief Read more
Transcribe →Timeline: The March To War With Iran
Mar 1Tap to summarizeIsraeli air defense systems intercepted and destroyed missiles. (Photo by Gazi Samad/Anadolu via Getty Images)President Donald Trump and top surrogates of his 2024 campaign — people like JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard — said “America First” means sidestepping the quicksand of foreign intervention and stanching the flow of Americans’ blood and money to faraway conflicts in which they have no obvious stake. Or did it actually signify a Great Power willing to exert influence for itself and its ally Israel by dispensing with all-but-imaginary international law and the pearl clutching of academics and middle powers about a rules-based international order?Prescribing what to think about the U.S.-Israel mission would violate our own. But you should have all the facts.Racket News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Some may dispute the choice to begin this timeline in February 2025, rather than in 2024 when the Department of Justice revealed a plot by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to assassinate Trump; or in 2018, when the first Trump administration ripped up the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA); or in 490 BC, when the Persians battled the Athenians. But every timeline must have some discrete start date, and ours was chosen for simple practicality. Trump’s announcement of the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei provides the other bookend. - Emily Kopp, Editor-In-Chief<img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_JQ6!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3ea28bf-2944-4339-8580-b2a483834ecf_4096x2731.jpeg" width="1456" height="971" data-attrs="{"src":"https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/c3ea28bf-2944-4339-8580-b2a483834ecf_4096x2731.jpeg","srcNoWatermark":null,"fullscreen":null,"imageSize":null,"height":971,"width":1456,"resizeWidth":null,"bytes":null,"alt":"Image","title":null,"type":null,"href":null,"belowTheFold":false,"topImage":false,"internalRedirect":null,"isProcessing":false,"align":null,"offset":false}" class="sizing-normal" alt="Image" title="Image" srcset="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_JQ6!,w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3ea28bf-2944-4339-8580-b2a483834ecf_4096x2731.jpeg 424w, https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_JQ6!,w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc3ea28bf-2944-4339-8...
Transcribe →Gone Fishin’: How The FBI Can Spend Years Trying To Hook You
Feb 27Tap to summarizeArt by Daniel MedinaEDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third story in a series on FBI assessments, and you can read the first and second installments here. The FBI watches law-abiding Americans with few limits and may share its dirty dossiers with whomever it chooses using a little-known investigative tool called “assessments,” records obtained by Racket News show.The G-Men often fish for criminal behavior for years — much longer than the FBI has publicly indicated — and still get skunked, catching nothing to substantiate any criminal investigation on their limitless lines. Here’s how assessments work: The feds collect information for to-be-determined investigations with warrantless surveillance, confidential informants, and examinations of targets — no court order needed. Agents do not need to suspect a crime occurred, much less have evidence, before opening one. FBI memos obtained by the Cato Institute through a Freedom of Information of Act lawsuit and shared exclusively with Racket show a pattern: Agents predict with high confidence they’ll catch lawbreaking, spend years lying in wait for their caper, then quietly shelve the whole thing with little to show for their time.And the intel collected in assessments of Americans need not stay in the file cabinets of the FBI’s tidy offices. The feds can share their gossipy contents with interested partners just so long as they explain with care their own ineffectiveness in doing any actual law enforcement, the documents show. Your federal permanent record, with Uncle Sam in the role of hovering schoolmarm. Read more
Transcribe →