Any work of curatorial journalism is necessarily a celebration of journalism. While the very fact of curatorial journalism confirms that not all journalism is reportage, and not every journalist participates in the common activities of a reporter—accessing spaces, developing sources, perceiving what others miss, and using institutional resources to disseminate what sources relay and senses detect—curatorial journalism does use existing reportage as its unit of measure, rather than primary sources. To fully encompass the stories it pursues, it therefore relies just as much as conventional journalistic practice does on journalists, journalistic institutions, and the journalistic ethos on which both journalists and journalistic institutions depend.
That being the case, this book would not have been possible without the courageous and tireless contributions of both hardworking journalists and the ever-embattled journalistic organizations that support them. Even more than a curator, curatorial journalism requires investigative reporters of every mode and method and the media institutions around the world that give them resources and encouragement. Proof of Conspiracy was, in this sense, a team effort whose team I will never have the pleasure of meeting in full, as it includes superlative journalists from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Mother Jones, Newsweek, Time, Politico, Just Security, The Intercept, BuzzFeed News, ProPublica, Vox, the Associated Press, Reuters, McClatchy DC, Bloomberg, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the Guardian, the Independent, Le Monde, Al Jazeera, Al-Monitor, the Middle East Eye, the Lebanon Daily Star, the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and the scores of other outlets in the United States and around the world whose employees made telling this decade- and continent-spanning story possible. I wish I could name and thank each journalist upon whose work this book relies; instead, I commend to readers the online endnotes to this text, which will direct you to the best conventional reportage yet done on the most important political story of this century—certainly in the United States, and perhaps anywhere in the world.
Fortunately, many members of the team behind Proof of Conspiracy are well known to me—their endurance, their insight, their good humor, and their many erudite contributions. As ever, the foremost of all these team members is my wife, whose energies produced this book as much as my own or anyone else’s. Without my wife’s support across many difficult months, and without her wisdom and love across many years, this book would not exist. Whatever of me is in the world, including this book, runs through her. That is true now, and it will always be true.
My family and friends, as ever, abide me, for which grace—and for all they are in themselves—they have my love.
My agent, Jeff Silberman, is the kind of friend, adviser, and advocate an author dreams of finding sometime during the course of a long writing career. I am fortunate beyond deserving that we found each other so early in the Trump administration and, more broadly, in my life as a nonfiction author. Jeff has been a constant and trusted companion throughout every stage of the writing of this book.
The team at St. Martin’s Press did yeoman’s work to get this book to readers on an ambitious schedule; their stalwart commitment to this story being told is what made its telling possible. My deepest thanks to Michael Flamini, Rebecca Lang, Martin Quinn, Hannah Phillips, Jonathan Hollingsworth, Rafal Gibek, Thomas Mis, Steven Seighman, Paul Hochman, and Gwen Hawkes. I owe a great debt, as well, to the four eagle-eyed fact-checkers who scoured this book for untold hours: Liz Mazucci, Ivan Solotaroff, Kristina Rebelo, and Keith Schneider. And the inimitable Robert Petkoff has earned not just my thanks but my deep wonder and admiration for performing the audiobook edition of Proof of Conspiracy—as I know that it, like Proof of Collusion, which he also performed, is a book (length-wise, grammatically, and semantically) that would test any performer’s patience.
My thanks go out as well to those in the media who looked past the unusual method and format of Proof of Collusion and Proof of Conspiracy to see that these texts want only what we all do: for our democracy to survive the dark deeds—some done in darkness, some in broad daylight—these two books detail. I’d like to offer special thanks, therefore, to the journalists and others working in media without whom these books would not have found an audience or this author a voice: Virginia Heffernan, Scott Carter, Mary Knowles, Bill Maher, John Fugelsang, Shane Singh, Dean Obeidallah, Chelsea Braun, Mark Siegel, Aaron Gell, Andy Fitch, Christoph Scheuermann, Michael Bloch, Nat Johnson, John Vause, Alex Blasdel, Dimi Reider, Laura Davis, and the many others I have not named whose faith in curatorial journalism specifically and in innovation and investigation more broadly has been an inspiration. These generous folks—like the others working in media at the news organizations I’ve mentioned—are champions of the people who stand in the breach between America and those who would end it.
I would be remiss if I did not thank the readers of this book and its predecessor; your patience with the idiosyncrasies of each has been, I hope, rewarded. I am inspired by your curiosity, commitment, and engagement. America will need the full measure of these qualities from all its citizens in the months and years ahead.
Finally, my thanks to Natalie Mehring, Victoria Legrand, and Alex Scally for their art. It smoothed many a rough path I encountered on the way to this book’s publication, and reminded me, when I needed it, that beauty survives small men.