Like 'Hipster Grifter' meets Veep

My first investigation for The Intercept is now live.

When I created this newsletter, I thought my first post would drop within a week or two of my first investigation for The Intercept. That was before I knew what it was like to make changes to a 5000-word live document over Zoom while lawyers, editors, and fact checkers all have eyes on you. Again. And again. While sunburned.

I should have known better. I’d been pitching versions of this story – travel writer joins the Trump administration – since January 2017. Grub Street bought the original draft back in February 2018, then Town & Country in November 2019. Town & Country even hired an editor from Harper’s to clean it up. The story seemed good to go by March 2020, then the months dragged on as Election Day fast approached. Finally the features director kicked it back to me and I sold the next version to The Intercept.

Resources were stretched thin during the pandemic, and Election Day, then Inauguration Day came and went. After rewriting and fighting for this story for four years, wanting to do just one thing to say I fought injustice, it was all over. Just another kill fee. Albeit a pretty good one.

Then the subject of my story decided to run for congress in Texas. The special election is tonight. She’s the only one candidate you need to know anything about. You’ll want to know everything.

If you’ve ever taken a press trip maybe you know her. Tell me if you do.

Read the ultimate press trip story on The Intercept now.

If only for the most surreal Rihanna-Pence-Louis XIII anecdote of all time.