Our public contract
No trust
required.
Our authority comes from records you can inspect, conclusions that do not outrun them, and visible last-updated dates.
01
The charter
Direct without contempt.
We will not protect readers from warranted discomfort. We will not attack readers for prior political support. Public figures, institutions, and their claims are the subjects—not the voter.
We do not manufacture balance when evidence is asymmetric. We do present the strongest good-faith explanation and say what remains unknown.
02
The evidence ladder
Know what kind of claim you are reading.
Directly supported by primary records or multiple independent records.
The evidence favors the claim, with material limitations disclosed.
The record cannot support a responsible directional conclusion.
Reliable evidence conflicts with the claim or its material premise.
03
The hypocrisy test
A label must be earned.
- What standard did the subject clearly articulate?
- Were the later circumstances materially comparable?
- Did the subject apply a different standard?
- What explanation did the subject offer?
- Does that explanation reconcile the positions?
- What changed in incentives, affiliation, or power?
04
The “everyone does it” test
Comparable—or a distraction?
- Name the other person and the specific act. “The left” is not a receipt.
- Compare the same category: payment to payment, lie to lie, vote to vote, charge to charge.
- Match scale, timing, authority, intent evidence, and legal status.
- Do not trade an adjudicated fact on one side for an allegation on the other.
- Ask whether the comparison answers the original conduct or merely changes the subject.
- If the parallel is real, publish it and apply the same standard.
05
The swamp test
Judge the machinery, not the slogan.
We test whether leaders who promised to defeat insider rule instead reproduced its machinery: family enrichment, concentrated patronage, paid access, secrecy, self-dealing, selective prosecution, or immunity for allies.
None of those labels is automatic. Each requires a defined transaction, decision, beneficiary, public standard, and evidence ceiling. Criminality is one possible finding—not the minimum threshold for public accountability.
06
Updates
Every page is dated.
Every case displays the date on which its public record was last materially reviewed. New documents, changed totals, later rulings, and source upgrades move that date.
Every case also names the evidence that would change its conclusion. Research history and editorial review remain in version control; the public page shows only the current evidence, its limits, and its last-updated date.
07
Independence
Research is not publication.
Investigative systems may provide immutable evidence packages. This publication independently verifies material claims, chooses what to cover, writes its own verdicts, and decides whether to publish.
Automated tools may assist discovery. They do not approve claims or publish stories.