War crimes, government spying, climate chaos, white nationalism in the White House — if 2017 brought unwelcome developments in the world, it gave The Intercept plenty to write about with urgency and outrage. We published some 1,400 stories this year, shining a light on abuses and corruption from Washington, D.C., to the foreign battlefields of the war on terror. Here are 20 stories that are worth revisiting — or catching up on, if you missed them — as this year full of bizarre and bad news hurtles to a fitting conclusion.
The Bizarre Story Behind the FBI’s Fake Documentary About the Bundy Family
By Ryan Devereaux, Trevor Aaronson
The Crimes of Seal Team 6
By Matthew Cole
Women and Children in Yemeni Village Recall Horror of Trump’s “Highly Successful” SEAL Raid
By Iona Craig
Leaked Documents Reveal Counterterrorism Tactics Used at Standing Rock to “Defeat Pipeline Insurgencies”
By Alleen Brown, Will Parrish, Alice Speri
CIA Director Met Advocate of Disputed DNC Hack Theory — at Trump’s Request
By Duncan Campbell, James Risen
The Worst of Donald Trump’s Toxic Agenda Is Lying In Wait — a Major U.S. Crisis Will Unleash It
By Naomi Klein
The Numbers Don’t Lie: White Far-Right Terrorists Pose a Clear Danger to Us All
By Mehdi Hasan
The White Privilege of the “Lone Wolf” Shooter
By Shaun King
Donald Trump and the Coming Fall of American Empire
By Jeremy Scahill
Barry Jones Was Sent to Death Row for the Murder of a 4-Year-Old Girl. Did Arizona Get It Wrong?
By Liliana Segura
The FBI Has Quietly Investigated White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement
By Alice Speri
Trump Called Rodrigo Duterte to Congratulate Him on His Murderous Drug War: “You Are Doing an Amazing Job”
By Jeremy Scahill, Alex Emmons, Ryan Grim
The Sordid Double Life of Washington’s Most Powerful Ambassador
By Ryan Grim
More Than 400 People Convicted of Terrorism in the U.S. Have Been Released Since 9/11
By Trevor Aaronson
Gary Cohn Is Giving Goldman Sachs Everything It Ever Wanted From the Trump Administration
By Gary Rivlin, Michael Hudson
Will the Prison Rape Epidemic Ever Have Its Weinstein Moment?
By Natasha Lennard
Japan Made Secret Deals With the NSA That Expanded Global Surveillance
By Ryan Gallagher
The FBI’s Hunt for Two Missing Piglets Reveals the Federal Cover-Up of Barbaric Factory Farms
By Glenn Greenwald
A Louisiana Town Plagued by Pollution Shows Why Cuts to the EPA Will Be Measured in Illnesses and Deaths
By Sharon Lerner
Women Visiting Loved Ones Jailed at Rikers Describe a Pattern of Invasive Searches by Guards
By Raven Rakia
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
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