Who funds presidential campaigns and what do they want in return? CIR set out to answer those questions in investigating big donors to the 1992 race between Bill Clinton and George Bush in the PBS “Frontline” documentary, “The Best Campaign Money Can Buy.” Now, 20 years later, producer Stephen Talbot recalls what CIR uncovered and what we can expect […]

Congress has called for further investigation of the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis following a Center for Investigative Reporting examination that found the outfit has done little to add to or improve the nation’s intelligence data. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month directed the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ […]

This story appears in the current Green Report on TheAtlantic.com. Photo courtesy Rene Schwietzke/Flickr Planes flying over the North Atlantic, where the Arctic and Caribbean air currents collide, are generally accustomed to heavy turbulence. But there is something new happening in that airspace that is creating profound turbulence on the ground: The EU is now […]

The bulk of the marijuana consumed in the United States used to come across the border from Mexico, Canada and elsewhere. Now, more than half of it is believed to be home-grown in California, where an enormous black market has emerged under the cover of the state’s medical marijuana law. With more than a third […]

  Congress has included $193 million worth of earmarks in budget proposals for the Department of Homeland Security’s 2011 fiscal year, despite earlier promises when it was formed to keep out such pork-barrel spending and a measure approved by the Senate this summer that would explicitly ban some of them. Led by Rep. David Price […]

Congress earmarked more than $450 million in taxpayer money for homeland security purposes between the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years, according to the analysis conducted by the Center for Investigative Reporting. Critics say that at best, earmarks frequently ignore procedures designed by the federal government to ensure taxpayer funds are well spent. At worst, they’re […]

When Jerry Brown was governor three decades ago, his staff was instructed to give special access to dozens of confidants whose requests were supposed to be routed straight to Brown, administrative records show. READ FULL STORY | DOCUMENTS | POLITICS VERBATIM |

A 30-foot trailer costing $54,000 in Hinsdale County, Colo., “did not appear to have been used” four years after it was purchased with federal grants. New mobile radios sat in storage there for nearly a year. A set of night-vision goggles went missing and has never been relocated. Elsewhere, the city of Denver overlooked a […]

Prosecutors called it “chilling” and “shocking.” A high-ranking official in the Detroit, Mich., office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement named Roy Bailey was responsible for supervising the custody and transportation of detainees facing deportation proceedings. But Bailey allegedly used his authority to establish a crooked and lawless world where two kinds of people existed: “those […]