How I Found Myself Inside ‘The Devil’s Triangle’ Of Oppo Researchers, Democrats, And Corporate Media — And Nearly Didn’t Get Out

This is an excerpt of “The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs. the New American Stasi,” by Mark Judge, out today from Post Hill Press.

“‘Devil’s Triangle’?”

“Drinking game.”

“How is it played?”

“Three glasses… ever played quarters?

“No.”

“…It’s a quarters game.”

In this exchange can be found the entire dynamic of the train wreck that was the [Supreme Court nominee Brett] Kavanaugh hearing. Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was certain he had cornered Brett. Because Whitehouse believed the opposition research provided to the Democrats by Michael Avenatti, he believed that Brett and I were involved in gang bangs and drugging girls. When Brett tried to explain the meaning of our silly slang, it was obvious Whitehouse didn’t believe him.

For my part, I had no idea what “the Devil’s Triangle” meant. I had never heard the phrase before. It turned out to be a drinking game that some of my Prep brothers invented during a road trip. However, according to urban lore, the phrase can refer to a sexual threesome including two men and a woman. The oppo hit men accordingly conveyed to the politicians and the media that we had participated in drug-fueled gang rapes, for which we had developed a private code as though we were members of a secret society.

In reality, at least as I am using the term, the Devil’s Triangle denotes a sinister cabal of a different kind: the coordination between opposition researchers, Democratic politicians, and the media.

In “Spooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube, and the Rise of Private Spies,” journalist Barry Meier digs deep into this diabolical vortex. “Spooked” is loaded with complex detail, but the point comes down to this: With the rise of political spies and opposition researchers and the demise of reliable gatekeepers like honest reporters and editors, there are no guardrails in the media anymore. Anyone can make an outrageous and unfounded claim about anyone and, without any proof, the story can make it into the media. 

Reporters use the information they get from the spies and oppo researchers to publish uncorroborated stories. Without being fact-checked or otherwise vetted, the stories are fed directly into the media bloodstream and from there broadcast to the public. Journalists and political operatives also help create stories that they then report on as if they were observers. They take an active part in manufacturing the stories that they then report as news.

One notable recent result of this corrupt system was the Steele dossier, a piece of garbage cooked up by the Clinton-paid oppo-research firm Fusion GPS. The now-discredited dossier claimed that then-presidential candidate Donald Trump had conspired with the Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign to steal the election. It also claimed that he cavorted with Russian hookers in a Moscow hotel. The media went all in, making fools of themselves over “Russiagate” for four years.

Meier sums it up well: “Investigative journalists normally rely on court records, corporate documents and other tangible pieces of evidence. But the dossier