When I launched my Substack site last Monday, June 12, someone asked me, “Who the hell are you?”
Since I’m new to this—while attempting to attract the attention, respect, and trust of prospective subscribers—it’s a very legitimate question: Who the hell am I?
Even though I routinely identify myself as “a grunt crime reporter,” here is my stock answer to that question.
For most of my adult life, I worked as a fiercely independent investigative journalist who had concentrated, for the most part, on investigations of organized crime—a really stupid way to make a living. During my turbulent career—which has now yielded ten true-crime books—I was widely known as one of the most relentless freelance reporters in America.
But, refusing to take a punch without fighting back, I made nearly as many enemies as friends, burning as many bridges as I had built. Along with my probes of the Mafia, I had taken on such powerful institutions as the Teamsters Union, the National Football League, the National Rifle Association, the Los Angeles Police Department, MCA, the Reagan White House, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice, along with the U.S. Department of Education, the legal and illegal gambling communities, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Fox News, Kenneth Starr and the Office of the Independent Counsel, and both the political left and right wings, as well as a variety of politicians, white-collar criminals, and murderers.
My career-long obsession revolves around the 1975 disappearance of former Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa during which I exclusively interviewed the top suspects in the case, live and in person.
I was also the first reporter to present the case that Hoffa—along with Carlos Marcello, the boss of the New Orleans Mafia, and Santo Trafficante, the Mafia boss of Tampa—had engineered the murder of President John Kennedy in 1963, “a straight mob hit.”
A year after I revealed this in my 1978 book, The Hoffa Wars, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations released its final report, insisting that Hoffa, Marcello and Trafficante had the “motive, means and opportunity” to kill the President. The chief counsel of the committee flatly stated, “The mob did it. It’s a historical fact.”
Notably, if Allen Dulles had bothered to mention to his colleagues on the Warren Commission in 1964, “Hey guys, I should probably tell you that while I was director of the CIA, we were working with the Mafia to kill Fidel Castro,” then that stunning piece of essential information would have certainly provoked a whole new avenue of investigation. In my opinion, this omission of fact fatally corrupted the CIA, which actively covered up its relationship with the underworld—although I do not believe that the CIA played any institutional role in the killing of the President.
To be sure, I have investigated numerous conspiracies. However, I believe that any reasonable definition of “organized crime” is that it is conspiracy crime, enterprise crime, and crime by association. Conspiracies come with the territory.
My subsequent news-breaking books about the contract killing of an Ohio businessman (1983), the Mafia’s penetration of Hollywood and the corruption of Ronald Reagan (1986), and the influence of organized crime in professional football (1989) were equally controversial but also led to wider investigations.
With regard to my 1995 book about the 1968 murder of Senator Robert Kennedy, I did conclude that the LAPD had arrested the right man. However, because of all the police errors, the existing evidence gave critics of the official investigation, like me, ample opportunity to claim that the senator had been killed by a conspiracy.
In the end, twenty-seven years later, I solved that case—because, for the first time, I explained what the LAPD could not: Why the crime-scene evidence had given the illusion that two guns had been fired—when, in fact, Sirhan Sirhan, whom I interviewed extensively, had acted alone.
I later wrote equally solid books, concluding that football star O.J. Simpson had also acted alone when he allegedly killed his ex-wife and a friend of hers in 1994 and that Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster had acted alone when he committed suicide in 1993. I published those books in 1997 and 1998, respectively. The O.J. book, which I co-authored with the two lead LAPD detectives in the case, was a national bestseller.
And, in 2018, I published a first-person book about my experiences during the federal investigation of Los Angeles private investigator Anthony Pellicano, aka “The Sleuth to the Stars,” who was convicted in a federal-conspiracy trial in 2008. And, in 2020, I released my tenth book, featuring the stories of whistleblowers and their heroic work while fighting corruption in higher education.
In what many considered an act of journalistic heresy—apart from my 1990-1994 landmark libel suit against the New York Times, the newspaper that created, destroyed, and then resurrected me—I served as Larry Flynt's lead investigator for eight weeks during his highly publicized crusade to expose President Bill Clinton's enemies who had conflicting standards of private behavior for public officials: one for those they like and another for those they don’t like.
Specifically, my work for Flynt led to the dramatic resignation of U.S. House Speaker-Designate Bob Livingston on December 19, 1998—the climactic moment that derailed Republican dreams and schemes to remove the President from office.
For this, I make no apology. However, my work for Flynt represented a career-altering experience. After years as an independent investigative journalist, I began working as an independent investigative consultant who specialized in opposition research against the radical right of the Republican Party, which, to me, had become as dangerous and nefarious as the Mafia.
Nine years later, I discovered the phone number of U.S. Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana), another right-wing hypocrite, in the private telephone records of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the so-called “D.C. Madam” with whom I had worked on a book about her life and times prior to her tragic suicide in 2008.
Meantime, as a favor to a friend, a retired CIA case officer, I worked to help spring a KGB agent from a Russian prison. I was told that the KGB guy, whose life was in danger, was responsible for exposing Robert Hanssen, a top official in the FBI, as a Russian spy. I considered it my patriotic duty to help save the Russian’s life and try to win his freedom.
Yet, despite the chronic chaos and combat that has marked my career, I have worked hard to establish a solid reputation as an honest, careful, and thorough journalist, author, and investigator.
I have never missed a deadline. I have never misquoted a source. I have never taken an off-the-record quote and placed it on the record. I have never revealed a confidential source without permission from the source. Also, no one has ever sued me for any reason for anything contained in any of my books.
Joe the Boss of my own operation, I receive no weekly paycheck, no expense account, no paid vacations, and no pension or welfare plans. I will not get a gold watch when I retire. Because I never had any real business sense, I have spent most of my career overcommitted and underfinanced. And never having any real institutional protection, I have been nearly killed on no fewer than six different occasions. Inasmuch as I am neither naturally courageous nor trained to be brave, I have battled primal fear in any number of situations, trying not to freeze up.
Through all of this, I have become a very tough guy—not because I can dish it out, but because I can take it.
Here is the link to a filmed interview that Ethelbert Miller did with me about my career.
So glad to get to know you via Wayne Allen Root's latest write up concerning Trump and the stolen 2020 election and your earlier work on Mafia control of pro football wins entitled, Interference: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football. So glad you found a new outlet for your incredible writing talent!
Here is the article via thegatewaypundit.com:
WAYNE ROOT: Now It’s Official. I Know it, You Know it. Everyone Knows It. Trump’s Georgia Indictment is the Final Proof the 2020 Election Was Stolen
by Assistant Editor Aug. 15, 2023 11:34 am
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Op-ed by Wayne Allyn Root
Folks, now you know it. I know it. Everyone with a brain knows it. Even Democrats (deep down) know it. The 2020 election was stolen. The debate is over.
How do I know? Because both the feds and Georgia just indicted our President for talking about, questioning, and trying to investigate a stolen election. When the communist thugs, bullies and tyrants make it a crime to question a stolen election, in a country built around free speech, it’s 100% proof they stole the election.
There is a perfect precedent. In the NFL. The game was called “The Miracle in the Meadowlands.” Everything about that fixed game reminds me of the 2020 stolen election. It’s a perfect match.
The game was the New York Giants versus the Philadelphia Eagles on November 19, 1978. The NY Giants had it won. All the NY Giants had to do was kneel the ball and the game was over. But they decided to run one more play- for no reason. The NY Giants quarterback tried to hand the ball off. The running back refused the ball. It fell to the ground. No NY Giant wanted to pick it up. A Philadelphia Eagle player (Herm Edwards) picked the ball up with only a few seconds on the clock and ran it back untouched into the end zone. It was the most unlikely win in the history of the NFL. It became known as “the Miracle in the Meadowlands.”
But everyone with a brain…anyone who wasn’t a sheep, or complete moron…and every street-smart gambler…knew they had just witnessed a fixed game. Today everyone acknowledges it. It was a stolen football game. Philadelphia had to win, or people were going to get their legs broken. Or worse.
It wasn’t a “miracle.” It was a mafia fix. No one can prove it. But we all know. Everyone knows. Sound familiar? Sometimes you don’t need proof. You just know.
But the plot thickens. A decade later (in 1989), I became one of the youngest TV hosts and anchormen in America. I was in my twenties and hosted NFL programming for CNBC (in those days known as FNN- Financial News Network). One day I invited a famous bestselling author as a guest. His name was Dan Moldea.
Dan was famous for writing bestsellers about the mafia, political corruption and the murders of Robert F. Kennedy and Jimmy Hoffa.
In 1989 he wrote a book titled, “INTERFERENCE: How Organized Crime Influences Professional Football.” In the book he named actual fixed games. And the one he built the whole book around was “The Miracle in the Meadowlands.”
But Dan never got to appear on my show to talk about the fixed “Miracle in the Meadowlands.” My network banned him after a call from the NFL. Moldea was blackballed by the entire American mainstream media. The fix was in. His book died.
Moldea told me, “I’ve written about the murders of RFK and Jimmy Hoffa and no one ever banned me. But no one will allow me to talk about a fixed NFL football game? There’s your proof- the game was fixed by the mafia. Now we know. That’s why they won’t let me talk about it. Because it’s true.”
All these years later, it’s happening again- with the fixed and stolen 2020 presidential election. But this time there’s a new twist. It’s even worse. Because communists are far worse than the mafia.
Democrats, media and social media conspired to ban any discussion or questions about the rigged and stolen 2020 election- just like the NFL and the mafia. If you talked about it, or questioned it, you were suspended, shadow-banned, or banned for life. You were also demonized and slandered as a “conspiracy theorist.”
But no one listened. It wouldn’t go away. Just like the “Miracle in the Meadowlands” we all knew the election was rigged and stolen. Who needs proof when we have our eyes? We could not be persuaded, intimidated, or bullied. Trump would not stop talking about it either. He was like a dog with a bone. A bull in a china shop.
The bans accomplished nothing. The noise would not go away. Polls showed a huge majority of Americans believe the 2020 election was rigged.
The communist thugs started to panic. They couldn’t let Trump run for president and keep talking about a stolen election. Worse, what if he won and opened an investigation? Democrats would go to prison for life. Or worse. This was treason.
They had to act- to end this talk once and for all. To set an example. To make sure no one ever dared question any stolen election ever again- because of course, they plan on rigging and stealing 2024.
So now they’ve taken it a step further.
Now they’ve indicted and arrested Trump (and other Republicans) for free speech…for talking about a stolen election…for asking questions…for trying to investigate…in America.
Trump faces hundreds of years in prison for free speech.
So, now the mystery is gone. Now you know. When it becomes a crime to talk about a rigged and stolen election…when Democrats are so desperate one indictment is not enough, they indict Trump again and again and again and again…
That’s the final proof the election was stolen.
That’s also the final proof this is a communist takeover of America. These are the hallmarks of communist and Nazi thugs and tyrants throughout history- steal elections, weaponize government, censor and ban dissent, arrest your political opponents.
Folks, we are there.
Wayne Allyn Root is known as “the Conservative Warrior.” Watch Wayne’s TV shows- “America’s Top Ten Countdown” on Real America’s Voice TV Network on Saturdays at Noon ET…and Wayne’s daily TV show on Lindell TV 2 at 7 pm ET at FrankSpeech.com. He is also host of the nationally-syndicated “Wayne Allyn Root: Raw & Unfiltered” on USA Audio Network, daily at 6 pm ET. Wayne’s latest book is a #1 bestseller, “The Great Patriot BUY-cott Book.” You can order here: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Patriot-BUY-cott-Book-Conservative/dp/099173372X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1676215826&sr=8-1
Dan,
that's a perfect reply. Workmanlike, no crooked angles, will stand up to the elements and time. pleasure getting to know a little of who you are and looking to read more of what you write, fair winds and happy landings
Shirish