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Welcome back. Early this spring, an anonymous tipster wrote and asked me to look into what happened to a friend of a friend named Jeff Thomas. Today, I have the story behind the story. I’ve spent the last few months talking with sources and obtaining texts that show the tug-of-war between Peter Thiel and a group of Democrats who have been shadow-boxing with the billionaire for almost a year. It is a tale that hopefully says something about opposition-research in the digital age, the melding of politics and media, and the stakes of information warfare.
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The Stratosphere

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Welcome back.

Early this spring, an anonymous tipster wrote and asked me to look into what happened to a friend of a friend named Jeff Thomas. Today, I have the story behind the story. I’ve spent the last few months talking with sources and obtaining texts that show the tug-of-war between Peter Thiel and a group of Democrats who have been shadow-boxing with the billionaire for almost a year. It is a tale that hopefully says something about opposition-research in the digital age, the melding of politics and media, and the stakes of information warfare.

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Thiel, Brock & a Gutter Oppo Campaign for Our Times
Thiel, Brock & a Gutter Oppo Campaign for Our Times
When Peter Thiel emerged as the right’s potential heir to Sheldon Adelson during the ’22 midterms, a highly connected Democratic operative launched a guerilla opposition research campaign to chill his political influence. What happened next was sordid, and ultimately tragic, but also a telling reflection of a new era in political combat.
THEODORE SCHLEIFER THEODORE SCHLEIFER
Last October, two weeks before the midterm elections, a budding model named Jeff Thomas walked into the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel for lunch with a friend who had been working with a well-connected Democratic political operative named Jack Bury. Thomas, then 35, dabbled in real estate, the art world, and the inchoate realm of social media influencing. But his most relevant avocation was as a former boyfriend of Peter Thiel, the multi-billionaire entrepreneur and Republican mega-donor. Thomas, who first met Thiel at Coachella in 2015, lived near the hotel at a $13 million place in the Hills that Thiel had...
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Welcome back. Early this spring, an anonymous tipster wrote and asked me to look into what happened to a friend of a friend named Jeff Thomas. Today, I have the story behind the story. I’ve spent the last few months talking with sources and obtaining texts that show the tug-of-war between Peter Thiel and a […]
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