Tag: seattle ethics and elections commission

City Council

At Ethics Meeting, Moore Says Changing Ethics Code Will Improve Representation and “Transparency”
Kate Rubin from Be:Seattle testifies before the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission.

By Erica C. Barnett

In advance of today’s meeting to discuss legislation to weaken conflict-of-interest rules for the City Council, the Seattle Ethics Elections Commission met Wednesday afternoon to discuss the implications the changes will have, if they pass.

The proposal, by Councilmember Cathy Moore, would eliminate a requirement in the city’s ethics code that council members recuse themselves from voting on matters in which they have a personal financial interest. Instead, council members—alone among all city officials—could simply disclose that they have a financial conflict before voting.

The change, if it passes, will go into effect just as the council is getting ready to vote on another piece of legislation from Moore that would roll back or alter tenant protections passed by the previous city council, including moratoria on winter and school-year evictions, a maximum $10 fee for late rent, and changes to the so-called “roommate law,” which allows tenants to take on new roommates as long as they go through a screening process after moving in (the law also allows any immediate family member, including people a tenant is dating or has dated in the past, to move in without any screening.)

The vote is likely to be contentious. Two councilmembers, Mark Solomon and Maritza Rivera, own rental propery and could be disqualified from voting under the current rules.

A dozen public commenters, including many who crowded into the small Seattle Municipal Tower conference room where the commission meets, spoke out against the proposal. Several mentioned that this was the first time they had ever offered public comment on any subject.

“For the past 45 years, elected officials in Seattle have been required to recuse themselves from votes involving financial conflicts of interest,” Kate Rubin, the co-director of Be:Seattle, said. “Voters elected this council with the understanding that those rules would still apply. Changing them mid term is a clear violation of the public’s trust. Disclosure is not accountability.”

Commissioner Zach Pekelis said he was concerned that the latest draft of Moore’s legislation differs from the one the commission considered back in March, a modified recusal bill that said that a financial conflict was not a conflict “if the prohibited financial interest is no greater or less than that of other members of the same profession, occupation, class, or group affected by the legislative matter.” That legislation also effectively replaced the recusal requirement with simple disclosure.

Moore, who attended the meeting virtually, said the reason she proposed eliminating the recusal requirement was “so that people who were elected to represent particular voices that are sometimes a minority in the city are not disenfranchised” by having to abstain from issues where they have a financial conflict of interest. (This caused many of the public commenters in the room to scoff loudly).

“I just want to be clear,” Moore continued, “that I, too, share the concerns that [elected officials] should not be there for personal gain, but we also have to balance that with making sure that all voices are heard and people are not disenfranchised.”

Moore struggled, she said, to address this “disenfranchisement” issue in her legislation, and ultimately decided to go with a “full disclosure” model (which she argued could increase “the amount of sunshine and transparency”) instead of requiring council members to abstain when legislation would help or harm them financially. Moore added that if the legislation passes, the council will count on the public to keep them honest.

“As seen here today, we have very proactive, active voices in the city who have no compunction, nor should they, about holding their elected officials accountable.”

The council’s governance committee will take up Moore’s proposal at 2:00 Thursday afternoon. On Wednesday afternoon, Councilmember Dan Strauss issued a statement in his newsletter opposing the changes. “We are just over 100 days into the Trump administration,” Strauss wrote. “We are seeing in real time what happens when our elected officials are not held to the highest ethical standard. As people in power continue to cross ethical red line after red line, now is not the time for the Seattle City Council to roll back its ethics laws.”

Responding to similar complaints at Wednesday’s meeting, Moore said, “Yeah, we have to be aware of what’s happening at a federal level. But in some ways, the greatest way to continue to have trust in local government is for local government to be effective, for local government to be able to actually solve problems.”

City Council, Renters

The Most Common Reason for Past City Council Recusals: Owning Rental Property

By Erica C. Barnett

As the city council considers eliminating the requirement that council members recuse themselves from matters in which they have a financial interest—a change that would, at the very least, eliminate pressure for landlords Maritza Rivera and Mark Solomon to sit out an upcoming vote to roll back laws that help tenants avoid eviction—we took a look back at the other times city council members have recused themselves in the past.

Currently, the city’s ethics code requires all city employees, including city council members, to recuse themselves from taking action on anything that would present a financial conflict. (The code also requires employees to disclose other potential conflicts to the head of the city’s Ethics and Elections Commission).

As we’ve reported, it has been extremely rare for city council members to recuse themselves because of financial conflicts in the past; looking through a list of past “disqualifications” maintained by the City clerk, we found nine potential examples of such recusals between 2001 and 2025. (The numbers are not exact because, in some cases, the disclosure form explaining the reasons for the recusal was not available online).

In addition to those recusals, there were dozens of examples in which council members sat out votes because they had a direct interest (such as when a council member was getting an appointment and didn’t want to vote for himself or herself) or when the interest was direct but not financial, such as several instances in which then-councilmember Bruce Harrell sat out votes that would benefit the University of Washington because his wife Joanne was on the school’s Board of Trustees.

What’s interesting about the council’s past financial conflicts—and is directly relevant to the timing of the proposal to loosen the city’s ethical standards for council members—is that most of them involved legislation that would benefit or harm council members directly because of property they owned, including rental properties.

If the ethics changes, sponsored by Councilmember Cathy Moore, pass quickly, Solomon and Rivera will be under no official obligation to abstain on legislation Moore plans to introduce in the next few weeks that would alter the city’s landlord-tenant rules.

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According to multiple sources familiar with internal deliberations on the plan, Moore’s bill would eliminate the winter and school-year eviction moratoria, raise the minimum fee for late rent from $10 to $50, and repeal a law requiring landlords to allow renters to add new roommates to their lease without asking permission first.

Landlords and property owners on the city council haven’t always recused themselves from voting for (or against) their own interests. But they also have done so, with some regularity. In 2013 and 2018, for example, then-councilmember Sally Bagshaw sat out votes establishing new taxes for property owners near the waterfront and downtown, respectively, citing the fact that she lives in the area and would have to pay both taxes (which were approved).

Harrell and former councilmember Mike O’Brien recused themselves from multiple votes on the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance (RRIO), which requires landlords to register their rentals with the city and allow regular inspections, because they were both landlords at the time (according to campaign finance reports, Harrell no longer owns any rental property.)

Jan Drago, who lived in Pioneer Square, also recused herself from legislation that allowed more density in her neighborhood. (This was in the era before district elections, which pretty much sent that sort of recusal out the window.)

And Jean Godden and Tom Rasmussen recused themselves from voting on a deal with Triad Development that was supposed to build a 650,000-square-foot office and residential tower in the hole in the ground across from City Hall (stop by that block sometime if you want to know how that project went), although public records and media coverage from the time don’t indicate why (and I don’t remember.)

And, of course, Tanya Woo (very reluctantly) recused herself from a vote on legislation that would have lowered the minimum wage for “gig” delivery workers, because she and her husband own a restaurant. Woo’s family also owns an apartment building that provides affordable housing under a tax-credit program.

In those cases, council members’ recusals didn’t affect the vote. But they could in the case of Moore’s rental housing legislation, which faces stiff opposition from tenant advocates (add tenants themselves). If the new law was in place now, Rivera and Solomon (who own a single rental apartment each and earn between $0 and $29,999 a year from rental income, according to their campaign finance reports), would only have to disclose their conflicts, rather than determining with Ethics and Elections whether they’re conflicted out. Without their votes, the legislation would face a tougher path to passage.

The city also keeps records of city officials’ conflict-of-inflict disclosures, which include everything from personal or family relationships (as when Harrell appointed his niece, Monisha Harrell, as senior deputy mayor) to business ownership (Council President Sara Nelson disclosed her ownership stake in Fremont Brewing, but did not recuse herself, during a vote on the city’s maritime-industrial land use policy.)

Most of these documents are straightforward descriptions of a potential appearance of conflict. One, though, is the exact opposite: A defensive letter from Rob Saka, who added $1.5 million to last year’s budget to turf the field where his kids play, and Saka coaches, Little League.

Saka began his “disclosure” by noting that he was only making it because he recently “became aware of certain criticism from a member of the public that there was an alleged appearance of a conflict of interest” in his budget add.

Saka goes on to cite “numerous calls for more turf playfields from members of the public” and an “extensive consultation process” that just happened to conclude that the field where Saka coaches his kids was the best candidate for a new turf field. Also last year, Saka set aside $2 million to remove a road divider that prevented drivers from making a left turn across a double yellow line into the preschool his kids attended, which he compared to Trump’s border wall.

City Council, labor, Uncategorized

“I Will Accept Whatever You Think is Best”: Woo Says She’ll Recuse Herself From Gig Worker Wage Vote

By Erica C. Barnett

The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission declined to take action Wednesday afternoon on a request for a second opinion from City Council Tanya Woo, who asked the full commission to reconsider Ethics director Wayne Barnett’s recommendation that she recuse herself from voting on a bill that would roll back minimum wage guarantees for gig delivery workers. Woo’s family, including her husband and father-in-law, owns Kau Kau Barbecue, a restaurant that uses Doordash and other delivery services.

Delivery app companies have spent months lobbying for legislation, sponsored by Council President Sara Nelson, that would reduce the minimum amount they have to pay their workers by requiring workers to pay for expenses such as employer-side taxes and mandatory insurance and business costs such as maintenance, business insurance, and gas.

After the law went into effect, most delivery companies added a $5 surcharge to every order, reducing order volume overnight in what many drivers viewed as an attempt to turn customers against the new minimum wage. Nelson’s legislation would reduce drivers’ hourly wages to Seattle’s legal minimum, $19.97 an hour; accounting for expenses, drivers and labor advocates say that works out to a sub-minimum wage of around $13 an hour.

Barnett recommended that Woo recuse herself from an upcoming vote repealing parts of the minimum-wage legislation, known as the PayUp law, because the city’s ethics law bars city officials from participating in “matters,” such legislation, when they or a close family member has a financial stake in an entity that will be impacted by that matter. Woo asked for a second opinion from the commission, which effectively let Barnett’s recommendation stand.

On Wednesday, Woo said Kau Kau (“a small neighborhood restaurant in the Chinatown International District” and “a legacy business,” Woo said) had seen a steep decline in small orders after companies added the $5 surcharge, but that large orders had increased, minimizing the financial impact of the price increase. “I believe that the small business benefit is unclear, and that it’s an indirect connection, basically, because if this legislation were to go through, it’s unclear… whether there’d be more sales or less sales,” Woo said.

Commissioners’ comments were split. Zach Pekelis, a litigation partner at Pacifica Law Group, said he didn’t think “anyone in these circumstances could reasonably conclude that her vote is going to be based on a questionable, and potentially quite, small pecuniary interest of her in-laws and … husband.”

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But Richard Shordt, a senior attorney at T-Mobile’s compliance and ethics division, said he believed Woo’s family ownership of a restaurant that uses delivery services “presents a pretty clear conflict of interest.” After the commission tabled Woo’s request without taking action, Woo thanked them for their comments, adding, “I will accept whatever you think is best.”

The council could consider the partial repeal of PayUp as soon as next Tuesday, but it’s unclear whether, without Woo, Nelson has the five votes she’ll need to pass her legislation. Last week, six councilmembers voted to forestall a vote on Nelson’s bill until a later date, with Woo recusing herself and Tammy Morales and Dan Strauss saying the council should vote on the legislation right away.

City Council, Elections

Campaign Fizz: The Case of the Carbon-Copy Mailers

1. Elliott Bay Neighbors and University Neighbors, two independent expenditure groups funded by local real estate developers and Republican donors, including Trump 2020 contributor George Petrie, sent out mailers supporting District 1 city council candidate Rob Saka and District 4 candidate Maritza Rivera. The identically worded mailers include the same factual errors about the history of homelessness in Seattle.

One one side, the Saka/Rivera mailers both promise “[Saka/Rivera] is endorsed by people you know and trust,” followed by a quote from a supporter (Community Police Commission member Harriett Walden and Attorney General Bob Ferguson, respectively) and a snippet of the Seattle Times’ endorsement for that candidate.

On the flip side, both feature the headline “After years of failure on homelessness…” followed by a list of six points in time (plus “2023: UTTER FAILURE”) that are supposed to represent that failure.

The timeline—whose only job is to be a timeline—includes two dates that are wrong. Mayor Ed Murray declared a homelessness emergency in 2015, not 2016, and the JumpStart payroll tax (“additional taxes for housing”) passed in 2020, not 2021. Perhaps more substantively, Murray’s declaration, King County’s Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness; the “failure” of that plan; and the establishment of the original Nickelsville encampment have nothing to do with the city council; they were the responsibility of Ed Murray, King County, King County, and a group of unsheltered people, respectively.

Although the mailer describes JumpStart as “additional taxes for housing,” the fund was (pretty famously) crippled in its first few years as former mayor Durkan and current Mayor Harrell used it to backfill shortfalls in other spending areas, and does not exclusively pay for housing.

According to campaign finance reports, the mailers were designed by a consultant in Wisconsin.

Direct campaign donations are limited in Seattle, but independent political committees can spend unlimited amounts supporting or opposing candidates and ballot measures. Two of the chief supporters of the pro-Saka and -Rivera campaigns, George Petrie (and his wife Alyssa) and John Goodman, contributed a total of $190,000 to a pro-Bruce Harrell campaign and $100,000 to Compassion Seattle, the unfunded shelter and encampment-clearing mandate that a judge struck from the ballot for going beyond the scope of a local initiative.

2. Stephen Brown, the founder of Eltana Bagels and a candidate for City Council Position 1 (West Seattle), reported spending $33,577 to reimburse Eltana for billboards and mailers that appeared to promote Brown’s campaign. The mailers read “Seattle Deserves Better…—Stephen Brown” on the outside and opened to reveal an offer for $25 in free bagels. Brown maintained that the billboards and mailers, along with a Youtube video that concluded, “Stephen Brown fixed the bagel problem in Seattle—who knows what’s next?” had nothing to do with his campaign.

The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission disagreed, sending Brown a list of questions about the ads and warning him that his campaign could no longer access public funding if he did not “resolve this issue.”

Had Brown not resolved the issue by paying for the ads, the ethics commission could’ve added his official campaign mailers to the pile of evidence suggesting the Eltana ads were meant to support his campaign. The design of the Vote Stephen Brown ad is extremely similar to the Eltana ad, from the fonts to the striking deep-purple-and-yellow color scheme to the photos of bagels to the choice of fonts.

3. Saka, who is one of Brown’s competitors, has asked the elections commission to lift spending limits for his campaign, arguing that Brown understated the true value of the ads and mailers and has actually spent more than the $93,750 limit for candidates using the city’s democracy voucher program. The ethics commission will hold a meeting tomorrow to consider his request.

UPDATE: Turns out our prediction (that the commission wouldn’t grant Saka’s request because they had already accepted a $33,000 estimate for the Eltana billboards and mailers) was wrong: The commission voted to grant the request on Thursday, agreeing with Saka’s campaign that the Brown campaign should have included the full value of all the money Eltana spent advertising bagels/Brown citywide, and not just in District 1.

During a lengthy discussion, commission director Wayne Barnett argued that it wouldn’t make much sense to advertise a West Seattle campaign in, say, Ballard. Commissioner Zach Pekelis, an attorney at Pacific Law Group, countered that ordinarily “we don’t think of campaign expendtures being discounted based on the efficacy or the inefficacy of the campaign expenditure,” and noted that if a District 1 campaign directly spent money on ads in another district, it “would definitely count” as a campaign expense.

Elections, LGBTQ+

Candidate Says Bagel Giveaway Is Strictly Business; Big Business PACs Back Harrell-Allied Candidates; “Books Unbanned” Still Open to Minors In Library Book Ban States

1. Stephen Brown, the president of Eltana Bagels and a candidate for City Council in District 1 (West Seattle), said a mailer emblazoned “Seattle Deserves Better… – Stephen Brown” that included an offer for free bagels was just a routine promotional pitch for his local wood-fired bagel chain, not a campaign expenditure.

The flyer (which opens to the word “Bagels!”) offers a half-dozen free bagels and a “spread of your choice”—a “more than $25 value!” to anyone who comes in to either of Eltana’s two locations, which are both located outside District 1. In small print below the offer, the mailer says the offer expires at the end of August and has “no cash value.”

Contacted by email, Brown said the flyers were part of Eltana’s routine direct-marketing strategy and went out “to various addresses in the city that are close to retail grocery stores selling Eltana bagels. … As part of its promotions, Eltana regularly gives bagels away in an effort to garner trial and acquire customers.”

“The intention was to use a banal, stereotypical message as a parody—to use humor to sell bagels,” Brown added.

“This effort is not a campaign expense—it is not electoral in nature.” —District 1 city council candidate Stephen Brown

Eltana has also purchased four billboards, including at least one in West Seattle, prominently featuring Brown’s name.

“Eltana has never bought billboards in the past but the incredibly low price for billboards this summer ($1000 a month) made this promotional offer too attractive for Eltana to pass up,” Brown said. “We have used me, as the founder, in the past to promote Eltana[.] …. This effort is not a campaign expense—it is not electoral in nature.”

If the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission determines that the mailers, giveaway, or billboards do promote Brown’s candidacy, the campaign would be in violation of Seattle election law, which bars candidates who participate in the democracy voucher program (as Brown is) from accepting more than $300 in cash or in-kind contributions from any campaign donor. The commission declined to comment.

Brown said “the campaign will not be reporting on the performance of the Eltana trial promotion,” as “the offer is made and distributed by Eltana, is city wide, and doesn’t promote any candidate for public office nor does it mention any elections or geography.”

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2. A developer-funded independent expenditure campaign poured more than $27,000 into the effort to elect Maritza Rivera—whose campaign focuses on hiring more police—to City Council District 4, where urbanist Ron Davis is the other top contender.

“University Neighbors Committee” received its largest donations from developers John Goodman and George Petrie—two frequent Republican donors who bankrolled the failed Compassion Seattle campaign and poured $150,000 into the political committee that helped elect Bruce Harrell in 2021. The other donors backing the pro-Rivera PAC include developer Jordan Selig, developer Martin Smith, developer Matt Griffin, and Amazon bigwig David Zapolsky.

The PAC’s first pro-Rivera mailer says that as a parent of a child at Ingraham High School, where a 17-year-old was shot last year, she “decided to run for city council because our current council isn’t doing enough to keep us safe. “If voters elect Rivera, the mailer promises, they’ll get “More cops. Better training. Faster response times”—Rivera has said wants to reduce Priority 1 911 response times to five minutes, which would require hiring hundreds more officers—a goal SPD has acknowledged isn’t realistic—and making Seattle the exception to a nationwide trend.

The exact same group of donors has contributed more than $32,000 to the “Elliott Bay Neighbors” PAC supporting Rob Saka—another Harrell-allied candidate—in District 1 (West Seattle).

If you’ve seen any mailers and want to send them our way, email erica@publicola.com. 

3. Earlier this month, the state of Mississippi effectively banned people under 18 from accessing e-books or audiobooks through any of its public libraries—part of the growing trend of book bans and other restrictions aimed at preventing young people from accessing information about gender, sexuality, race, and anything else Republican lawmakers consider objectionable.

The law requires vendors of digital materials like Libby and Hoopla to ensure that no minors can access anything the state deems “sexually explicit,” which includes everything from textbooks that include human anatomy sketches to “descriptions [of] homosexuality or lesbianism.”

Seattle Public Library spokeswoman Laura Gentry said the library will continue to offer Seattle library cards to people with Internet access living in Mississippi, whose ban on online materials for minors only extends to public and school libraries in that state, through its Books Unbanned program. Currently, she said, the program has 17 participants from Mississippi, including a 23-year-old teacher who submitted this comment: 

“Living in Mississippi, a lot of books with vital information/stories/perspectives are banned or being banned. Being a Black woman in the city with the highest population of Black people, I know how important it is for us to protect our history. Also, being a teacher, I see how certain books being banned has already affected the younger generation. There is a lot that they don’t know and may never know so it’s extremely helpful to have access to this catalog.”

homelessness, Mayor Harrell, Morning Fizz, Police

“Authentic” Harrell Doubles Down, Public Safety Director Myerberg Reassigned, Baseless Complaint Claims PubliCola Engaged in Pro-Cop “Quid Pro Quo”

1. Mayor Bruce Harrell doubled down yesterday on comments he made during a Seattle Police Department roll call that were subsequently leaked to Jason Rantz, a host at the conservative station KTTH, telling reporters he stood by “whatever people said I said.” According to quotes from the meeting, Harrell blamed at “inexperienced” city council members, the King County Regional Homelessness Authority, and service providers for the “mess” the city has become—calling out the KCRHA, in particular, for “working against” Harrell by publicly opposing encampment sweeps.

“I’ve been in the city my entire life. And there’s one thing about me, is I am authentic,” Harrell said. Gesturing toward his wife, Joanne, who was standing behind him, he continued, “[I’ve] been with my best friend and wife, we’ve known each other for close to four decades. By the way, she’s a tough critic. But she’s seen me say the same things over and over and over again. So it’s time to stop playing small ball. Let’s play big ball. Let’s attack racism. Let’s attack police reform. Let’s revitalize our downtown. That’s big ball.”

Harrell declined to say whether he would actually propose defunding the regional homelessness authority, which receives the bulk of its funding, about $70 million, from the city through its annual budget process. “We’ll present our budget in a few weeks, but you will see our clear recognition of a lot of the great work they are doing,” Harrell said. “You will see continued support. What I owe to the leaders in RHA is my expectations. And I think they share my concern that we have to get this work done. … I’m still very optimistic. I’m very optimistic. But I’m not going to look at any of the work we’re doing in the city through rose-colored glasses.”

Harrell has been publicly and privately critical of the KCRHA and its director, Marc Dones—complaining publicly, for example, about the agency’s request for city and county funding that would nearly double its existing budget to fund a slew of new projects. Privately, Harrell has reportedly questioned the need for the authority, which still lacks meaningful buy-in from suburban cities and is entirely funded by Seattle and King County.

On Wednesday, Harrell said removing Myerberg from his position was just part of a six-month evaluation that involved “moving people around,” but declined to say more about what Myerberg will do in his new role. “He’s still part of our strong part of our administration and literally sits 40 feet from my desk. We’re looking forward to our continuing partnership,” Harrell said.

2. Harrell’s erstwhile director of public safety, former Office of Police Accountability director Andrew Myerberg, has been reassigned to a vaguely defined new position—”director of special projects”—where he will reportedly head up efforts to get the city out from under a consent decree between the US Department of Justice and the Seattle Police Department.

Harrell has reportedly criticized Myerberg for his lack of connection to communities impacted by police policy, such as the ill-advised decision (supported by Harrell’s other chief public safety advisor, strategic initiatives director Tim Burgess) to crack down on “disorderly conduct,” including music, smoking, and shouting, at Third Avenue and Pine St. downtown.

On Wednesday, Harrell said removing Myerberg from his position was just part of a six-month evaluation that involved “moving people around,” but declined to say more about what Myerberg will do in his new role. “He’s still part of our strong part of our administration and literally sits 40 feet from my desk. We’re looking forward to our continuing partnership,” Harrell said.

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Asked what qualities he’s looking for in Myerberg’s replacement, Harrell said, “We want a person who understands constitutional policing, seven minute response times, [and is] willing to do the hard research on what’s working in other cities, issues dealing with gun regulations, just a good director of public safety.”

3. Local police accountability gadfly Howard Gale has filed a formal complaint with the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission alleging a “quid pro quo” conspiracy between me (Erica Barnett) and City Councilmember Lisa Herbold and/or the city’s Office of the Inspector General, which reviews police misconduct investigations to publish information flattering to the OIG and Herbold and, by extension, the Seattle Police Department.

The “whistleblower complaint” asserts that either Herbold or someone at the Office of Inspector General leaked a copy of a report to me, and only me, in advance, in exchange for my agreement to provide flattering coverage. My straightforward piece describing the contents of the external report, which included recommendations for avoiding improper certification of investigations into police misconduct, is here.

“I believe this is a clear ethical violation because it was done with the intent to avoid negative coverage for both the OIG and CM Herbold, and done for professional mutual benefit (quid pro quo),” the complaint says.

The only evidence for this utterly baseless claim is that Gale contacted nine unidentified “journalists” and “none can find any notice of the independent audit being released/available.”

The reality, as it often is with conspiracy theories, is much more mundane. The OIG released an embargoed copy of the report to a list of reporters, including me, on the afternoon of July 27, one day before the office released the report publicly.

An embargo is an agreement between journalists and a person or entity releasing information, such as a government agency or advocacy group, that journalists will get the information in advance in exchange for agreeing not to publish it until a certain time; such agreements are extremely common and allow journalists to absorb the information (for example, details in a technical briefing or lawsuit), ask clarifying questions, and write their stories before something gets released publicly. I may have been the only one who wrote about the report when the embargo lifted, but lack of coverage is not evidence of a conspiracy.