Thread by @amuse

LAWFARE🧵1/9: After publishing an op-ed exposing how Sergio Gor, Director of the White House PPO, sabotaged the most consequential political partnership in American history, I received a letter from Gor’s lawyer threatening to sue me for defamation.

https://x.com/amuse/status/1945669778359918919

LAWFARE🧵2/9: Sergio Gor's lawyer, Robert Garson, is demanding that I remove the op-ed from 𝕏, issue a full retraction falsely claiming the article contained false statements about Gor, and issue a prominent apology on 𝕏 and in a local newspaper expressing regret for the harm I caused Gor, including emotional distress.

LAWFARE🧵3/9: Let’s dispense with the pretense. My op-ed was built on a foundation of already published mainstream reporting, further corroborated by more than a dozen sources spanning the White House, executive agencies, and members of Mar-a-Lago. I did not, and deliberately chose not to, include any allegations that had not already entered the public domain. While some of what I uncovered through my own reporting was explosive, it was also beside the point. My objective was focused and clear: to expose how Sergio Gor sabotaged what may have been the most consequential political partnership in modern American history, between President Trump and Elon Musk.

The allegations shared with me by insiders were certainly lurid, but they were not central to the thesis of my column. So I excluded them. That’s called editorial judgment, something Gor and his lawyer seem to confuse with defamation.

In this thread, I will address the claims made in the demand letter from Mr. Gor’s attorney. I do so not because I fear legal reprisal (though if I'm honest I do), but because the truth deserves daylight. If Mr. Gor takes issue with the facts or the framing, he is welcome to make his case publicly. But let’s be clear: courts are not truth tribunals for political speech, and they were never meant to serve as censors for dissenting opinion. That belongs to the American people, not a bench and gavel.

LAWFARE🧵4/9: Gor’s lawyer, Robert Garson, opens his letter by listing passages from my op-ed that he claims are false and defamatory. That posture might impress a judge unfamiliar with recent events, but it rings hollow to anyone paying attention. It’s clear Garson hasn’t been following the headlines about his client these past few months. If he had, nothing in my op-ed would have caught him off guard.

The fact is, Sergio Gor’s behind-the-scenes campaign to sabotage Elon Musk has been extensively documented by the mainstream press, long before I published a word. The Axios piece dated June 6, 2025, titled “The White House adviser who fueled the Trump-Musk NASA feud,” co-authored by Marc Caputo, Alex Isenstadt, and Stef W. Kight, lays it out in plain English. The article confirms that Gor worked to convince President Trump to pull Jared Isaacman’s NASA nomination, exploiting Isaacman’s prior Democratic donations. It describes a “tense relationship” between Gor and Musk, including a Cabinet meeting confrontation. One White House source is quoted saying Gor “spun up the president by just constantly mentioning the donations.”

That same day, The Economic Times ran a piece titled “Inside the Musk-Trump feud: This adviser is said to have triggered the most talked-about split in politics.” It reports that Gor “blocked Elon Musk’s NASA pick Jared Isaacman,” igniting what became a very public rupture between Trump and Musk. The piece corroborates that Gor deliberately flagged Isaacman’s political contributions to tank the nomination.

Less than two weeks later, on June 19, Janna Brancolini of The Daily Beast detailed Gor’s sabotage in an article titled “Musk Savages ‘Snake’ Trump Aide as Their White House Feud Erupts.” She quotes Musk calling Gor a “snake” and identifies him as the official who persuaded Trump to pull Isaacman’s nomination, just before a Senate vote. Again, the pretext was Isaacman’s past donations to Democrats.

Then there’s The New York Post, where reporters Diana Glebova Nerozzi and Steven Nelson published a June 6 exposé titled “White House staffer went on a revenge tour against Elon Musk, fanning flames with Trump, while bragging about Tesla stock drop.” It describes Gor “harboring a personal grudge” after being humiliated by Musk, celebrating Tesla’s declining stock price, and actively lobbying Trump to kill the Isaacman nomination.

Tom Latchem of The Daily Beast published yet another account on June 6, “White House Aides Blame Trump Loyalist for Fueling Musk Feud,” where Gor is accused of repeatedly raising Isaacman’s political ties to derail his nomination.

So let’s summarize what’s been reported:

Gor made it his “mission to sabotage Musk” • both Axios and The Economic Times explicitly describe his overt efforts to undermine Musk through internal lobbying and influence campaigns.

He acted as the “leaker-in-chief” • The New York Post quotes one insider saying, “There’s just one staffer that’s in the middle of every drama, leak and chaos that exists,” referencing Gor. While no outlet formally anoints him the leaker, multiple sources document his habit of spinning narratives and feeding selective information to shape internal and external messaging.

He excluded Musk from briefings and smeared him as unreliable • Axios recounts a Cabinet-level clash in which Musk publicly humiliated Gor, after which Musk was shut out of future briefings and portrayed as “not a team player.”

He blocked critical initiatives like the NASA nomination • All sources agree: Gor tanked Isaacman’s nomination by weaponizing his political donations, a move widely seen as petty and vindictive.

He danced on the ethical line, but stopped short of illegality • While the reporting clearly frames Gor’s conduct as politically motivated, there’s no claim of unlawful disclosure of classified information. The leaks were narrative-driven, not criminal. My op-ed doesn’t allege otherwise.

In short, the core thesis of my piece, that Sergio Gor engineered the implosion of a historic alliance between Trump and Musk, isn’t just supported by evidence. It’s already a matter of public record. If Gor’s lawyer believes he can litigate his way out of the facts, he’s welcome to try (I hope he does not). But the courtroom is not a safe space for bruised egos and wounded pride.

LAWFARE🧵5/9: Gor’s lawyer presses on, dismissing the flood of mainstream reporting about his client as “baseless.” That’s a curious choice of words, given that every claim in my op-ed was grounded in previously published journalism and personally verified through multiple sources. Let me illustrate.

On July 8, 2025, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), along with Times of Malta journalist Jacob Borg, published a bombshell investigation titled “Exclusive: Top Trump Adviser Sergio Gor Was Born in the Soviet Union.” Reporters Misha Gagarin, Kevin Hall, and Borg confirmed what Gor had long refused to admit: that he was born Sergio Gorokhovsky on November 30, 1986, in Tashkent, then part of the Soviet Union, not Malta, as he had previously claimed. The article noted that Gor had dodged this question in interviews and omitted the detail from public profiles.

That same week, The Daily Beast’s Kenneal Patterson followed up with a July 8th/11th article titled “Top Trump Aide Finally Confirms He Was Born a Soviet Citizen.” In it, Gor finally admits his Soviet birth, ending years of ambiguity and confirming the OCCRP/Times of Malta findings. Patterson’s piece details how Gor, who oversees the appointments of thousands of Trump administration personnel, had actively concealed his origins until cornered by reporting.

These reports go further, uncovering a Maltese shell company created by Gor’s mother in 1994, which listed her as an Israeli national. Through this company, she purchased the family’s home in Cospicua, Malta. Then, in 2021, Gor quietly bought the same house for €255,000. From the investigation: “His mother created a Maltese company in 1994 … Through the firm, she owned a house in Cospicua … In 2021, Gor purchased that house from his mother’s company for €255,000.”

While no outlet has put Sergio Gor on a psychiatrist’s couch and diagnosed him with “imposter syndrome,” the reporting is absolutely saturated with character portraits of a man driven by envy, insecurity, and resentment. Take the New York Post’s June 6, 2025, piece by Diana Glebova and Steven Nelson. They report that Gor was “nursing a grudge” against Elon Musk after a personal humiliation. One source told the Post, “He was bragging to other people that he was going to get one last shot at Elon out the door. He was going to get Elon back for making him look bad.”

Another source described the fallout from a dressing-down Musk gave Gor during a meeting: “Sergio was upset about Elon dressing him down at the meeting and said he was going to ‘get him’.” A third insider detailed a petty and obsessive streak: “He’d go around showing Tesla stock prices going down and laugh about it, like he was responsible for taking the Tesla stock down.” That same individual elaborated: “Elon was, like, his obsession, and he would plant a story on Elon and he would send me the link and then send me a screenshot of Tesla’s stock price with a laughing face. I own Tesla stock, so this is not a good thing for me! It showed how intense that fight had become, and how committed and obsessed with it Sergio was, and that’s what I don’t think anybody has really captured.”

Perhaps the most damning quote comes from a source summarizing the broader impact of Gor’s vendetta: “We’ve bounced basically two billionaires from the party and from the movement, because Sergio doesn’t like them. And what does that do for anyone, or the cause? I think it will help, if Elon understands that this was not the president that was going after him and that the president was played by Sergio. I think Elon might look at it as an opportunity to say, ‘Ok, let’s put this s— to bed. And this guy thinks he’s going to get me? I’m going to get him.’”

All of this appears on the public record, before I ever wrote a word. And yet, I’m accused of fabricating claims that were, in truth, already widely reported and independently verified. This isn’t a rebuttal. It’s a denial of gravity.

LAWFARE🧵6/9: The claim that my opinion piece somehow constitutes prima facie evidence of “actual malice” simply because it cites unnamed sources and does not attach published evidence is not only legally wrong, it’s intellectually unserious, and entirely at odds with decades of First Amendment jurisprudence and defamation precedent in the United States.

Let’s start with the basics: journalists have no legal or ethical obligation to name their sources in published work. The use of anonymous sourcing is a long-standing, court-affirmed, and essential journalistic practice, relied upon by every major media outlet in the country. Without it, misconduct by powerful figures would remain buried beneath layers of intimidation and silence. That’s why the courts have repeatedly recognized its legitimacy.

My op-ed, contrary to the lawyer’s insinuation, did not invent facts out of whole cloth. It broke no new ground. It took the wealth of existing mainstream reporting and reframed it with urgency and context, aimed at alerting the president to a serious issue festering inside his own personnel office. After reviewing that public reporting, I outlined the specific allegations I planned to cite, then took the additional step of speaking with more than a dozen sources, many of whom are currently serving inside the White House and federal agencies. I independently confirmed what national outlets had already reported, and corroborated key details with individuals close to Sergio Gor himself. Several of those individuals provided receipts. These were not fabrications, they were confirmations.

This is not malice. This is journalistic diligence.

And let’s not forget: the piece in question was an opinion editorial. The entire purpose of an op-ed is to interpret events, draw conclusions, and offer informed commentary. Assertions about public officials, especially those grounded in previously reported facts and buttressed by firsthand accounts, are not actionable defamation. Nor do hyperbole, sharp language, or unflattering characterizations strip my writing of constitutional protection. If they did, we’d have to bulldoze the editorial pages of every major newspaper in America.

Gor’s lawyer also suggests that my failure to interview his client directly is itself evidence of malice. That’s false, and he knows it. In fact, I did reach out multiple times. In fact, the day before the piece ran, Gor’s own lawyer emailed me. I replied promptly, offering to delay publication if Mr. Gor was willing to speak, on or off the record. His response? “Given his [Gor's] schedule that’s unlikely. If you can send me a list of questions, I’ll see what I can get you answers on.” I declined to delay my article in order to submit written questions to a lawyer in hopes of receiving sanitized, partial answers at some undefined future point. The email exchange is below for anyone who cares to read it.

To be fair, Gor’s counsel also claims to have made additional attempts to contact me, calls and emails I apparently missed. That may be true. But it does not alter the central fact: I gave his client a clear opportunity to respond and he passed.

So let’s be clear: this isn’t about defamation. It’s about discomfort. And while discomfort may provoke a phone call from a lawyer, it does not make a lawsuit.

LAWFARE🧵7/9: This section of the letter struck me as almost comically ironic. In threatening to sue me, Gor’s lawyer takes issue with a line in my op-ed that reads: "And when anyone speaks out, retaliation follows." He insists that statement is untrue. But here’s the thing: I reach out for comment regularly, it's a standard part of my process, and not once has anyone responded by siccing their lawyer on me. Until now.

When I contacted Sergio Gor for comment, he didn’t call me back. Instead, I heard from his attorney. I took that response, understandably I think, as threatening. That’s my opinion, and, frankly, the fact that I was met with a legal threat instead of a conversation only reinforces the very point I was making. It confirms that my sense of being threatened was not only justified, it was accurate.

As I wrote in the op-ed: "And when anyone speaks out, retaliation follows. Gor believes his power in Washington DC is at its apex after publicly running Elon Musk out of the White House. In over a dozen interviews with Gor’s associates and acquaintances, every single one requested anonymity, fearing professional or personal repercussions. Reporters I’ve spoken with who merely asked questions about Gor describe a rapid response: their voicemail and email suddenly flooded with Washington operatives attempting to kill their story. When I began work on this article, I received emails and phone calls from Gor’s lawyer, Rob Garson. I offered to delay publication to give Gor the opportunity to provide his side of the story. Garson, however, insisted I send questions that he would 'try' to get answered by his client, an offer that rang hollow. The tone and timing of the outreach made it clear: this was not a dialogue, it was a threat."

That’s not embellishment. That’s not conjecture. That’s a real-world account of how power is wielded in Washington, and how those who speak out are often greeted not with answers, but with intimidation.

LAWFARE🧵8/9: Gor’s lawyer closes his demand letter with a final flourish of paranoia, suggesting that my op-ed wasn’t independent journalism at all, but some kind of paid-for or sponsored piece. His “evidence”? That I respect Elon Musk. That I embedded X posts in the piece. And that the op-ed indicts Sergio Gor while praising Musk.

Well, yes. That was the entire point of the op-ed.

I laid out, deliberately and unapologetically, that Sergio Gor is a saboteur at the right hand of President Trump, and that he engineered the collapse of the most consequential political partnership in modern American history. That’s not secret advocacy, it’s stated analysis. And the idea that admiration for one public figure and criticism of another somehow proves a financial arrangement is absurd on its face.

Let me be crystal clear: I wasn’t paid by anyone to write that piece. No one asked me to write it. No one suggested it. There was no coordination with Elon Musk or anyone in his orbit. In fact, the only pressure I received was from people urging me not to publish it.

But I wrote it anyway, because it was true, and because it mattered.

LAWFARE🧵9/9: As I pointed out in the author's note of the op-ed, while researching this story, I encountered an unusual amount of unsolicited 'guidance', some flattering, much of it coercive, about Sergio Gor. The sheer volume of messaging felt less like commentary and more like a coordinated attempt to manipulate the narrative. One thing became immediately clear: Gor is powerful. Frighteningly powerful. That sense solidified when his lawyer personally contacted me. The outreach wasn't collegial. It felt threatening.

At one point in the process, I came across a pattern of alleged behavior involving Gor that was deeply serious and beyond the scope of my own expertise. Rather than attempt to tackle it myself, I passed it along to a journalist I respect enormously, someone known for fairness, integrity, and deep investigative rigor. I don’t know what will come of that thread, but I handed it off with the hope that whatever truth lies beneath it, it will come to light the right way.

My work is rooted in op-eds and headline reporting. I do not pretend to be a deep-dive investigative journalist. Some stories require more than a columnist’s scalpel. They require a reporter’s chisel. And this, I suspect, is one of them.

Finally, if you know of a good lawyer please send them my way...