Eli Jon Lake is an American journalist and the former senior national security correspondent for ''

The Daily Beast ''The Daily Beast'' is an American news website focused on politics, media, and pop culture. It was founded in 2008. It has been characterized as a "high-end tabloid" by Noah Shachtman, the site's editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2021. In a 20 ...

'' and ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

''. Currently, he is a columnist for the

Bloomberg View Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Tele ...

. He has also contributed to

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

, Fox, CSPAN, Charlie Rose, the I Am Rapaport: Stereo Podcast and

Bloggingheads.tv Bloggingheads.tv (sometimes abbreviated "bhtv") is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast on ...

Early life and education

Lake was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family and graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1994.

Career

Lake began as national security reporter at the ''

New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New York ...

'' and as State Department correspondent for

United Press International United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20t ...

(UPI). In 2011 at ''Newsweek''/''The Daily Beast'', Lake reported on how the Obama administration sold Israel powerful

bunker buster A bunker buster is a type of munition that is designed to penetrate hardened targets or targets buried deep underground, such as military bunkers. Armor piercing shells Germany Röchling shells were bunker-busting artillery shells, developed ...

bombs. In 2012, reporting from Somalia, Lake found a local prison that received Somalis captured by the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

and later disclosed how the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

documented U.S. violations of an arms embargo in Somalia to funding some of the regional governments there. Lake was one of the first reporters to challenge the Obama administration's initial claims in 2012 that the 9-11 anniversary attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was not connected to al Qaeda. In 2013, Lake disclosed how court documents in the U.S. government challenge to Blackwater (now

Academi Blackwater was an American private military company founded on December 26, 1996 by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009 and known as Academi since 2011 after it was acquired by a group of private investors ...

) showed that the organization was an extension of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

after 9-11. He was a

contributing editor A contributing editor is a newspaper, magazine or online job title that varies in its responsibilities. Often, but not always, a contributing editor is a "high-end" freelancer, consultant, or expert who has proven ability and has readership dra ...

for ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

'' between 2008 and 2013. Lake joined ''

'' following ''The New Republic'' as Senior National Security Correspondent. Lake along with his colleague Josh Rogin left ''The Daily Beast'' in October 2014 and joined

Criticism

Ken Silverstein Ken Silverstein is an American journalist who worked for the ''Los Angeles Times'' as an investigative reporter, for The Associated Press in Brazil, and has written for ''Mother Jones'', ''Washington Monthly'', ''The Nation'', ''Slate'', and ...

, one of Lake's primary critics, has claimed his past sources lacked credibility and been used to manipulate the discourse on national security. Silverstein accused Lake's reporting of supporting WMDs prior to the

invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

. Silverstein cited an article that Lake had written in 2006 during the war in Iraq. In 2011, Silverstein wrote an article for Salon claiming that Lake's reporting on

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

was biased because pro-Georgian lobbyists had paid for his meals and drinks in the past. This report was disputed by Ben Smith on ''

Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...

''. Silverstein implied that Lake's relationship with these lobbyists influenced his original report of a bomb blast near the U.S. Embassy in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million p ...

. That story was confirmed by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. Both pieces come to the same conclusion that a Russian military intelligence officer was implicated by Georgian and U.S. authorities in the bombing. Lake has publicly stated he has always paid his tab whenever meeting with Georgian sources. In August 2013, along with

Josh Rogin Josh Rogin is an American journalist who serves as a foreign policy columnist for the Global Opinions section of ''The Washington Post'' and as a political analyst for CNN. He is the author of the book ''Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the B ...

, Lake reported on a

intercept that claimed that Al Qaeda had a meeting of senior leaders in the form of a conference call. Silverstein criticized their work as misreporting for using the term "

conference call A conference call is a telephone call in which someone talks to several people at the same time. The conference call may be designed to allow the called party to participate during the call or set up so that the called party merely listens into ...

" when a later article clarified the call as a remote meeting via internet video, voice conference and chat. Speculation about to the differences in the initial reports ranged from glorification of the NSA''s abilities to protection of sources within the U.S. intelligence community. In March 2017, Lake quoted

House Intelligence Committee The United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), also known as the House Intelligence Committee, is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Adam Schiff. It is the primary committ ...

Chairman

Devin Nunes Devin Gerald Nunes (; born October 1, 1973) is an American businessman and politician who is chief executive officer of the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). Before resigning from the House of Representatives and joining TMTG, Nunes was ...

saying that an intelligence officer had shown him intelligence reports that allegedly included inappropriate details about the Trump transition team's communications. Lake later acknowledged that Nunes had "misled" him and that the reports had in fact been given to Nunes by a

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...

staffer, raising questions about whether Nunes' investigation was truly independent of the White House.

Early life and education

Career

Criticism

References

External links