Capital & Empire reports from inside Washington without adopting Washington’s worldview.

There are more stories to report than one independent journalist can chase alone. Your support helps Capital & Empire pursue more of them.

I'm Aída Chávez, a journalist who has spent a decade covering U.S. politics, Congress and foreign policy. I was previously a congressional reporter at The Intercept and D.C. correspondent for The Nation, and my reporting has appeared in The Washington Post, The Hill, Zeteo, Responsible Statecraft and other outlets.

I've spent years covering Congress – chasing lawmakers through hallways, cultivating congressional sources, tracking legislation and figuring out what is actually happening behind the talking points. I've also spent years covering the insurgent left and the relationship between social movements and electoral politics, including the rise of the Squad. My foreign policy reporting has taken me beyond Washington, including to Palestine and Cuba, while my work on Capitol Hill has covered U.S. wars, sanctions and national security policy. My academic background includes extensive graduate training in heterodox economics and political economy.

Capital & Empire brings those backgrounds together: on-the-ground DC reporting, foreign policy expertise, an understanding of political movements, and political economy from an anti-imperialist perspective.

Capital & Empire investigates Congress, corporations, and the national security state, connecting decisions made in Washington to their consequences for working people at home and around the world. The goal is to bring readers deeply reported stories, documents and political context they are unlikely to get from the usual Washington coverage.

Here’s some of the reporting Capital & Empire has already produced:

EXCLUSIVE: CIA Assessment Details Israel's Race to Make the U.S.-Israel Alliance Irreversible

EXCLUSIVE : Israel Privately Pressing U.S. to Kill Iran's Lead Negotiator and Launch New Strikes

Classified CIA Analysis Finds Trump Can't Count on Gulf Allies for Wider Iran War

House Democrats Voted to End Iran War – After Giving Up Their Best Leverage to Actually Stop It

Capital & Empire has broken stories based on classified intelligence assessments, exposed private Israeli pressure on U.S. policymakers, reported from Palestine and Cuba, and tracked congressional fights over war that receive little sustained scrutiny elsewhere.

Together, we can do more of this essential reporting.

Independent reporting takes time and resources: cultivating sources, obtaining documents, pursuing leads, traveling when a story requires it, and bringing in editing or research support for bigger investigations.

The limiting factor isn't a shortage of stories. It's the time and capacity to pursue them.

Your donation enables Capital & Empire to expand that capacity — supporting reporting expenses, editing and research help, and a freelance budget to commission additional journalism. With your partnership, I can pursue more original investigations, devote more time to congressional reporting, travel when the story demands it and follow promising leads that a one-person publication might otherwise have to leave on the table.

A one-time donation helps fund reporting happening now. Monthly support provides the predictable resources needed to pursue longer investigations, fund reporting travel and follow leads that may take weeks or months to develop.

Capital & Empire has two core values that guide the work:

• Journalism should be free to read. Reporting about war, Congress and institutions exercising enormous power over people’s lives should be accessible regardless of someone’s ability to pay.
• Journalism should be independent. Capital & Empire has no corporate owner, advertisers or political party setting the boundaries of the reporting.

If you believe this journalism should exist, please help fund it.

Please make a one-time donation or become a monthly supporter today. All gifts are tax-deductible.

And whether or not you donate, please share Capital & Empire with your community to help the publication reach more readers and supporters.

Thank you for partnering with us in this reporting.

Aída Chávez

Founder and Editor, Capital & Empire