Eric Lichtblau has devoted his career to exposing abuses of power wherever he finds them. For 30 years, Lichtblau was a reporter for such high-profile outlets as The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, where he focused on law enforcement and matters of national security. He has also written for The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and numerous other outlets.

It was during his tenure at The New York Times that he earned two Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting on the Bush administration’s illegal surveillance program and on Russian interference in the 2016 election. These explosive stories bolstered his reputation as a hard-hitting journalist committed to unearthing legal and political malfeasance.

Lichtblau has continued his crusading work as the author of acclaimed books like The Nazis Next Door, about how the U.S. government allowed and even welcomed former Nazis into America, and Return to the Reich, which honors the life of a German-Jewish refugee who helped the Allies win World War II in a daring espionage mission; and Bush’s Law, on the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, including his own exposes on the NSA spy program.

In his latest book, American Reich, Lichtblau dives deep into Orange County, California’s history of racial prejudice and paranoia as a petri dish for the violent hatred now wracking America. By highlighting the personal story of a single victim of the far-right extremism that has long proliferated there, he explores how relatively small groups of white supremacists have managed to spread their hateful ideologies around the country and the world.

Lichtblau is a frequent speaker at universities, synagogues, museums, festivals, and book fairs, where he shares his insights into the forces that drive extremism and systemic corruption, and how the institutions that claim to protect us so often prioritize their own interests.