David Rohde

“One of the best investigative reporters of his generation. What I admire most is his fair-mindedness about pressing and controversial issues that have caused many others to lose their heads.”—George Packer, Award-Winning Author of The Unwinding

NBC News National Security Editor David Rohde is an award-winning foreign correspondent and journalist. His latest book, Where Tyranny Begins, reconstructs and reveals how Donald Trump used threats, co-option, and conspiracy theories to bend DOJ and FBI officials to his will to a greater extent than publicly known—and how Attorney General Merrick Garland, other prosecutors, and judges failed to hold him accountable before the 2024 election. David investigates the strategies Trump systematically used to turn the country’s two most powerful law-enforcement agencies into his personal political weapons, and reveals how, during the Biden years, Justice Department non-partisan 1970s norms that Garland reinforced inadvertently helped Trump, and failed to deliver a January 6^th-related trial and legal accountability before Election Day 2024.

Where Tyranny Begins exposes how ill-suited both the DOJ and FBI are to serve as checks on abuses of presidential power. The rise of hyper-partisanship and the Trump and Biden presidencies have uncovered core flaws in American constitutional democracy that future presidents could exploit. Rohde argues that a new round of bold reforms equivalent to the post-Watergate reforms in the 1970s could help stabilize American democracy and slowly restore public trust in our institutions.

David is also the author of In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth about America’s Deep State, a fact-based, non-partisan investigation addressing conspiracy theories on the existence of a “Deep State.” Jane Mayer, bestselling author of Dark Money, says, “One of today’s most respected journalists, David Rohde takes on one of the country’s most toxic conspiracy theories,” presenting a “scrupulously reported and even-handed” account of how power and intelligence are exploited in Washington that “goes deep indeed inside America’s security state, telling a story that will surprise readers of all political persuasions.”

As a foreign correspondent, David covered the wars in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In Srebrenica, Bosnia, he won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for discovering the mass graves of 8,000 Muslim men and boys who had been executed, after being arrested at a mass grave by the Bosnian Serbs who carried out the killings, jailed for ten days, and threatened with execution himself. David’s book on Srebrenica, Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica, Europe’s Worst Massacre Since World War II, was hailed by The New York Times as “a remarkable account, based on courageous research and admirably unbiased analysis” and by The Guardian as “essential reading” and “journalism at its committed best.”

“David’s work shows the broad reach and impact of good journalism, and is a shining example of what journalists can accomplish, even when working under dangerous and trying circumstances.”—The International Press Institute

David’s coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan earned him another Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting, shared with the staff at The New York Times, for their “groundbreaking, masterful coverage” of the two countries. While researching a book on Afghanistan in 2008, he and two Afghan colleagues were kidnapped by a Taliban commander, held captive for seven months, and threatened with execution before escaping. His book on the experience, A Rope and a Prayer, co-written with his wife, Kristen Mulvihill, is “required reading” (The New York Times).

He began his career at ABC News, then became Eastern Europe Correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor. For nearly fifteen years, he reported for The New York Times—moving from New York Criminal Courts Reporter to Foreign Correspondent to South Asia Bureau Co-Chief to Investigative Reporter. After his tenure there, he served as a columnist, Investigative Reporter, and National Security Investigations Editor at Reuters. His third book, Beyond War: Reimagining America’s Role and Ambitions in a New Middle East, was praised by The New York Times for exposing “the deep contradictions” in Washington’s efforts to counter terrorism.

Before joining NBC News, David was an executive editor of The New Yorker website, where he co-edited the online stories by Ronan Farrow on Harvey Weinstein’s abuses that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018. He also co-edited a series of New Yorker stories on the fall of Roe v. Wade, written by Stephania Taladrid, who was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for that work in 2023.