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Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on IHartRadio.

My guest today is independent investigative journalist Walter Kurt.

So nice to have you on, Walter.

Thanks for having me on, Carol.

So how did you become an independent investigative journalist? What was the path to this?

Not the normal path, I would say that. You know, I was actually a mechanic for 10 years.

Wow. Yeah, that's really not the normal, normal path. Yeah, definitely not. Well, I grew up in D.C. So I grew up in the political world and determined I hate it. It's terrible. All these people suck. Yeah. It's, oh, these people are all terrible. I hate all of them. So I decided to move away from it and I thought I would be able to get away with that. And no, it didn't work out like that. You know, it took about 10 years before life caught up to me. And then COVID happened. And then the world started falling apart in my eyes. And I was like, okay, I don't have a choice. I got to do something. Right. So I started my own substack in that. And it just grew and grew and grew and grew and grew and took off. Wow, you only started during COVID. Like, I feel like I've been reading you and listening to you for far longer than that. It's really only been that long. Well, it's funny that you say that, Carol, because I followed your account for a long time and read all your work for a long time. So it's interesting to me that you say that because to me, I started, you wouldn't believe this, but last year, in November of last year, I think I had 2,000 followers on X. Wow. Yeah. That's a quick growth. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was a hell of a rod. So definitely quick, definitely quick growth. So what was your biggest breaking story?

Like what propelled you to that kind of growth?

Well, I had a couple things go viral during the Doge stuff.

But the biggest thing was definitely when I got swatted.

So I got swatted with the group.

There was about 15 other journalists all got swatted at the same time.

And ever since then, you know, it's just been rocket ship afterwards. So it's just been nonstop. Do you have any idea who did that or what the motivation was? I mean, I know what the larger motivation was, but why did they pick you? Why me? That's a good question. Because I think at the time I had a thing, I think I had about 30,000 followers or 40,000 followers. I have no idea. You know, my only thought was it was something to do with what I was writing about at the time. I was talking a lot about Ukraine. Yeah. And some, there were some government contracts I was going through. I actually got a cease and desist around the same time period. But, you know, I don't know if it was all the same thing or not.

I mean, someone wanted everyone to stop doing the Doge stuff.

I'll tell you that much.

Interesting. It's pretty obvious.

Okay.

I guess that makes a lot of sense that it was the Doge thing that might have led to that.

But you never know, right?

People become obsessed with you or they become obsessed with what you're working on, even when it's not super big. I can think of

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