It looks like a legitimate news website. It acts like one, sending inquiries to Capitol Hill staffers. It reports in-depth analyses, opinion articles and breaking news. But Capitol Hill readers are skeptical.
The Washington Inquisitor presents itself as a bona fide news outlet, but a Washington Times investigation found its editor-in-chief has been linked to fake news sites.
The online publication is distributing content under “pen name” bylines, according to the site’s “Our Reporters” section — effectively rendering its journalists anonymous. The site also lists 14 unnamed opinion columnists identified instead by each writer’s stated viewpoint, such as “Establishment Democrat,” “Neoliberal” or “Free speech absolutist.”
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One reporter, writing under the byline Rosalind Kerrow, covers congressional stock trades and filed an analysis of 11,020 trades pulled from 807 House disclosure PDFs. The analysis reported in an explanation of its methodology that the Senate’s disclosure system “could not be accessed,” which is what can happen when an automated tool tries to access the data.
Its “About” page says it is not affiliated with any party, campaign or advocacy group. It names no owner.
What’s more, the name matches the fictional Seattle newspaper in the movie “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.”
One article from the day the domain was created includes a piece by a legitimate, longtime investigative reporter, Frank Parlato, according to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
The site no longer includes the article.
In an interview with The Times, Mr. Parlato “had no idea” the Inquisitor republished his article and did not recall authorizing the site to publish anything he wrote.
He said he had not heard of the “Washington Inquisitor” before The Times reached out.
Max Steele, the senior director of communications at gun safety group Everytown, flagged the site on social media, inquiring about the Inquisitor.
The site is not recognizable to multiple people in the Washington sphere, even though it says “Hill staff, lobbyists and government-relations teams, policy and foreign-affairs specialists” read it.
Mr. Steele asked social media users who else had received an email from one of the website’s reporters. Numerous Capitol Hill communications staffers raised their hands, including ones who work for Democratic Sens. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mark Warner of Virginia.
Three different requests for comment from the Inquisitor’s editor, Frederick Higgins, were sent to Mr. Steele’s inbox. The emails, dated from Oct. 22 at 6:22 a.m. to Oct. 26 at 4:56 a.m. Eastern Time, include questions, when the story will be published and its link.
The questions, which asked for government data and state-specific perspectives, are what stood out to him.
“It’s just all sort of uncanny and not quite right,” Mr. Steele told The Times.
The Inquisitor did not immediately respond to The Times’ multiple requests for comment.
The domain was created on Feb. 3, 2024, by registrant Knock Knock WHOIS Not There, LLC, a private domain registration and proxy service operated by Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com.
When privacy protection is enabled, the proxy service replaces the domain owner’s contact details in public WHOIS records, a database with contact information for domain owners, with the service’s own, according to WordPress.com’s blog.
The site’s only publicly listed author account has the display name ‘Editor-in-Chief,’ the slug matthewricchiazzi and the website field buffalochronicle.com. These are profile fields set by whoever created the account and are not confirmed to belong to political consultant Matthew Ricchiazzi, who has been behind fake sites before.
Mr. Ricchiazzi did not return requests for comment.
His fictitious news sites, including The Buffalo Chronicle and San Francisco Inquirer, have been scrutinized before.
Multiple fall 2024 archives of the Inquisitor’s website bring up the South Bay Chronicle, a known fake outlet and physical publication that suddenly appeared on the doorsteps and porches of San Jose, California, residents in February 2024.
Mr. Ricchiazzi was facing a federal election complaint in May 2024 for connections to the newspaper, which promoted California congressional candidate Charlene Nijmeh.
The Federal Election Commission was called upon to investigate whether it was an unreported contribution to her campaign. Mr. Ricchiazzi said it was protected press activity and was not coordinated with Ms. Nijmeh, whose campaign said it did not authorize his work.
In 2025, the FEC voted unanimously to dismiss the complaint without penalties, citing its low priority and the low dollar amount involved. It did not decide whether the paper was press activity or whether it was coordinated, so the dismissal is not a finding that no law was broken.
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