To prevent his fabrications from being discovered, she continued, he lied to editors about how he had gotten the quotes, and in one case created an email account in the name of one of his sources.
When editors discovered his actions, she added, he stood by his published work and, while admitting to creating the email accounts, refused to assist in the review otherwise.
[7] In an email to Reed he shared with various news outlets, Thompson said he was being treated for testicular cancer and for that reason had not had access to his notes when the site had asked to review them.
While he admitted this was "sloppy", he faulted The Intercept for lacking "a sustained and competent editor to guide me," alluding to the site's managerial turnovers.
He also claimed that the greater problem was racism in the media field, that he made up pseudonyms for some of his sources because they were "poor black people who didn't want their names in the public given the situations" and who would not have spoken with a reporter otherwise, and that he had felt a need to "exaggerate my personal shit in order to prove my worth" at The Intercept given incidents of racial bias he said he had witnessed there.
[citation needed] His past tenure at DNAinfo in Chicago, where one editor tweeted in response to the story that she could have seen it coming, was also edited out.
In 2017, he had been working as communications director for the Gateway Housing Foundation a small, St. Louis-based, non-profit organization dedicated to helping the homeless.
[17] Thompson was arrested in March 2017 by the FBI in St. Louis for allegedly making bomb threats against at least eight Jewish community centers.