UPDATE:Thank you so much to everybody who contributed to this crowdfunder. It's so appreciated. WIthout it, I wouldn't be able to fight back against Arron Banks and continue my work. I've taken advice and am ring fencing this money in case I'm forced to pay Banks's costs. I very much hope that won't be necessary and I'll be able to use it to support more investigative journalism.In the meantime, I'm launching a new crowdfunder to support the ongoing costs of my legal team - Tamsin Allen at Bindmans and Gavin Millar and Ben Silverstone at Matrix Chambers. They're working for significantly reduced fees but this this is complex, expert work and I'd be hugely grateful for any contributions to support them.I'm also working on a new (and, I think, exciting) initiative to support investigative journalism that I'm going to announce in the next couple of months.In the meantime, than you so much for your support - financial, verbal, moral, emotional. CaroleJOIN THE FIGHT BACKPlease support my investigation into data, disinformation and democracyIn November 2016, I began reporting on dark money, data and disinformation for a series of articles that have appeared in the Observer, Guardian & New York Times. It’s been a long and difficult road, but last year, our reporting on Cambridge Analytica kicked off a global scandal, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg was dragged before Congress and multiple legal investigations are still ongoing. And it was just one part of our still on-going investigation into a skein of links between Brexit, Trump and Russia.Now though that investigation is being threatened. A businessman who funded Nigel Farage’s Leave.EU campaign - Arron Banks - and who is under investigation by the National Crime Agency, the British equivalent of the FBI, has filed formal proceedings against me. The result is that I will be tied up in litigation for months in a move that press freedom organisations have called an “abuse of law” to “silence a journalist” These tactics cannot win. We desperately need more reporting on this vital subject not less.What I need now is more resources to build a team to pursue the investigation with me, to amplify the story and to continue the fight back for democracy. Every penny will be spent supporting journalism that is more necessary than ever.Please join me if you can help me to continue to pursue the truth.Thank you so much, Carole