David graduates from the University of California-Berkeley, with a major in diplomatic history, in 1985. He moves to Washington to write for "Insight", a conservative weekly magazine published by the Washington Times' parent company

On October 1991, from his office at the Washington Times, the gay journalist Brock watches the hearings of Professor Anita Hill testifying at the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas. In 1992 "The Spectator" publishes Brock's sharply critical piece on Hill, whom he describes as "a bit nutty and a bit slutty."

In 1993, Brock's book, The Real Anita Hill: The Untold Story, is published. In an interview on C-SPAN, Brock says the book's key message is that, "when you look at the evidence, ...the battle of credibility is settled hands down in favor of Clarence Thomas. Anita Hill's testimony is really shot through with false, incorrect and misleading statements."

In "The Spectator" of January 1994, Brock, now on the magazine's staff, writes about what would come to be called "Troopergate": allegations by Arkansas state troops that they helped procure women for Clinton when he was Arkansas governor. Two years later, Brock's much-awaited biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Seduction of Hillary Rodham, is an unexpectedly sympathetic portrait that startles and angers many of his conservative supporters.

In an article of Esquire magazine of 1997 titled "I Was A Right-Wing Hit Man," Brock writes that because of the way conservatives dispossessed him over the Hillary Clinton biography, "I...want out. David Brock the Road Warrior of the Right is dead." Brock is fired from the staff of the Spectator.

In an open letter to President Clinton published in Esquire of April 1998, Brock apologizes for his "Troopergate" expose, which he says was written not "in the interest of good government or serious journalism," but as part of an anti-Clinton crusade.

The 2001 August issue of Talk magazine publishes an adaptation from Brock's forthcoming book, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. In it, Brock says he "lost his soul" by knowingly writing things about Hill that he knew were not true, and became "a witting cog in the Republican sleaze machine."