About Michael Braa, Private Investigator

MICHAEL W. BRAA, JD

Investigator. Journalist. Founder of Atlantis Private Investigations.

For thirty years I have done one thing in three different rooms: find what can be proven, document it, and put it somewhere it counts — a courtroom, a board table, or a front page.

I practiced law in California from 1997 until my disbarment in 2009. I have been a licensed private investigator since 2011, and I founded Atlantis Private Investigations to do the work I found lawyers most often had no one to do for them: build the factual record before anyone argues about it. Atlantis is a California-licensed firm in Fresno serving attorneys, tribal governments, employers, and executives. Our work has been cited in civil litigation, workplace and compliance matters, tribal oversight investigations, and federal referrals.

In 2022 I bought the Los Banos Enterprise from the McClatchy Company. In 2026 I took first place for Best Commentary at the George F. Gruner Journalism Awards for "A Child of Both Nations," an essay on migration, history, and identity drawn from my own — I am an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and a descendant of both the people who were here and the people who came. I published two books that same year.

I host The Michael Braa Show, where we take unsolved historical cases — the Black Dahlia, the Zodiac, the Kennedy assassination — and run them through the forensic tools and AI analysis that did not exist when they went cold. The show originally aired on the KSEE24/CBS47+ app and now runs on YouTube. Yesterday's cases, today's technology.

The through-line is not four careers. It is one discipline. Law taught me what a record has to withstand. Journalism taught me how to build one when no one is obligated to cooperate. Investigation is where both get paid to be right.

I am a U.S. Navy veteran and a lifelong resident of the San Joaquin Valley.
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