Ali Watkins | |
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Born | [1] [2] | October 27, 1991
Alma mater | Temple University |
Occupation | Journalist |
Ali Watkins [3] is an American journalist who writes for The New York Times . [4] Along with two colleagues, she was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for a body of work consisting 10 articles spanning from March 3, 2014, to July 14, 2014. [5] [6] Watkins has worked for a number of publications, including BuzzFeed , Politico, McClatchy, [7] The Huffington Post, [8] and the Philadelphia Daily News . [9]
Watkins was born and raised in Berks County, Pennsylvania and attended Fleetwood High School in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania. [10] She is a graduate of Temple University, where she was a news editor for The Temple News . [11]
In 2014, while she was still a senior in college, Watkins broke a national story about the Central Intelligence Agency monitoring United States Senate computers while the Senate Intelligence Committee was preparing a report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program. [12] [13] For their work on the story, Watkins and two other journalists were named as finalists for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting. [5] Watkins' scoop was at the core of the 2019 movie The Report , but her role was "elided." [14]
Watkins' career progression has been characterized as "meteoric" by The Times of London [15] and "stunning" by The Washington Post , [16] and she has been called a "hotshot" by Fox News. [17] In April 2017, in what The New York Times called "a scoop that other news organizations scrambled to match" and The Washington Post said was a "big story," Watkins broke a story about the 2013 meetings between CIA asset Carter Page and a Russian spy. [18] [19]
For several years, Watkins' beat was the Senate Intelligence Committee. At The New York Times, where she was hired in December 2017, [18] Watkins covered national security [20] and law-enforcement agencies from its Washington, D.C. bureau until July 2018. [21]
In July 2018, the Times reassigned Watkins to the New York office, [22] [23] where she covers crime and law enforcement in New York City at the Times Metro desk. [24] [25] The Times explained the reasons for her reassignment: "We are troubled by Ali's conduct, particularly while she was employed by other news organizations [...] For a reporter to have an intimate relationship with someone he or she covers is unacceptable." [26] Watkins relocated to New York. [27]
From December 2013 to December 2017, Watkins was in a romantic relationship with the former head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, James A. Wolfe. [28] [29] [30] The FBI opened an investigation into Wolfe after an April 2017 article by Watkins described contacts between Russian spies and Donald Trump policy adviser Carter Page, who had not been publicly identified in relation to those contacts and who was working for the CIA at the time of the meetings. [31] [32] [33] On October 15, 2018, Wolfe pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about his relationship with Watkins. [34] [32] Prosecutors alleged that Wolfe leaked to Watkins and three other reporters. [35] Watkins denied that Wolfe ever provided her classified information. [36] Watkins disclosed the relationship to her employers BuzzFeed News, The New York Times, [37] [38] and Politico; [39] however, McClatchy editors said they were ignorant of the relationship while Watkins was an intern and employee from mid-2013 through 2014. [40] Following the Wolfe relationship, Watkins dated another Senate Intelligence Committee staff member, which Politico, her employer at the time, has said she failed to disclose. [41]
Former New York Times editor Jill Abramson said “I hate the whole situation more than I can say,” because she had spent her whole career trying to combat the notion that successful female journalists sleep with their sources. [42] The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the case "bears a strong resemblance to the television drama House of Cards," of which it said Watkins was a fan. [43] In 2019, Erik Wemple of The Washington Post compared Watkins to Amanda Macias, [44] as did Stephen L. Miller of The Spectator . [45]
In 2017, Jeffrey Rambo, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent working for the National Targeting Center, investigated Watkins, other journalists including Martha Mendoza, and NGOs while on an assignment to combat forced labor in the Congo. The operation was called "Whistle Pig" and in addition to its own database trawling [46] it got the CBP’s Counter Network Division to provide information about Watkins' mother and brother and links to their public profiles, as well as details of Watkins’ domestic and international travel. Rambo met Watkins under the fictitious name Jack Bentley, but Watkins obtained his real name from a credit card receipt. Watkins perceived Rambo's approach as a threat. [47]
In 2021, Watkins said: “I’m deeply troubled at the lengths CBP and DHS personnel apparently went to try and identify journalistic sources and dig into my personal life.” [48] A few days later, CBP launched an investigation. [49]
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James Brien Comey Jr. is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his termination in May 2017. Comey was a registered Republican for most of his adult life but in 2016 he stated he was unaffiliated.
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Tara Palmeri is an American journalist. She is currently the Senior Political Correspondent for subscription news platform Puck. Previously, she served as Chief National Correspondent at Politico and host and chief investigative reporter of two Sony Music podcasts: "Broken: Seeking Justice" and "Power: The Maxwells". She previously worked for Washington Examiner and the New York Post and was a White House correspondent for ABC News.
Carter William Page is an American petroleum industry consultant and a former foreign-policy adviser to Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential election campaign. Page is the founder and managing partner of Global Energy Capital, a one-man investment fund and consulting firm specializing in the Russian and Central Asian oil and gas business.
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The Steele dossier, also known as the Trump–Russia dossier, is a controversial political opposition research report on the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump compiled by counterintelligence specialist Christopher Steele. It was published without permission in 2017 as an unfinished 35-page compilation of "unverified, and potentially unverifiable" memos that were considered by Steele to be "raw intelligence — not established facts, but a starting point for further investigation".
James Comey, the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was fired by U.S. President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017. Comey had been criticized in 2016 for his handling of the FBI's investigation of the Hillary Clinton email controversy and in 2017 for the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections as it related to alleged collusion with Trump's presidential campaign.
Since Donald Trump was a 2016 candidate for the office of President of the United States, multiple suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials were discovered by the FBI, a special counsel investigation, and several United States congressional committees, as part of their investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following intelligence reports about the Russian interference, Trump and some of his campaign members, business partners, administration nominees, and family members were subjected to intense scrutiny to determine whether they had improper dealings during their contacts with Russian officials. Several people connected to the Trump campaign made false statements about those links and obstructed investigations. These investigations resulted in many criminal charges and indictments.
This is a timeline of major events in the first half of 2017 related to the investigations into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Following the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8 and the post-election transition, this article begins with Donald Trump and Mike Pence being sworn into office on January 20, 2017, and is followed by the second half of 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This is a timeline of major events in first half of 2018 related to the investigations into links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, the transition, and the first and second halves of 2017, but precedes the second half of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021. These events are related to, but distinct from, Russian interference in the 2018 United States elections.
Henry Kyle (Keenan) Frese is a former employee at the Defense Intelligence Agency, between February 2018 and October 2019, during which time he was assigned to a facility in Virginia.
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This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2018 related to the investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, and the first half of 2018, but precedes that of the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021. These events are related to, but distinct from, Russian interference in the 2018 United States elections.
This is a timeline of major events in the second half of 2017 related to the investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, the post-election transition, and the first half of 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
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The National Targeting Center (NTC) is a division of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It is based in Sterling, Virginia. The NTC observes air traffic and trade activities, gathers and vets intelligence, and is empowered to send e-mails requesting that U.S. citizens be detained and questioned.
BIRTHDAYS: [...] NYT's Ali Watkins
For timely coverage of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture, demonstrating initiative and perseverance in overcoming government efforts to hide the details.
The movie, here, elides the fact that reporter who actually broke this story was Ali Watkins — then a reporter at McClatchy
Ms. Watkins scored a scoop that other news organizations scrambled to match
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Ali Watkins, who covered national security for the Times, was given a new assignment in 2018 after she disclosed that she had had a romantic relationship with a Senate Intelligence Committee staffer with access to sensitive intelligence data.
Ali Watkins, the New York Times reporter ensnared in the case, was reassigned from her job as a national security reporter in Washington, D.C., to a new position in New York City after it was revealed in the indictment that she'd had a yearslong relationship with Mr. Wolfe [...] the relationship still constituted a breach of ethics, the paper's top editor concluded.
Watkins would be reassigned to a position in New York "for a fresh start," and that "she will be closely supervised and have a senior mentor."
Ali Watkins is a reporter on Metro desk at The New York Times, where she covers crime and law enforcement in New York City.
The Times announced on Tuesday that Watkins will relocate to New York after an internal review of her romantic history with potential sources
Wolfe carried on a romantic relationship with Watkins while she covered the committee for several publications
after being confronted with photographs of himself and Watkins, he acknowledged having a personal relationship with her for several years
court documents show he briefed Watkins and other reporters about the subpoena.
In the fall, Ms. Watkins started dating a different staff member from the committee. She told others that she had informed a Politico editor who did not object. But Mr. Dayspring, the Politico spokesman, said: "Politico editors were not made aware of this relationship."
As a woman journalist who spent her career trying to puncture the notion that all of us sleep with our sources and that's how we get stories," former Times executive editor Jill Abramson told me, "I hate the whole situation more than I can say."
The case bears a strong resemblance to the television drama House of Cards, of which Watkins confessed to be a fan in 2013. "I wanted to be Zoe Barnes ... until episode 4. Sleeping with your source ... #badlifechoice @HouseofCards."
differentiates this investigation from [...] the 2018 case involving New York Times reporter Ali Watkins
Watkins and Macias are still employed by the Times and CNBC. Not only does it appear the practice of sleeping with sources for information is more than a mere trope, it seems it's something not punished by newsrooms
email addresses, phone numbers and photos from passport applications and checking that information through numerous sensitive government databases, including the terrorism watchlist
a Customs and Border Protection official reportedly confronted Watkins in person about her relationship with Wolfe and asked for her help in exposing leakers—an approach that Watkins perceived as a threat
CBP's internal probe was prompted by Yahoo News' reporting earlier this month on Operation Whistle Pig, a leak investigation targeting reporter Ali Watkins