Trump Finds a New Weapon for His War on Journalism — Leak Indictments Aimed at Smearing Reporters

By Peter Maass

Last month, James Wolfe was indicted for lying to the FBI about his contacts with four reporters while he worked for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. His indictment, and the media coverage of it, focused to a lopsided extent on just one of the reporters: Ali Watkins, who the indictment revealed to have been Wolfe’s girlfriend for several years.

While the 11-page indictment provided no information about the other reporters, there was an abundance on Watkins, who is 26 years old and was referred to as “Reporter #2.” It noted that she started her career in Washington, D.C. as “an intern with a news service” (McClatchy Newspapers), and went on to work for “several different news organizations covering national security” (the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed News, and Politico).  The indictment stated that her relationship with the middle-aged Wolfe began in December 2013 and lasted until December 2017. During that time, Watkins published dozens of articles about the intelligence committee, of which Wolfe was the director of security.

The indictment had a TMZ vibe. It noted that Watkins and Wolfe “frequently met in person at a variety of locations.” Where? In stairwells at a Senate office building, in restaurants, and in her apartment. The two even traveled overseas together, according to the indictment. They also exchanged tens of thousands of text messages, emails, and phone calls, once swapping 82 texts in a single day. The Department of Justice knew all of this, in part, because it had secretly obtained years of Watkins’s email and phone records — an exceptional intrusion into a reporter’s life.

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Source: The Intercept_ 

Bonus Report: Journalist Forcibly Removed from Trump-Putin Joint Press Conference

A man calling himself a journalist was forcibly removed from President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin's press conference. He described himself as a reporter for The Nation, according to reporters in Helsinki who were in the room.  

Note: The Huffington Post reported the following:

Reporters at the press conference said the man was Sam Husseini, whom The Nation said had received press accreditation from the outlet to cover the summit. He was seen holding a sign reading “Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty” and had passed around an op-ed about “secure elections and true national security.”