The New York Times reporter who didn’t tell her employers she was having an affair with a Senate aide, who was later charged with lying about his communications with journalists, has been reassigned to a new beat in New York, the paper reported Tuesday.
Ali Watkins, 26, previously covered federal law enforcement in Washington for the publication.
It was revealed last month that she had a three-year relationship with a top official on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The 57-year-old aide, James Wolfe, was arrested last month and charged with lying to the FBI about his communications with journalists. He has not been charged with leaking classified information, and has pleaded not guilty in the case.
Dean Baquet, the paper’s executive editor, wrote in a memo to the newsroom that Watkins will be assigned a mentor and will cover a different topic in New York “for a fresh start.” He added that it was “unacceptable” for a journalist to have “an intimate relationship with someone he or she covers.”
“We hold our journalists and their work to the highest standards,” Mr. Baquet wrote. “We are giving Ali an opportunity to show that she can live up to them. I believe she can.”
Watkins has maintained that Wolfe was never her source during their relationship.
“I respect and understand the Times’ review and agree that I should have handled aspects of my past relationships and disclosures differently. I sincerely regret putting the Times in a difficult position and am very grateful for the support I’ve received from my editors and colleagues here. I also appreciate the review’s conclusion that my reporting has been fact-based and accurate,” she said in a statement to the Times.
But Baquet said Watkins had a relationship with Wolfe while she was covering the committee for other news organizations, which he said is “unacceptable.”
“We are troubled by Ali’s conduct, particularly while she was employed by other news organizations,” he wrote. “For a reporter to have an intimate relationship with someone he or she covers is unacceptable.”
Watkins’ email and phone records were seized by the FBI as part of its investigation into Wolfe, a move that Baquet condemned. He called it an “attempt to interfere with the work of journalists by an administration whose leader has called the media ‘the enemy of the people.’”
