There was gnashing of teeth last week when it emerged that the Trump administration had seized the emails and phone records of New York Times national security reporter Ali Watkins in an investigation of former Senate Intelligence Committee aide James A. Wolfe. Wolfe had been leaking like a busted gasket to Watkins and is accused of lying about it to Justice Department investigators.
The initial outrage, however, was muted when it emerged that the wunderkind reporter had had a three-year affair with the 57-year-old Wolfe, who is three decades older. The incident calls to mind a legendary episode involving the late New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal, who found out that a reporter had been sleeping with a Philadelphia politician she was supposed to be covering. He fired her on the spot and silenced the newsroom by declaring, “I don’t care if you [expletive] an elephant, just so long as you don’t cover the circus” for the paper.
