Writer Flight

You know something is up when a major scoop pops onto your screen in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. That’s what happened last weekend, when MSNBC’s Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian broke the story that Tom Homan had allegedly accepted fifty thousand dollars in cash amid an FBI investigation, several months before he became the White House “border czar” and the face of President Trump’s immigration enforcement actions. FBI director Kash Patel and deputy attorney general Todd Blanche told MSNBC that they dropped the case after they “found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing.” At no point in the story, though, does anyone from the administration deny that Homan accepted the cash, which, as the New York Times would report in a five-byline follow a few hours later, was delivered to Homan inside a bag from Cava, the Mediterranean-theme food chain.

There’s the laurel. Now for the dart. The leading byline on MSNBC’s story might look both familiar and strange. Leonnig worked for more than two decades at the Washington Post, where she won or helped win four Pulitzer Prizes, including one for her unsparing examination of Secret Service failings. So why did this scoop appear at a rival news organization? Last month, Leonnig announced that she was leaving the Post via X. That post appeared just a few weeks after CEO Will Lewis sent an email to staff proclaiming that his team was embarking on a “strategic reinvention journey” and that “those who do not feel aligned with the company’s plan” should consider a buyout. On August 4, Leonnig announced that she was off to MSNBC.