Sex, Leaks, and an Indictment: A Senate Staffer and Journalist Create A Real Life House of Cards

  |  
Jun 8, 2018

A New York Times reporter had her phone and email records seized after her lover, a staff member for the Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) was arrested for lying to the FBI during an investigation into the leak of classified information.

Reporter Ali Watkins had a three-year relationship with James A. Wolfe, longtime director of security for the SSCI. He is alleged to have made false statements to the FBI regarding his relationship with three reporters in connection to the Carter Page case.

“It appeared that the F.B.I. was investigating how Ms. Watkins learned that Russian spies in 2013 had tried to recruit Carter Page, a former Trump foreign policy adviser,” according to the New York Times. 

In April 2017, Watkins wrote on Carter Page in a piece published in Buzzfeed: 

“NEW YORK — A former campaign adviser for Donald Trump met with and passed documents to a Russian intelligence operative in New York City in 2013.

The adviser, Carter Page, met with a Russian intelligence operative named Victor Podobnyy, who was later charged by the US government alongside two others for acting as unregistered agents of a foreign government. The charges, filed in January 2015, came after federal investigators busted a Russian spy ring that was seeking information on US sanctions as well as efforts to develop alternative energy. Page is an energy consultant.”

BuzzFeed Passage Ends. 

Watkins continued to reference her SSCI sources when she wrote about the Page case in a February piece.

“For months, Mr. Page showed up regularly, uninvited and unannounced, at the secure offices of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill, where he dropped off documents he had compiled himself. One was his own dossier in which he claimed he was the victim of a hate crime by the Hillary Clinton campaign because he was a Catholic and a man.”

NYT Passage Ends. 

The collusion between government insiders and the mainstream press, which is nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party, is troubling.

That’s the shot, and here’s the chaser:

This story has a comical side – one that shows that the political left is living in a fantasy world perpetuated by their friends in Hollyweird. Watkins posted this tweet in 2013:

“I wanted to be Zoe Barnes… until episode 4. Sleeping with your source – especially a vindictive congressman? #badlifechoice,” she tweeted in reference to the show House of Cards.

Zoe Barnes is one of the main characters in the popular drama, and plays the role of a D.C. reporter.

Watkins apparently dropped her ethical standards and failed to follow her own advice upon graduating from Temple University and entering the realm of the mainstream media. She took on her very own Zoe Barnes persona, although she failed to climb the ranks high enough to sleep with a congressperson, settling for a intel committee staffer instead.

“On or about October 30, 2017, FBI agents met with Wolfe and informed him that they were investigating the unauthorized disclosure of classified information that had been provided to the SSCI by the Executive Branch of the United States for official purposes,” says Wolfe’s indictment.

New York Times is spinning the story as an encroachment on press freedom, though Watkins is not in legal trouble.

“Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of democracy, and communications between journalists and their sources demand protection,” said Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman.

Our Latest Articles