FBI Investigated NYT Reporter Who Wrote About Kash Patel’s Girlfriend

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

WTAF

In March, the FBI began investigating New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson after her February story on the use of bureau resources by Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend.

The unprecedented move to target a journalist for politically damaging reporting proceeded on the flimsy premise that her coverage of Alexis Wilkins, a country music singer, was potentially in violation of federal anti-stalking laws.

Among the affirmative steps that the FBI took against Williamson: It “combed through the bureau’s databases to determine whether the federal government had any information on Ms. Williamson to help make the argument that she deserved further scrutiny.”

The NYT notes that Williamson spoke with Wilkins on the phone once and never met her in person.

After that initial inquiry, FBI agents “recommended moving forward with a preliminary investigation,” but ran into concerns at the Justice Department, where even Trump DOJ officials “determined there was no legal basis to proceed with the investigation,” the NYT reports.

The FBI denied it ever investigated Williamson but confirmed that “investigators were concerned about how the aggressive reporting techniques crossed lines of stalking. The FBI has since dropped the investigation and is not pursuing a case against Williamson.

A key unanswered question: Did Patel sic the FBI on the reporter or did FBI officials take the initiative to do on their own?

Another Raid on the US Treasury

The Trump administration has agreed to pay $1.25 million to settle 2016 Trump campaign adviser Carter Page’s claims that the FBI and DOJ illegally entangled him in court-ordered surveillance. Page, who had lost in lower court proceedings, had appealed his case to the Supreme Court, but solicitor general D. John Sauer told the high court yesterday that the case has settled.

Trump DOJ Watch

• Bloomberg: Ahead of the midterm elections, the Trump DOJ has dismantled a centralized election week command post at the FBI, discontinued mandatory election law training for prosecutors, and restricted access to threat briefings for state officials.
• The Bulwark: How The Blaze’s crackpot reporting on the Capitol Hill pipebombs prompted a wild, unnecessary FBI raid.
• Bloomberg: President Trump has nominated Don Berthiaume, a veteran federal watchdog attorney, as the DOJ inspector general. He has been serving as the acting DOJ IG.

Hmmm …

A report in the Los Angeles Times offers some new tidbits about the CIA deaths in Mexico last weekend that don’t quite square with the officials accounts from Chihuahua state officials, who maintained that the Americans were dozens of miles away and didn’t participate in the raid:

• “The agents in Sunday’s raid were dressed in Chihuahua State Investigative Agency uniforms to blend in with Mexican officials,” according to unnamed sources familiar with the operation.
• Two other CIA officers “were present during the raid.” They were in a pickup truck following the lead vehicle, which crashed, and “went down the mountain by foot in hopes of saving their colleagues, but it was too late.”

The CIA declined to comment on the report.

Mass Deportation Watch

• Senate Republicans overnight used the budget reconciliation process to push through a blueprint for $70 billion in additional funding for immigration enforcement and reopening DHS. The 50-48 vote saw only Republican Sens. Rand Paul (KY) and Lisa Murkowski (AK) break party ranks.
• In a ruling yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a California law requiring federal agents to wear identification.
• The Trump administration is considering sending more than 1,000 Afghans who aided the anti-Taliban effort to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the NYT reports. The group, which includes interpreters and family members of U.S. service members, have been languishing in Qatar since they were evacuated from Afghanistan for their own safety.

2026 House Battlefield Map

Two of the major super PAC funding sources for House campaigns made their initial fall ad buys, which serve as a map of sorts for the 2026 battleground:

• Punchbowl: Speaker Mike Johnson’s Congressional Leadership Fund purchased $153 million in air time for about 30 districts, roughly evenly split between defending GOP seats and trying to snag Democratic seats.
• WSJ: The $272 million ad buy from the pro-Democrat House Majority PAC was overwhelmingly — nearly 80% — focused on GOP-held seats.

Quote of the Day

Andy Craig:

In an autocracy—most vividly in overt monarchies but also many modern dictatorships—the state is embodied in the sovereign ruler. Their face is on the money; institutions and governments are denominated “royal”; infrastructure projects are named in their honor; and their birthdays are public holidays. The nation is, quite literally, theirs. “L’État, c’est moi.” …

A republic, with symbolism tracing back to antiquity, deliberately inverts these trappings of personal rule. The institutions belong to the public—res publica, in which all have a stake. The people, and not the rulers, are sovereign. The officeholder is a temporary steward, not a proprietor. When a president stamps his name and likeness on federal buildings and government programs and the national currency, he is asserting the monarchical claim: that these things are extensions of himself.

This is not something to be shrugged off as incidental. It is corrosive of America’s fundamental principles.

Revealed: Trump Ballroom Contract

The WaPo has obtained the secret contract for donations to President Trump’s vanity ballroom project. It was signed in October, just two weeks before the demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make room for colossal addition to the historic complex:

The contract provisions, taken together, allow wealthy donors with business before the federal government to contribute anonymously to a sitting president’s pet project, while exempting the White House from key conflict of interest safeguards and limiting scrutiny by Congress and the public.

The contract came to light only after Public Citizen sued to obtain it.

De-Trumpification

Gregg Gonsalves in The Nation:

The scope of the damage, and the enormous amounts of money, time, and energy that will be required to bring us just back to 2024 levels, boggles the mind. I am not sure anyone has really wrapped their heads around what this means, given that so many other areas of public life will need Marshall Plans of their own. Trump, in his malfeasance, malice, and incompetence, is running up quite a tab, and we, our children, and our children’s children, will be left with the bill.

I Can’t Shake This One

My tendency is to shy away from anecdotal accounts as a poor proxy for complex problems and an obstacle to clear thinking, but I have not been able to shake this personal appeal from a British mother whose newborn daughter contracted measles in a 2013 outbreak, before she was old enough for the vaccine, and died of complications from the disease in 2023.

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