“Steve Bannon’s Second Term”
New York, November 18, 2024
On October 29, 2024, one week before the presidential election, the MAGA movement ideologue Steve Bannon was released from a federal prison in Connecticut. Over the next seven days, I followed Bannon to the precipice of a second Trump term.

“In Defense of Trump”
New York, April 22, 2024
At the beginning of 2024, my editors at New York assigned me to cover the many trials of Donald Trump. As Trump fought to beat both his criminal cases and his political opponents, I followed his courtroom campaign. It culminated in a six-week trial in Manhattan, where Trump was charged with falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels during his first run for president in 2016. In the lead-up to the trial, I did extensive interviews with Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney, and other members of his legal team as they prepared their defense. My cover story for New York was published the day of opening arguments. You can find a full archive of my Trump courtroom coverage here.

“Will Ashley Biden’s Diary Take Down Project Veritas?”
New York, January 16, 2023
The second of two articles (see below) on the efforts of conservative activists to undermine President Joe Biden by exposing the inner lives of his children. This story profiled hidden camera sting artist James O’Keefe, who raised millions of dollars from wealthy patrons to turn his media organization, Project Veritas, into a kind of right-wing spy operation. But when O’Keefe paid a Florida woman for a diary she stole from Ashley Biden, it set off a federal criminal investigation that tore Project Veritas apart. Shortly after this story was published, I broke the news that O’Keefe had been pushed out of his leadership role in the organization.

“The Sordid Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop”
New York, September 12, 2022
“It’s got talismanic powers,” Steve Bannon says. “If you really understand what you’ve got, the talisman, you understand that it unlocks everything that you ever wanted.” Written with Olivia Nuzzi, this cover story tells the crazy, can’t-make-it-up tale of what happened after Hunter Biden (allegedly) dropped his MacBook off at the wrong computer repair shop, and ended up seeing his entire—very imperfect—life completely exposed to the world.

“How Professor Maynard Burned Down”
New York, July 18, 2022
Gary Maynard was a sociology professor who specialized in studying criminal behavior. Then he was arrested in a Northern California forest and charged with setting wildfires. A glimpse inside the mind of an academic accused of an inexplicable crime.

“Merrick Garland vs. Trump’s Mob”
New York, July 6, 2021
For the sixth-month anniversary of the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, I examined the life and career of Merrick Garland, the attorney general tasked with pursuing justice in an unprecedented criminal case. On paper, the facts of Garland’s biography—including his role as the Justice Department official who oversaw the prosecution the right-wing terrorists responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing—appeared to make him an ideal choice to oversee a reckoning with political extremism. In reality, as a deeper examination of his record and character showed, Garland was always bound to frustrate those who “hoped the Trump era would end with a courtroom thunderclap.”

“I Want To Meet My Teacher”
New York, January 25, 2021
How the pandemic and public school closures scrambled up everything in one progressive New Jersey suburb.

“Trump’s Other Lawyer”
New York, December 9, 2019
At the height of Donald Trump’s (first) impeachment crisis, I went to the Justice Department’s headquarters to interview Attorney General William Barr, perhaps the most important and effective member of the president’s cabinet. We talked about his controversial tenure, the many investigations (and counter-investigations) of the Trump era, his relationship with his old friend Robert Mueller, and his extremely radical ideas about the vast reach of the president’s executive powers.

“How to Throw a Party at Mar-a-Lago”
New York, June 24, 2019
When a NFL team owner was arrested for soliciting prostitution at a South Florida massage parlor, it set off a scandal among the MAGA society types who frequented Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach. At the center of the improbable tale of conservative politics and foreign influence peddling was a Chinese-born parlor owner named Cindy Yang, a Trump enthusiast who started to turn up at Mar-a-Lago after he was elected president. Was Yang a madam, a scheming social climber, a Chinese intelligence asset—or just another one of Trump’s dupes?

“The McKinsey Way to Save an Island”
New York, April 15, 2019
In 2019, Puerto Rico was struggling to rebuild from a natural disaster and several overlapping, man-made catastrophes—most notably, a crushing debt crisis that left the island territory’s dysfunctional government effectively bankrupt and unable to provide some basic services. Enter the supremely self-confident management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. At the behest of the federal oversight board, McKinsey came to Puerto Rico to develop a plan to pay off the debt, restructure the public sector and save the island—whether the people who lived there liked it or not. The highly secretive and incredibly influential firm ended up becoming enmeshed in a political controversy that offered a rare opportunity to scrutinize the McKinsey Way of doing business. (Written in collaboration with Luis Valentin Ortiz and the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo in Puerto Rico.)

“Can a Democrat Ever Win in Texas?”
New York, July 10, 2018
I first met Beto O'Rourke in 2011, back when he was a young city councilman in El Paso and I was visiting the city to report a magazine feature about the politics of immigration and the border. (Here's the earlier article.) Six years later, O'Rourke launched a campaign for the Senate against Ted Cruz, and I spent a few eventful days on the road with the “vigorous, toothsome, tech-savvy, culture-straddling congressman ... who might as well have been conjured to life in a South by Southwest keynote speech.” (That's me in the background of the photo, sweating as I try to keep up with him at a predawn “Run with Beto” event in Houston.) O'Rourke campaigned as a champion of the anti-Trump resistance, taking unabashedly progressive stands, and used social media to build a fervent national following. But I still had to ask: Could a Democrat run like that — and win — in America's most Republican state?

“This is Ajit Pai, Nemesis of Net Neutrality”
Wired, June 2018
A profile of the nerdy Republican attorney who — with obvious discomfort — served at Donald Trump's chairman of the FCC.  “The competition is stiff,” I wrote, “but Pai may be the most reviled man on the internet. He is despised as both a bumbling rube, trying too hard to prove he gets it, and a cunning villain, out to destroy digital freedom.”

“Can Nikki Haley Save the World?”
New York, December 10, 2017
Once a fierce critic of Donald Trump’s divisive policies, Nikki Haley became his ambassador to the United Nations. She was perhaps his most presentable emissary to the world: the diplomatic face of a profoundly undiplomatic presidency. “Haley doesn’t seek to reconcile these contradictions,” I wrote. “She just breezes past them, on her way to a more important destination.”

“The Young Trump”
New York, January 9, 2017
Immediately after Donald Trump was elected president, I started to report this profile of Jared Kushner, who “until very recently,” I wrote, had appeared to be “just another socially striving young businessman with inoffensively Bloombergian political values.” A couple of weeks before Trump took the oath of office, my profile introduced the public to the person poised to become the second-most-powerful man in the White House. Some of his old friends were hoping that Kushner would be a moderating influence on the president. In fact, I concluded, Kushner was more like his father-in-law than anyone imagined.

“Most Likely to Destroy a Governor”
New York, September 18, 2016
David Wildstein, an obscure former suburban mayor and anonymous political blogger, always worked in the shadows of New Jersey government. Then he went to work for his old high school classmate, Chris Christie. Dirty tricks and disaster ensued. A tale of boyhood ambition and a bridge too far.

“I, Snowbot”
New York, June 26, 2016
For a man accused of espionage and effectively exiled in Russia, Edward Snowden is also, strangely, free. I followed the N.S.A.'s most wanted man as he traveled America in robotic form, coordinating an impassioned campaign against surveillance — and for clemency — from a keyboard in Moscow.

“Et tu, Tribe?”
New York, July 28, 2015
Laurence Tribe, the eminent Harvard law professor, was a mentor to his student Barack Obama. But when he took on a controversial case, fighting the White House climate plan on behalf of Big Coal, he placed his relationship with the president in jeopardy, along with his reputation as one of the country's foremost constitutional scholars.

“Your New Landlord”
Bloomberg Businessweek, May 21, 2015
Adam Neumann, a long-haired Israeli entrepreneur, claimed to have invented a new kind of workplace for a new generation of itinerant freelancers. His fun-loving, beer-swilling startup, WeWork, was valued at $5 billion at the time this cover story appeared. (Later venture capital rounds increased its valuation to $16 billion.) Was the rapidly expanding company for real, or just the beneficiary of a Silicon Valley bubble? To look for the answer, I decided to go to work there.

“The Pierre Omidyar Insurgency”
New York, November 2, 2014
The billionaire founder of eBay was a mild-mannered Obama supporter looking for a way to spend his time and fortune. Edward Snowden’s leaks gave him a cause — and an enemy.

“Anatomy of a Campus Coup”
 New York Times Magazine, September 16, 2012
When the University of Virginia’s secretive board abruptly fired the school’s president, they set off a rebellion and thrust the school into a national debate about the future of higher education. A cover article exploring the inside story behind the failed ouster.

“Life on the Line”
 New York Times Magazine, July 31, 2011
A multifaceted cover story about El Paso, written at the height of the vicious drug war in Ciudad Juárez, the neighboring metropolis just across the Rio Grande. “One side is Texas; the other, Mexico. The border’s way of life — its business, legitimate and otherwise — has always relied upon the circumvention of this dividing line.”

“Miss Grundy Was Fired Today”
 New York, March 21, 2011
Once deified, now demonized, teachers are under assault from union-busting Republicans on the right and wealthy liberals on the left. And leading the charge is a woman most famous for losing her job: former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.

“A Stake in the Sand”
 New York Times Magazine, March 21, 2010
Some beachfront homeowners in Destin, Florida decided they would rather see their beaches erode than share their sand with the tanning masses—and they fought their case all the way to the Supreme Court.

“Bulb In, Bulb Out”
 New York Times Magazine, June 3, 2011
How many scientists does it take to make a better light bulb?

“The Octopus Conspiracy”
Wired, February 4, 2011
Rachel Begley always wanted to know the truth behind the mystery of her father’s murder. Then she stumbled upon a community of internet conspiracy theorists—and discovered a suspect.