for dogged beat reporting that put the AP way out front on a highly competitive story: that the attorney generals of Maryland and the District of Columbia were filing subpoenas targeting 37 separate entities, including the Trump Organization and the IRS, as part of a lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of profiting off the presidency. https://bit.ly/2En37Oa
for determined source work that revealed President Donald Trump considering a dramatic expansion of his travel ban amid a renewed election-year focus on immigration. https://bit.ly/374a56n
used source work to break news, naming the new chief for the U.S. Capitol Police three days ahead of the official announcement. They were so far out front that a local news station said even the new chief had not been officially told he had the job.The selection of a new head for the beleaguered department had been closely tracked by Washington national and local media in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection. But AP was well ahead of the competition, started with a source’s late-night tip to Justice Department reporter Tucker that J. Thomas Manger, former chief in Montgomery County, Maryland, was about to be named chief. Tucker shared that tip with Washington colleagues Michael Balsamo, Colleen Long and Mary Clare Jalonick, and the group flooded their sources, getting quiet acknowledgements. The following afternoon a second source confirmed the selection to Tucker, and the team — intimately familiar with the department and the search process — rounded out the story for Monday afternoon’s scoop.Their piece immediately received strong play and AP was cited by other news outlets that had been chasing the story. https://aplink.news/9wb
used planning and preparation — and worked through the night — to put AP ahead on the Justice Department document that alleged efforts to obstruct the investigation of classified documents kept at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.When the nearly 40-page document landed after 11 p.m. Tuesday night, Washington reporters Tucker, Colvin and Balsamo quickly identified the newsiest, most salient points and filed an alert just minutes after the document had dropped, then followed with a textured, detailed story that moved before competitors had even published their own alerts. Kesten provided lightning-fast editing and filing, and photo editor Elswick expedited a key evidence photo.Read more
for being first to report that DC Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson was censured for violating the school system’s code of conduct; the development followed earlier reporting by Nuckols revealing Henderson had asked vendors for contributions in violation of ethics rules. http://wapo.st/2geLnXj
for unearthing a document that showed the Trump administration doesn’t consider conserving oil an economic imperative for the U.S., breaking with decades-old policy on conservation. https://bit.ly/2o1DDfU
for revealing that whistleblowers were punished at Washington's largest psychiatric hospital, which just lost federal funding because of repeated staff shortages and problems. https://bit.ly/2LgadVt
for breaking the news that recently fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had written contemporaneous memos after his meetings with President Donald Trump, similar to the records kept by his former boss James Comey. http://trib.in/2uatdAK
for breaking the news that the Justice Department and FBI were missing five months’ worth of text messages from an agent who had been removed from Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. http://bit.ly/2E8GCNl
for marrying demographic data on President Trump’s judicial selections with multiple databases on the judicial nominees of his predecessors to calculate exclusively that the president is skewing his nominations toward white men at a pace not seen in almost 30 years.http://bit.ly/2AoJR1Bhttp://bit.ly/2hVkZHx
for obtaining the GOP’s nine-page tax plan two hours before its official release and confirming key details of the plan ahead of the competition. http://bit.ly/2y1Np7R
for breaking the news about a proposed House bill that would cut disaster relief money to help finance President Trump's border wall, and being first to report the amount of money Trump would request for Harvey aid. http://ti.me/2gNUbaZ
for an exclusive report showing how a marijuana task force assembled by Attorney General Jeff Sessions failed to deliver any new policy recommendations to advance the attorney general’s aggressively anti-marijuana views. http://bit.ly/2vyTRm2
for getting exclusive word of the impending introduction of a critical bipartisan bill aimed at safeguarding Robert Mueller's role as special counsel. http://bit.ly/2vk73KM
The sensational news about a campaign-season meeting involving a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump’s inner circle – including his son, Donald Trump Jr. – developed over six days, with details and accounts changing almost by the hour. Reports trickled out that another man also was at the meeting to represent Russian interests.
With all major news organizations in hot pursuit, Washington’s Desmond Butler was the first to nail the identity of the lobbyist in question and also to nab the first on-the-record interview with him. For tenacious source work, Butler wins Beat of the Week.
for two news breaks on the same day regarding special counsel Robert Mueller: He’s taken over a criminal probe involving Paul Manafort, and he may investigate the roles of the attorney general and deputy attorney general in the firing of FBI Director James Comey. http://strib.mn/2qX7XZb
for breaking the news that a deal was in the works to revive the Republican health care bill in the House that lawmakers would pass by a razor-thin margin two days later. http://on.freep.com/2qsRFur
for revealing that Dow Chemical pushed the federal government to ignore the findings of federal scientists who point to a family of widely used pesticides as harmful to about 1,800 critically threatened or endangered species. https://www.apnews.com/a29073ecef9b4841b2e6cca0720...
for revealing that Republicans on a U.S. House committee had quietly ended the congressional investigation into the Flint water crisis. http://bit.ly/2hWi0fz
for breaking the news that an internal report found the Environmental Protection Agency had sufficient authority and information to issue an emergency order to protect residents of Flint, Michigan, from lead-contaminated water as early as June 2015 — seven months before it declared an emergency. http://bit.ly/2eMFz7a