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Defense & National Security – US: Johnson's exit won't affect Ukraine support

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation on Thursday, but U.S., U.K. and Ukrainian officials hope it won’t affect the aid being sent to Kyiv.  

We’ll break down today’s developments. Plus, we’ll talk about the head of Secret Service retiring.   

This is Defense & National Security, your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. For The Hill, I’m Jordan Williams. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.

Johnson resigns, says UK will still support Ukraine

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned on Thursday, but he pledged that the United Kingdom would still support Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s invasion.  

Johnson, who held the role for less than three years, ushered in Great Britain’s “Brexit” split with the European Union. However, he was facing pressure from fellow Conservative Party members over his handling of a series of controversies.  

What controversies? The controversies that led to his downfall include the parties he held during the COVID-19 pandemic while restrictions were in place, and a renovated flat that was paid for by a Conservative Party donor.  

But the final straw for some was the way he handled sexual misconduct allegations against Chris Pincher, whom Johnson appointed deputy chief whip.  

Johnson’s support for Ukraine: Wildly popular in Ukraine, Johnson gained the admiration of the country and its leaders for strongly pushing weapons transfers to the former Soviet nation and applying severe sanctions on Moscow shortly after Russia’s invasion began on Feb. 24.  

• Johnson also became the first leader of a G-7 country to visit Kyiv in April, returning for a second time in June.   
• In addition, he had repeatedly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin in the lead-up to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The effect on Kyiv: In his resignation speech, Johnson said the U.K. will continue to back Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”  

In a Fox News interview on Wednesday, National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby said that Johnson’s resignation wouldn’t affect the flow of aid to Ukraine.  

• Kirby, who made the comments ahead of Thursday’s announcement, also said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “understands that he has that international support, regardless of what government is in power in any one of those countries.” 

Reactions from Ukraine and Russia: Zelensky expressed sadness for Johnson’s resignation and thanked him for his support during the invasion.  

“We all heard this news with sadness. Not only me, but also the entire Ukrainian society, which is very sympathetic to you. My entire Office and all Ukrainians are grateful to you for your help,” Zelensky said in the statement. “We have no doubt that Great Britain’s support will be preserved, but your personal leadership and charisma made it special.” 

Russian officials, meanwhile, celebrated Johnson’s ousting, with foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova characterizing his fall as a sign of Western decline.   

“The moral of the story — do not seek to destroy Russia,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram. “Russia cannot be destroyed. You can break your teeth on it, and then choke on them.” 

Read more about his resignation here.

Secret Service director to retire

James Murray, the director of the Secret Service for the last three years, will retire at the end of the month, the agency announced Thursday. 

• Murray spent 27 years in the Secret Service and has served as its director since May 2019.
• He has led the agency through the coronavirus pandemic, with several agents contracting the virus during the 2020 presidential campaign, and through the tumultuous transition after the 2020 election, including the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. 

Murray’s career: In a news release announcing his retirement, the agency credited Murray with guiding the Secret Service “through eight National Special Security Events and nearly 20,000 international and domestic protective operations. During that time, the agency also recovered approximately $4.2B in fraud loss and prevented an estimated $8.1B in additional losses at the hands of criminal enterprise.” 

• Prior to joining the Secret Service as a special agent, Murray spent five years as an investigator with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
• Murray coordinated Secret Service protection for the 2016 presidential election and the transition that followed. 

‘Long and distinguished career’: “Director Jim Murray has led a long and distinguished career in federal and military service for three decades, including the last three years as Director of the United States Secret Service,” President Biden and first lady Jill Biden said in a statement. “Jim embodies the meaning of service over self, and protected the families of U.S. Presidents like they were part of his own. We are incredibly grateful for his service to our country and our family.” 

An embattled agency: The agency has been in the spotlight in recent weeks over the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory. 

• Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump White House aide, testified last week that then-President Trump was so enraged about being told he could not join his supporters at the Capitol that he lunged for the steering wheel of his vehicle and then at Robert Engel, the special agent in charge for Secret Service that day.
• The Secret Service has acknowledged Trump wanted to join his supporters at the Capitol, something the former president has indicated publicly. But the agency has denied Hutchinson’s account, which she heard secondhand, that Trump lunged at the wheel or at Engel. 

Read the full story here.

ICBM TEST ROCKET EXPLODES SECONDS AFTER LAUNCH

A test missile launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California exploded seconds after being fired late Wednesday night, according to officials.  

The Minotaur II space launch vehicle exploded approximately 11 seconds after launching off the test pad at 11:01 p.m. local time, Vandenberg officials confirmed in a statement early Thursday.   

The explosion sparked a fire on base, though the debris stayed within the “immediate vicinity” of the launch pad and there were no injuries.   

In a second release, base officials confirmed that the Vandenberg Fire Department responded to the fire after the launch as it produced smoke “but not immediate danger to the rest of base.” 

“We always have emergency response teams on standby prior to every launch,” Col. Kris Barcomb, vice commander of Space Launch Delta 30, said in a statement. “Safety is our priority at all times.” 

Read more here. 

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Secret Service denial of Hutchinson story fuels attacks from both sides 
• Democrats seek to boost media literacy for students, veterans with two new bills 
• Biden to rescind Afghanistan’s designation as major non-NATO ally 
• US, UK law enforcement chiefs unite to warn of Chinese spying threat 

That’s it for today. Check out The Hill’s Defense and National Security pages for the latest coverage. See you tomorrow!

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White House defends contact with family of Paul Whelan

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Thursday declined to say whether President Biden has plans to call the family of Paul Whelan, a U.S. citizen detained in Russia, but said that administration officials have been in regular contact with the Whelan family. 

“The president is getting regularly updated,” Jean-Pierre told reporters at a White House briefing. “This is top of mind.” 

Jean-Pierre’s comments followed criticism from Elizabeth Whelan, Paul Whelan’s sister, who voiced disappointment Wednesday that Biden had not called her family after he phoned the wife of American basketball star Brittney Griner, who is also detained in Russia.  

Jean-Pierre said she didn’t have a call between Biden and the Whelan family to “announce or to preview” but she described regular contact between the administration and the family.  

Jean-Pierre said that White House staff joined Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens on a call with Elizabeth Whelan on Wednesday and said White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Carsten’s office and consular officials are also in contact with the family.  

“We want to assure them and the Whelans and the Griner family and all other U.S. nationals who are being wrongfully detained or held hostage abroad that this president is doing everything he can to make sure that they come home safely,” Jean-Pierre said.  

Elizabeth Whelan tweeted Wednesday that she was “crushed” that Biden hasn’t phone her family after news broke that Biden and Vice President Harris had phone Cherelle Griner. She later clarified that she did not “begrudge” the Griners’ access to Biden. 

Whelan was detained in Russia at the end of 2018 on espionage charges that he denies. The U.S. government maintains that he, like Griner, is being wrongfully held by Moscow. Whelan was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020.  

Griner’s case has attracted intense national attention in part due to her WNBA career. She was detained at an airport in February after Russian authorities claimed to have found vape cartridges with hashish oil in her luggage. Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges on Thursday, according to reports, but maintained she did not intend to break the law. She faces up to 10 years in jail.  

The Biden administration’s handling of hostage cases has attracted scrutiny since officials secured the release of Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine detained in Russia since 2019 who was in poor health, by way of a prisoner swap in April. Reed’s parents demonstrated outside a Biden event in Texas and, later, outside the White House and eventually secured a one-on-one meeting with Biden in March.  

At the time, David Whelan, Paul Whelan’s brother, commended the release of Reed but questioned the administration’s commitment to freeing his brother.  

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IRS in political storm over Trump-era audits

The IRS is at the center of a political storm over audits conducted on former FBI director James Comey and former deputy director Andrew McCabe.

Both had high profile fights with President Trump, and the rare audits were conducted on Trump’s watch under the Trump-appointed IRS commissioner Charles Rettig.

Lawmakers on Thursday were calling for a full investigation into whether the high-profile Trump adversaries had been illegally targeted, and if so, how.

“The possibility that the former President or someone in the White House, his cabinet, his appointees, or leadership working under the Trump-appointed IRS Commissioner may have requested an audit of those deemed disloyal is alarming,” Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said in a statement Thursday.

“It is unconscionable that someone within the IRS may have acted on this request out of loyalty to the Trump administration or fear of retaliation for failing to act,” he said.

Comey was fired by President Trump in 2017 during the FBI’s probe into possible relationships between the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 campaign team. There was speculation at the time that his firing may have taken the momentum out of the investigation. 

McCabe took over for Comey as acting director of the FBI and was fired by Trump’s attorney general Jeff Sessions in 2018. He became a vocal critic of the administration after his firing and a contributor to CNN.

According to The New York Times, Comey and McCabe were both served a rare and highly demanding type of IRS audit following their firings.

These audits are part of something called the National Research Program (NRP) at the IRS, which goes through taxpayers’ returns in microscopic detail and requires intense and time-consuming back-and-forth with the agency. Only a few thousand of these special kinds of resource-intensive audits are carried out each year.

There was a 1-in-30,000 chance of Comey getting the NRP audit and a 1-in-20,000 chance of McCabe getting the audit, according to the Times. Taken together, that’s about a 1-in-600,000,000 chance of two randomly selected individuals receiving the same audit in a pool of more than 150,000,000 U.S. taxpayers.

This is hardly the first time the IRS has been accused of playing a political game with tax collections and enforcement.

Republicans on the Hill have been quick to point out that there was a similar controversy during the Obama administration concerning the tax-exempt status of certain conservative groups.

“As we learned from the repeated targeting of conservative groups and the dangerous leaking of private tax returns under the Obama and Biden Administrations, the IRS should never be used as a weapon against political opponents,” Ways and Means Republican Leader Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said in a Thursday statement.

“Commissioner Rettig has stated unequivocally he has had no communication with President Trump, and the research audits are statistically generated. He has referred this issue to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and I support investigating all allegations of political targeting – consistent with the precedent set by the House Ways and Committee when investigating President Obama’s disgraced former IRS director Lois Lerner, who the committee confirmed had engaged in this abuse.”

Lerner in 2013 headed an IRS division that oversaw tax-exempt organizations. Certain conservative organizations began receiving extra scrutiny at the time, triggering a huge controversy during the Obama era over whether groups were being targeted for unfair treatment.

Democrats also opened the history books to find evidence of foul play at the IRS, with Neal pointing to former President Nixon.

“These allegations are reminiscent of another time when a president inappropriately used the IRS to target his enemies,” he said in his statement.

“In a recorded conversation in the Oval Office on May 13, 1971, Richard M. Nixon laid out for his aides the job qualifications for the next commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. ‘I want to be sure he is a ruthless son of a [b—-], that he will do what he’s told, that every income tax return I want to see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends,’ the president told H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman, according to a transcript published years later in the Washington Post.”

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre declined to answer a question about whether President Biden still has confidence in IRS commissioner Rettig following the allegations.

“As you know, the IRS commissioner, his term is up in November, but I don’t have any updates on that,” Jean-Pierre said. “Can’t speak to anything more besides, you know, we would refer you to the IRS on that specific thing. And he is going to be up in November, so I will leave it there.”

The IRS said it is referring Comey and McCabe’s cases to the Treasury inspector general’s office.

“The IRS has referred the matter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration for review. IRS Commissioner Rettig personally reached out to TIGTA after receiving a press inquiry,” the agency said in a Thursday statement.

“Federal Privacy laws preclude us from discussing specific taxpayer situations,” the IRS added. “Audits are handled by career civil servants, and the IRS has strong safeguards in place to protect the exam process – and against politically motivated audits. It’s ludicrous and untrue to suggest that senior IRS officials somehow targeted specific individuals for National Research Program audits.”

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Drug company AbbVie used Trump tax law to shield profits, Senate report finds

Pharmaceutical giant AbbVie generates almost all of its sales in the U.S. but has allegedly exploited former President Trump’s tax law to shield much of its sales from taxes, according to an interim report released Thursday by  Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee.

The report details how loopholes in the 2017 tax law have allowed AbbVie, a large multinational corporation headquartered in the United States, to substantially shrink its tax burden and stash profits overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes on prescription drug sales.

The report comes as Democrats are working to try to roll back those changes and remove incentives for corporations to use overseas tax shelters. Finance Committee staff in the report noted the price of inaction on international tax reform.

“It is imperative that Congress enact needed international tax reforms that would close loopholes that allow drug companies like AbbVie to stash their profits in tax havens,” they wrote.

AbbVie makes the arthritis drug Humira, which has been the best-selling drug in the world for several years. Over the last four years, AbbVie has $62 billion worth of Humira in the United States.

According to the report, AbbVie generated over $56 billion in worldwide sales in 2021, with over 77 percent made to American consumers, yet just 1 percent of AbbVie’s income was reported in the United States for tax purposes.

The company was allegedly able to accomplish this by taking advantage of Trump’s tax law, which changed how companies calculate their tax bills on profits generated internationally.

“While Big Pharma’s game playing to avoid paying taxes is no secret, the scope of AbbVie’s tax avoidance is eye popping,” Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement. “It’s critical that Congress takes steps to fix this broken system, so nurses and firefighters aren’t paying higher tax rates than Big Pharma.”

AbbVie did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

According to the report, AbbVie holds its intellectual property like patents and trademarks in a Bermuda-based subsidiary with no employees or other major operations. The company manufactures the drug substance for Humira at a branch in Puerto Rico, fills syringes, and then sells those syringes to AbbVie’ in the U.S. 

This tactic means the subsidiary is effectively a tax resident in Puerto Rico, and the associated income from sales to AbbVie’s U.S. operations are reported on a Puerto Rico tax return. This means income from Humira is taxed at a much lower rate than if the company was based in the U.S., because of the 2017 tax law. 

AbbVie paid an effective tax rate of about 8.7 in 2018 after the law took effect; it was more than double that amount in 2017. AbbVie estimates its tax rate in 2021 will be 12.5 percent.

The report’s authors noted the tax law made it easier for large corporations to use subsidiaries in offshore tax havens to pay tax rates that “are a fraction of that paid by the average working American family.”

The report indicated the committee is working on a broader investigation into the effects of the tax law on pharmaceutical companies’ profits. Wyden has demanded similar documents from two other drugmakers, Merck and Abbott.

“To date, other entities contacted by the Committee, including Merck & Co. and Abbott Laboratories, have refused to substantively cooperate,” the report stated. “However, the Committee intends to continue its investigations in order to provide Congress and the public with a complete understanding of the effects of the 2017 Republican tax law on the pharmaceutical industry.”

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White House: Boris Johnson resignation won't change US, UK relationship

The White House said Thursday that the resignation of U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson would not alter the “strong” relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.  

“Our alliance with the United Kingdom continues to be strong,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a briefing Thursday afternoon. “Our special relationship with the people in the country will continue to endure. None of that changes.”  

Her comments came several hours after Johnson announced plans to resign after he came under fire following a series of scandals.  

Johnson’s resignation comes at a particular tenuous time for European security, as Ukraine continues to battle Russia’s months-long invasion. The war has also created damaging economic shocks that world leaders sought to address at a recent Group of Seven (G7) summit in Germany that was attended by Johnson and President Biden.  

Jean-Pierre insisted Thursday that the U.S. and its European allies would remain committed to supporting Ukraine regardless of the change in leadership in the U.K., pointing to the unity on display at both the G7 and NATO meetings in Europe last week.  

“What you’re seeing currently today because of the leadership of this president is a more unified NATO and I don’t think that changes at all,” she said.  

Asked whether Biden has spoken with Johnson, Jean-Pierre said she had no call to readout and wouldn’t say if the two planned to speak.  

After days of mounting pressure from members of his party, Johnson announced his intent to resign on Thursday. He indicated he plans to stay on in the interim as the Conservative Party overseas the process of finding a new leader.  

Johnson had faced criticism for a handful of scandals, the most recent one being revelations that he promoted a member of Parliament, Chris Pincher, despite having knowledge of sexual misconduct allegations against the member.   

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America needs to trust energy innovators more than regulators

Many progressive climate activists view the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on West Virginia vs. EPA as a major setback for climate progress. The true setback, however, is an overreliance on the executive branch to set energy and climate policy. What’s needed is congressional leadership to enable the private sector to meet the energy and environmental needs of the American people.

For most Americans, high gas prices and energy bills are on the forefront of their minds. Driven largely by higher oil prices, energy costs are up nearly 35 percent from a year ago. That squeezes the budgets for many families, particularly low-income ones. About one in six Americans struggled to pay their energy bill at least once in the past, while almost 24 percent went without paying for necessities such as food and medicine to pay an energy bill.

To be clear, the energy crisis isn’t solely the result of President Biden’s policies. The pandemic created massive energy supply and demand imbalances that caused price swings much faster than the market could respond. Further, the price premium resulting from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is real. But by canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, temporarily prohibiting oil and gas lease sales on federal lands and promulgating climate regulations at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Biden threw fuel on the fire rather than calling the fire department.

What’s more, the Biden administration’s actions represent a larger, systemic reason for why America’s energy and climate policy is broken. Our elected officials have delegated far too much authority to unaccountable, unelected agency officials. Major actions that affect energy investment for all types of resources and technologies have been subjected to regulatory ping-pong.

For either party, the pen and phone approach to energy and environment policy has not been terribly effective. The swings in direction of the administrative state every four or eight years keeps lawyers and lobbyists busy, but companies find it difficult to plan, invest, and build.

Not only has overreliance on the executive branch been unproductive, well-intentioned delegation of authority with relatively loose parameters and everchanging guidance has often impeded economic and environmental progress.

An overburdensome regulatory state has often worked to the detriment of energy affordability, emissions reduction and climate resiliency. Regulatory paralysis, NIMBYism (the “not in my back yard” crowd) as well as protracted lawsuits delay or outright block resource extraction, energy infrastructure and renewable energy projects. Relicensing a hydropower plant takes on average 7.6 years, according to the Department of Energy. That’s longer than it takes to receive a new hydro license or relicense a nuclear plant. 

A June 2022 study in Energy Policy reviewed the project development of 53 utility-scale wind, solar and geothermal projects from 2008 to 2021. The study showed 79 percent of the projects had at least two sources of opposition and “34 [percent] faced significant delays and difficulties securing permits, 49 [percent] were cancelled permanently, and 26 [percent] resumed after being stopped for several months or years.” 

Moreover, it’s challenging to adapt to changing conditions when regulators resist change. Take Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, for example. A report covered the flooding at the base in March 2019. Even though the base knew flooding was a risk when water came close to the base’s runway eight years earlier, “approval for the levee construction was complicated by myriad requirements from the Army Corps of Engineers that took six years to navigate.”

How do you build back better when you can’t build?

Obstacles to energy investment and development should frustrate consumers and climate activists alike. Meaningful climate action necessitates that we build cleaner and faster. Empowering innovators instead of regulators will continue to drive down costs and speed up deployment of emissions-free technologies. With most current and future emissions coming from developing countries, America’s comparative advantage should be how to best innovate and provide cleaner choices at lower prices.

Changing the status quo will take some resolve from Congress. Instead of outsourcing decisions to agencies, Congress should rediscover its own sense of agency. Modernizing permitting should maintain environmental safeguards and public participation but establish a more predictable, efficient process to manage our forests, to build a solar array and to build more climate-resilient infrastructure. Importantly, legislative reform that opens markets and modernizes antiquated regulations will provide more affordable, dependable power to families and businesses.

Reimagining energy and climate policy isn’t “anti-government” as some critics imply. Instead, it means putting less faith in regulators and more faith in innovators while ensuring that the huge sum of money the Department of Energy already invests in research, development and deployment is well spent. West Virginia vs. EPA should signal a time for Congress to reassert its authority and provide the policy foundation for innovators to meet our energy needs and mitigate the risk of global climate change.

Nick Loris is the vice president of public policy for the Conservative Coalition for Climate Solutions (C3 Solutions).

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Las Vegas Raiders hire NFL's first Black female team president

The Las Vegas Raiders have hired Sandra Douglass Morgan to be the team’s new president, making her the first Black woman in NFL history to be named to that position. 

The Raiders announced the news in a statement on Thursday, with the team later holding a press conference to introduce Morgan. 

Morgan, the former chairwoman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, is expected to replace former interim team President Dan Ventrelle, who was dismissed by the franchise in May, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 

In a letter to Raiders’ employees, Morgan, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, graduate and Las Vegas native, expressed her gratitude for being named to the position.

“I am thrilled to join you as we embark on one of the most exciting times in the history of our organization,” Morgan wrote in the letter to team employees. 

Morgan is the third African American to hold the position of team president for an NFL franchise.

Raiders owner Mark Davis, who has expressed interest in signing free agent quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick, shared his excitement in the hiring of Morgan. 

“I am thrilled that Sandra has agreed to join the Raiders family,” Davis said in his statement. “Her experience, integrity and passion for this community will be invaluable to our organization. From the moment I met Sandra, I knew she was a force to be reckoned with. We are extremely lucky to have her at the helm.”

Ventrelle claimed that his dismissal from the team was in part due to him alerting league officials about a hostile work environment in the organization. 

“Let me be clear — I am not here to avoid or sidestep problems or concerns that need to be addressed,” Morgan said. “I’ve given long and thoughtful consideration to joining you, and I’ve done so because I believe in the promise of the Raiders. Most importantly, I believe in your core values of integrity, community, and commitment to excellence. I will expect you to embody those and to hold me accountable to doing the same.”

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White House won’t say if Biden has confidence in IRS commissioner

The White House on Thursday wouldn’t say if President Biden is confident in IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig amid calls for an investigation into if top former FBI officials had been illegally targeted for especially intensive audits.

“As you know, the IRS commissioner, his term is up in November, but I don’t have any updates on that. Can’t speak to anything more besides, you know, we would refer you to the IRS on that specific thing. And he is going to be up in November, so I will leave it there,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked about Biden’s confidence in Rettig.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called for an investigation of the audits by the IRS under Rettig, an appointee of former President Trump, who viewed the officials as political enemies.

The New York Times reported that former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had been the object of successive, particular types of audits that are supposed to be conducted at random.

When asked a second time about Biden’s confidence in Rettig for the remainder of his term, Jean-Pierre again noted that Rettig’s term ends in November.

“Again, I’m going to say that he is up in November, he is a commissioner of the IRS, part of the administration, so I’m just going to leave it at that,” she said.

Jean-Pierre said she wouldn’t get ahead of the president when asked if her mentioning that his term is up in November is an insinuation that he wouldn’t be renominated.

“That is a decision for the president to make and I’m not going to get ahead of that decision,” she said.

She added that she wouldn’t comment on enforcement actions taken by the IRS.

Comey, who was fired by Trump, had about a 1-in-30,000 chance of getting this special kind of audit, which is part of something called the National Research Program at the IRS, according to The New York Times.

McCabe’s audit, which was part of the same program, had about a 1-in-20,000 chance of occurring, and happened only two years later.

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Washington Post names new editorial page editor

The Washington Post has named the next head of its editorial board.

David Shipley, who was co-founder of Bloomberg’s opinion section and has overseen its growth as senior executive editor, will begin as the Post’s editorial page editor this summer.

“David brings deep experience in serving a sophisticated global readership with up-to-the-minute commentary and analysis. He has a distinguished record of identifying talent and mentoring writers and editors at all stages of their careers,” Post publisher Fred Ryan wrote in a memo to staffers on Thursday.

“He possesses the intellectual curiosity, thoughtful independence, journalistic integrity, and even-handed judgment essential in an editorial page editor. He is wholly committed to the vision of Post Opinions as a forum for diverse voices offering a wide variety of perspectives.”

Shipley, Ryan said, emerged as a standout in an exhaustive search process that involved more than 150 candidates. The process was “global and inclusive,” Ryan said, involving men and women “of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and worldviews.”

Shipley replaces Fred Hiatt, who died late last year following a heart attack after leading the Post’s editorial board for more than two decades.

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