Jennifer Duck, the Democratic staff director for the Senate Judiciary Committee and the former Chief of Staff of Dianne Feinstein appears to be quite close with James Hohmann, the national political correspondent for The Washington Post who has been intensely covering the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
Hohmann and Duck were spotted together as early as December 23, 2015. A photo posted on Eastview High School’s Facebook page — the high school where Hohmann attended — shows the couple with Michelle and Barack Obama. Another photo from 2016 also shows Duck and Hohmann together with two others.
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An article in Politico also notes they attended an event together in Iowa in 2015.
In February they were also in a photo together.
Since Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault, Hohmann has written 11 articles about the situation. His first article about the situation, written on September 17 in The Daily 202, discusses Christine Blasey Ford’s “decision” to come forward with allegations against Judge Kavanaugh: “Ford’s decision to go public on Sunday with her accusation that Judge Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her when they were both in highschool throws a wrench in Republican plans to advance his nomination through the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday and to confirm him by the end of the month,” Hohmann wrote.
Hohmann also created controversy after he suggested that Kavanaugh’s weight training the summer which Ford claims she was assaulted had something to do with her assault allegations. He later deleted his tweet claiming that it was “interpreted in a way that was not intended.”
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Hohmann has also offered extensive commentary on Kavanaugh on his Twitter:
In a 2013 article in The Washington Post, Paul Farhi writes, “It’s all but a journalistic commandment: Thou shalt not have a vested interest in the story you’re covering. Otherwise, a personal entanglement could color a reporter’s neutrality or cloud public perceptions of fairness. An obvious area of concern: when a journalist’s relative or spouse is part of the news.”
Duck and Hohmann did not respond to a request for comment.