Brett Murphy
I’m a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter on ProPublica’s national desk, where I write about the government, companies and power.
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What I Cover
I currently cover the federal agencies at the center of Trump’s foreign affairs agenda and the corporations that help carry it out. Most recently, I wrote about the Biden administration’s State Department and how top officials there repeatedly disregarded government experts and appeared to flout U.S. law in order to continue supplying weapons of war to Israel.
My Background
I’ve been a reporter on ProPublica’s national desk since 2022. That year, I published a series of articles uncovering a new junk science in the justice system known as 911 call analysis. The reporting won a George Polk Award, among other honors.
In 2023, a team and I revealed how a set of politically connected billionaires provided lavish gifts and travel to Supreme Court justices over many years. Those stories won the Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for public service.
I joined ProPublica after working as an investigative reporter at USA Today, where I covered labor, criminal justice and the federal government. There, I won several journalism awards, including the international Livingston Award for our investigation into a U.S. military attack on its own security forces in Afghanistan, which killed dozens of civilians, including as many as 60 children.
My series on widespread labor abuses in California’s port trucking industry was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize and spurred a raft of reforms. Before USA Today, I covered courts and hurricanes for the Naples Daily News and other Gannett newspapers. I also co-founded the “Local Matters” newsletter, a weekly roundup of the best investigative and watchdog reporting from local newsrooms around the country.
I live in Brooklyn.
A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza
Israel has repeatedly crossed the Biden administration’s human rights red lines. But the U.S. continued to send weapons. Exclusive records and interviews reveal what happened inside the State Department.
Blinken to Israel: Allow More Aid Into Gaza or Face the Consequences
The stern letter from the secretary of state and the Pentagon comes amid the worst month for relief efforts since the war began. ProPublica previously reported Blinken had earlier rejected findings that Israel was deliberately blocking aid.
Inside the State Department’s Weapons Pipeline to Israel
Leaked cables and emails show how the agency’s top officers dismissed internal evidence of Israelis misusing American-made bombs and worked around the clock to rush more out while the Gaza death toll mounted.
Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza, Two Government Bodies Concluded. Antony Blinken Rejected Them.
Blinken told Congress, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting” aid, even though the U.S. Agency for International Development and others had determined that Israel had broken the law.
Blinken Says Israeli Units Accused of Serious Violations Have Done Enough to Avoid Sanctions. Experts and Insiders Disagree.
The secretary of state told Congress that Israel had adequately punished a soldier who got community service for killing an unarmed Palestinian. Government officials call it a “mockery” and inconsistent with the law.
Netanyahu Resists U.S. Plan to Cut Off Aid to Israeli Military Unit
After months of inaction, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is poised to bar U.S. aid to an Israeli unit accused of human rights abuses.
Blinken Is Sitting on Staff Recommendations to Sanction Israeli Military Units Linked to Killings or Rapes
A special State Department panel told Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the U.S. should restrict arms sales to Israeli military units that have been credibly accused of human rights abuses. He has not taken any action.
A “Delicate Matter”: Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears He Would Resign
Interviews and newly unearthed documents reveal that Thomas, facing financial strain, privately pushed for a higher salary and to allow Supreme Court justices to take speaking fees.
The Judiciary Has Policed Itself for Decades. It Doesn’t Work.
The secretive Judicial Conference is tasked with self-governance. The group, led by the Supreme Court’s chief justice, has spent decades preserving perks, defending judges and thwarting outside oversight.
The Supreme Court Has Adopted a Conduct Code, but Who Will Enforce It?
Experts say it is unclear if the new rules, which come after reporting by ProPublica and others revealed that justices had repeatedly failed to disclose gifts and travel from wealthy donors, would address the issues raised by the recent revelations.
Clarence Thomas’ 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel
The fullest accounting yet shows how Thomas has secretly reaped the benefits from a network of wealthy and well-connected patrons that is far more extensive than previously understood.