Jonah Bromwich

My book, "Dragon on Centre Street," is out this week! I still can’t quite believe it. The book focuses on Donald Trump’s sole criminal trial but it’s about more than that: it’s about the way that our institutions have failed to keep up with the 21st century, the way that qualities like self-promotion (lol), shamelessness and combativeness *work* in our world. It’s about New York City and the way in which New Yorkers’ lives collide with enormous historical events, after which they head to Wegmans to stock up on Diet Coke. It’s about the famous, the non-famous and the infamous. I wrote this book for people like the person I was before I started covering courts for the New York Times Metro section. People who follow the news but long ago gave up on learning every detail about the ever-multiplying investigations into Trump. My hope is that it provides a coherent picture in an age of incoherence. It’s now available *wherever books are sold* and I hope you’ll buy it and read it!

BREAKING: In a wild New Jersey hearing, a judge fiercely questioned a prosecutor about whether Alina Habba still had some operating role in the U.S. attorney's office, ejected the office's head of appeals from court and ordered its 3 leaders to testify nytimes.com/2026/03/17/nyr…

Richard Grenell once hoped to be President Trump’s secretary of state. Instead, Mr. Trump just replaced him as Kennedy Center president. nytimes.com/2026/03/16/us/…

ANALYSIS: Judge Boasberg's decision last Friday to quash the Powell subpoena is such a big deal because it shows how Trump's retribution campaign -- which has already struggled to jail his rivals -- is now struggling to just take basic investigative steps against those who Trump wants targeted. w/@alanfeuer nytimes.com/2026/03/16/us/…

Deeply saddened to hear of the passing of John F. Burns, the legendary foreign correspondent of The New York Times. He hired me for the Times in 2002. I had just graduated from university with a degree in International Relations and knew almost nothing about journalism. Burns took me on anyway. In doing so he became, in many ways, my first real teacher in the craft. The Islamabad bureau in late 2001 operated temporarily out of a guesthouse before moving to a larger house the following year. Burns had a reputation for planting bureaus in difficult places and making them work. Watching him build one from the ground up was itself an education. My work at the start was to assist Burns and the other journalists at the bureau. Pull wire reports. Do research. Track down interesting articles. Stack them neatly on his desk. Burns spent most of the day out in the city meeting officials or holding long conversations with sources, mostly over coffee in a hotel lounge. The real work began late at night. He wrote deep into the evening at a desk set up in one corner of the newsroom. I would sit nearby, ready to pass him a document or run a quick search as he shaped his copy. Stories went out in the small hours. One evening, worn down by the long hours, I complained to a colleague, Remy Gerstein. His reply was blunt and memorable, a lesson in itself. "Your time is important. But it is not as important as John's." Burns was meticulous about his work, even his notebooks. He wrote only on one half of each page, leaving the other half blank so he could return later, sometimes years later, to add a thought or a detail. His appearance rarely changed. White shirt. Khakis or pale blue jeans. A green fleece. He insisted on dependable, top-notch equipment and worked on a Sony laptop at a time when Apple machines had not yet broken into the market. He was a wonderful raconteur. Over lunch or dinner he would hold a table for hours with stories about the people and places he had covered. My first reporting trip was with him, to Muridke near Lahore, where a banned militant organization had its headquarters. For someone just entering the profession it felt like stepping straight into the deep current of reporting. His wife, Jane Scott-Long, managed the bureau and kept the operation running with precision. The two soon moved on to set up the Kabul bureau before leaving for Baghdad when the Iraq war began in 2003. His passing comes at a time when the world already feels unsettled. Perhaps that is why the loss feels heavier. Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was to begin my career around journalists of that caliber. The newsroom had an unspoken but palpable competitive energy. Everyone wanted to be the one to win the Pulitzer for their coverage. That tension sharpened the work. John gave me my first break and showed what serious reporting looked like. That early apprenticeship has stayed with me ever since. Rest in peace, John.

CRAZY STORY: The former Green Beret who mounted the failed 'Bay of Piglets' coup has been a fugitive from justice for months. Authorities found his ankle monitor wrapped in aluminum foil and "hidden in a piece of furniture." W/ @santuln nytimes.com/2026/03/13/nyr…

@Bernstein i hav rly good taste tho joe, so it's all good/cool

@Jonesieman to thine own self be true!

I believe it's a sign of intelligence to meet hype with skepticism, and it's beneficial to one's writing and humanity to seek cultural alternatives from a stance of quasi-ornery distance. It's also how one develops taste. theatlantic.com/culture/2026/0…

@Bernstein what if it's an informed, prosocial acquiescence?

Furthermore, “participating in culture” as a way of being liked/accepted disgusts me. One should be liked/admired for personal virtues, not meek acquiescence to an obviously diseased pop culture.

"Mahmoud Khalil has memorized the license plates of the vehicles that park on his block. He keeps an eye on reflective surfaces — storefront windows, car mirrors — that help him monitor his surroundings" Don't miss this @Jonesieman piece on Mahmoud Khalil nytimes.com/2026/03/08/nyr…

Florida Bar Retreats From Statement Saying Halligan Was Under Scrutiny nytimes.com/2026/03/06/us/…

BREAKING: Lindsey Halligan, the former U.S. attorney, is under investigation by the Florida Bar. nytimes.com/2026/03/05/us/…

NEW and BREAKING: In a major reversal, the Trump admin is NOW trying to walk back its decision to walk away from defending the law firm executive orders in court. DOJ just notified the four fighting law firms that it now intends to continue defending the legality of the orders in court. A day ago, DOJ had a very different position. w/ @Jonesieman @DevlinBarrett nytimes.com/2026/03/03/us/…

BREAKING: DOJ officially walked away from the executive orders Trump leveled against law firms that refused to capitulate. This means that those firms like Paul Weiss that did make deals w/ Trump made deals to head off executive orders judges roundly ruled were unconstitutional and the admin ultimately gave up on defending. w/@Jonesieman nytimes.com/2026/03/02/us/…

NEW: I spoke with Dominic Evans, a 48-year-old schoolteacher in Tucson who plays in a band with Nancy Guthrie's son-in-law, about how the online accusations against him have upended his and his family's lives this month. nytimes.com/2026/02/25/us/…

NEW: Man With Pizza Cutter Is Said to Have Tried to Break Mangione Out of Jail - @HurubieMeko @SantulN and @Jonesieman report. nytimes.com/2026/01/29/nyr…

NEW: Under @NYCMayor, the Law Dept. is suing to block the production of an NYPD show produced by Dr. Phil's son's media company. W/ @Jonesieman @danarubinstein @WRashbaum nytimes.com/2026/01/21/nyr…

NEW: There's no place that capitulation has played out more dramatically than at CBS and "60 Minutes." @jimrutenberg and I explain how that happened. static.nytimes.com/email-content/…

scoop: A top editor at Axel Springer was ousted after a workplace investigation into his conduct at an alcohol-filled Christmas party nytimes.com/2026/01/18/bus…

If prosecutors in Minneapolis tried to bring charges against the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good last week, they would face many hurdles. Here's what to know about the legal issues around any potential prosecution, via @shailadewan @Jonesieman: nytimes.com/2026/01/14/us/…

A (Lawyerly) Spat Erupts Over the Defense of Nicolás Maduro - @Jonesieman and I report nytimes.com/2026/01/10/nyr…