Correspondent, The New York Times
Michael S. Schmidt is a Washington correspondent for The Times who covers national security and federal investigations. He was part of two teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 — one for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues and the other for coverage of President Donald Trump and his campaign’s ties to Russia.
For the past year, Michael’s coverage has focused on Robert S. Mueller III's investigation into Mr. Trump's campaign and whether the president obstructed justice.
From 2012 to 2016, Michael covered the F.B.I., Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. Michael spent 2011 in Iraq chronicling the last year of the American occupation. From 2007 to 2010, he covered doping and off-the-field issues for the sports section. He started his career at the Times in 2005 as a clerk on the foreign desk.
Michael has broken several high profile stories. Among them was that former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, wrote a series of memos on how the president asked for his loyalty and tried to interfere with the F.B.I.'s investigations. Mr. Mueller was appointed after those disclosures. Michael was first to reveal the fact that Hillary Clinton exclusively relied on a personal email account when she was secretary of state. In sports, he broke the stories that Sammy Sosa, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and wrote about the treatment of young baseball players in the Dominican Republic who were exploited by American investors and agents.
In 2017, Michael co-authored the stories that outlined how the former Fox News host, Bill O'Reilly, paid off a series of women who made sexual harassment allegations against him. For that coverage, he won the Livingston Award for national reporting, which recognizes the best work of journalists under the age of 35.
Michael is a graduate of Lafayette College.