CONFIDER

Politico Sics Lawyers on Boss Who Defected to NBC

In this week’s edition of Confider, we reveal how a former Politico boss has helped recruit some ex-colleagues over to NBC News, resulting in a legal threat.

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This reporting appears as one of several scoops featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the media newsletter that pulls back the curtain to reveal what’s really going on inside the world’s most powerful navel-gazing industry. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.

A former top Politico editor has played a significant role in recruiting some of her ex-colleagues over to NBC News, resulting in a legal threat, Confider has learned.

Beloved editor Carrie Budoff Brown left Politico in September to become senior vice president of Meet the Press but, according to three people familiar with the situation, her new role is often akin to an unofficial managing editor of NBC News Digital, and in the process, she has helped bring several of her former Politico colleagues over to the newsroom, including reporters Marc Caputo and Natasha Korecki.

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NBC was unsuccessful, however, in poaching eight other Politico staffers, according to a person close to the matter, including star reporter Alex Isenstadt, who remained ever-loyal to Politico—after all, his social media handles are @politicoalex—and received a raise, said three people familiar with the matter.

The poachings, successful or otherwise, so unnerved Editor-in-Chief Matthew Kaminski that he enlisted Politico’s legal team to send Brown a legal letter—a “shot across the bow,” as one source described it—warning that she may be in violation of her non-compete clause, Confider has learned.

And staffers relayed that Kaminski has gone back and forth on offering contracts to Politico talent in light of the recent plundering.

Representatives for both Politico and NBC declined to comment.

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Lachlan Cartwright

Zachary PetrizzoFormer Politics Reporter

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