Pete Loss, Megyn Claim, Party X, and a WMP | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams is retiring from the network after 29 years, announced NBC News president Noah Oppenheim on Thursday.

In a memo to NBC News employees, obtained by Mediaite, Oppenheim said Williams, 70, will sign off at the end of July.

The Washington Post first reported on Thursday the news of Williams’ upcoming departure.

Throughout his career, Williams a series of massive bombshell stories, with a big one being earlier this year: the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement.

“Pete has been one of the nation’s foremost authorities covering the Supreme Court and the Department of Justice for nearly three decades,” said Oppenheim in a statement. “His career has been defined by his reputation for accuracy, reliability, and unmatched expertise in the subjects he covers.”

Prior to joining NBC News, Williams was Pentagon spokesperson under Dick Cheney. Before joining the Pentagon, Williams was a reporter and news director in Wyoming, where he was born. During his time at the Pentagon, Williams was outed amid the Defense Department’s prohibition of gay men serving in the military. Williams has a partner, David.

In his note to NBC News employees, Oppenheim lauded Williams’ personality.

“In short, for generations of NBC News reporters, working alongside Pete has been a daily masterclass in journalism,” he said. “But perhaps more importantly, it has been a masterclass in what it means to be a good colleague. Pete’s decency, kindness, and generosity are unmatched. For those that know Pete well, it’s his warmth, humor, wit, and compassion that will be missed most.”

Praise and tributes from colleagues and pundits have been pouring in on social media for the veteran journalist, who will indeed clearly be missed.

Sarah Rumpf makes the case:

It’s not often you see a media figure quadruple down on an allegation they admit they can’t back up with any evidence, but it’s 2022 and here we are.

Earlier this month, Mediaite reported how Megyn Kelly was “doubling down” on baselessly accusing CNN’s Don Lemon of secretly paying off accuser Dustin Hice to drop his lawsuit against the CNN host, ignoring significant, fundamental weaknesses in Hice’s case.

Kelly responded to that article by tweeting that she was in fact “tripling down” on her allegations, and declaring anyone who disagreed with her would “look stupid for swallowing this BS story so dutifully.”

On Tuesday, Kelly posted a clip from the latest episode of her podcast, The Megyn Kelly Show, on YouTube, in which she dove into a now quadruple-downed accusation, despite admitting she had “no reportable evidence” to support her claims.

There are metaphorical truckloads of information omitted from Kelly’s nearly 8-minute monologue directly contradicting and undermining her claim that the only reason Hice would have agreed to drop the suit was if he were paid off.

In Tuesday’s podcast episode, Kelly told her audience that she wanted to provide an “update” on the “sexual assault case against CNN’s Don Lemon,” saying that Hice had “walked away from his lawsuit” several months after he had appeared on her show and “described the alleged incident as follows.”

Kelly played a clip of Hice from her podcast and read his statement on dropping the suit, saying “It reads like a hostage statement,” with a chuckle.

That’s when she said “I have no reportable evidence for this” before continuing to say it anyway.

[Read the rest and watch the clip here.]