‘Name and Shame’: Intercept Reporter Posts the Names, Pictures, and Salaries of Dianne Feinstein’s Staff In Angry Rant

Ken Klippenstein, a reporter for The Intercept, posted the names, photographs, and salaries of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) staff on Twitter Wednesday, declaring that they “should be blacklisted from politics forever” for not resigning their positions.

“Alright it’s time to name and shame Dianne Feinstein’s staff, all of whom should be blacklisted from politics forever for caring so little about their country that they refuse to resign (THREAD),” began Klippenstein before rattling off the names and positions of 12 staffers, providing photographs of all of them as well as many of their salaries and Twitter handles.

The reporter went on to retweet a user’s quote tweet of his thread with the caption, “Is there a requirement to look extremely annoying in order to work for an elected official?”

Feinstein recently returned to Washington, D.C. after her contraction of shingles resulted in a hiatus from the upper chamber of Congress. The 89-year-old’s absence from the Senate Judiciary Committee impeded the ability of Democrats to confirm some of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees and prompted some progressives to call for her resignation.

Moreover, a San Francisco Chronicle report last year included several troubling anecdotes about Feinstein’s mental fitness from anonymous Democratic senators, with one saying that her condition was “bad” and “getting worse.”

Republicans opposed the effort of Democrats to appoint a temporary replacement for her on the committee in her absence, as Feinstein eventually requested. “During the past two years, it has become crystal clear that there has been a concerted campaign to force her off the Judiciary Committee, and I will have no part in it,” said Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) last month.

Klippenstein defended his targeting of the staffers by complaining that his “mentions are a torrent of full suit avis screaming at me about how 20-something Princeton grads are downtrodden workers who are just following orders.”