Politico ended its contract with Julia Ioffe early after she tweeted that “either [Donald] Trump is f***ing his daughter or he’s shirking nepotism laws.” Her comment was shared with a link to a The Hill article headlined, “Ivanka Trump to get office WH space reserved for first lady: report.” Ioffe had announced she was leaving Politico a week earlier, however.
Politico responded in a memo, posted on Twitter by the Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple.
“Gratuitous opinion has no place, anywhere, at any time — not on your Facebook feed, your Twitter feed or any place else,” the memo read. “It has absolutely zero value for our readers and should have zero place in our work.”
Then Politico called Ioffee’s tweet “a clear example of the opposite,” and said that it’s “absolutely infuriating” that the tweet will “tarnish Politico” and its work. Politico said it was ending her contract immediately, even though she already had announced she was leaving Politico for The Atlantic. The Atlantic issued a press release Dec. 6 about the hiring of Ioffe to report on U.S. politics and foreign policy.
Ioffe tweeted in response to Wemple’s sharing of the memo, saying that “the way it was explained to me was that they were already having problems with the Trump administration.”
Atlantic Media SVP Communications Emily Lenzner tweeted that “we’re confident that when [Ioffe] joins The Atlantic next month she will adhere to our standards.”
Ioffe also apologized on Twitter for her “crass joke” that was “tasteless” and “offensive” and said she regretted it.