Our Ground Game newsletter editors asked AP’s political reporters across the country who have been covering the midterm elections to pick the top story they’ve worked on this year and take stock of what made it memorable.
Here’s what Ohio-based reporter Julie Carr Smyth had to say about her pick:
“In February, I took a deep dive into the relationship between billionaire Les Wexner, the retail mogul behind Victoria’s Secret, The Limited and other iconic brands, and the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
I’ve followed Wexner closely for decades. Up until recently the state’s richest person, his influence has long been felt in Ohio politics and in myriad development projects around central Ohio and at Ohio State. So what exactly was the truth about him and Epstein?
To put together my story, I built a timeline of Wexner’s career and association with Epstein, reviewed business, real estate and other public documents, conducted interviews and gleaned details from Epstein-related documents released by the Justice Department.
My reporting was nearing completion when we learned that Wexner would be deposed about Epstein at his estate in New Albany, outside Columbus.
Wexner issued a written personal statement that morning and, after the deposition, AP videojournalist Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos and I drove out to New Albany for a news conference by the Democrats who had deposed him.”
