T-Squared: Matthew Choi is The Texas Tribune’s new Washington correspondent

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We are delighted to announce that Matthew Choi, a standout reporter at Politico for nearly four years, is joining The Texas Tribune as our new Washington correspondent.

Matthew will take charge of covering all federal matters that affect Texans, including coverage of the state’s enormous congressional delegation (two senators and, starting in January, 38 representatives), the Biden administration and the Supreme Court. He steps into a critical role that Abby Livingston, our inaugural Washington bureau chief, has filled since 2014.

This is an exciting homecoming for Matthew, who was a Tribune fellow in 2017 and 2018. He wrote memorable stories about land annexations by fast-growing suburbs in North Texas and about a fight between Texas Tech and Texas A&M over the creation of a new veterinary school.

After graduating from the Medill School at Northwestern, where Matthew majored in journalism and political science and also served as managing editor of The Daily Northwestern, Matthew joined Politico as an editorial intern, working his way up as an evening web producer and breaking news reporter.

Since last year, Matthew has been covering energy and climate, writing a daily energy newsletter with over 40,000 subscribers. He landed a big scoop on a draft of the White House’s environmental justice screening tool. He investigated allegations of political influence at the Labor Department’s mine safety commission. His knowledge of the energy industry, and the legislators and regulators who shape it, will be immensely valuable to our readers.

Matthew, who starts in his new role this week, is stepping into a pivotal position at a pivotal moment. The hearings investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack have shed light on the impact of extremism in our nation’s hyperpolarized politics. The Supreme Court’s new conservative supermajority has issued rulings with ramifications for all Americans. The Biden administration is struggling with high inflation and a fragile economy. On top of those major developments, attacks on the institutions and norms of our constitutional democracy raise profound questions about the stability of the United States and the rest of the world.

The Tribune will continue to cover these grave problems in the most useful way we can — by focusing on the issues, politicians and debates that have the greatest impact for the nearly 30 million people of Texas. We are excited that Matthew will not only be reporting for the Tribune, but also representing us at public events and in media interviews. He joins an aggressive, accountability-obsessed politics team that is led by politics editor Rebekah Allen and includes reporters James Barragán, Zach Despart and Patrick Svitek.

Disclosure: Politico has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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