The Deseret News and KSL newsroom was the focus of local and national attention this week when Congressman Jason Chaffetz strode in and said he was making a change. He won't seek re-election and is willing to give up the power he wields as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"I've always said, 'Get in, serve, and get out.' I think I'm being true to that," he told our reporters.
Why? Why now? And what's next?
To be with family, he said. But "I'm not going to close the door or open the door on anything," he added.
As Deseret News politics reporters Lisa Riley Roche and Dennis Romboy were writing compelling stories following this fast-moving breaking news story, including local and national reaction and asking whether the congressman would serve out his term (maybe, he said), writers Jesse Hyde and Eric Schulzke were working to put it all into context.
For months Hyde and Schulzke have been investigating the words and actions of Chaffetz, questioning his motivations for investigating (or not) Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and how Russia impacted them both. They wanted to understand what he was thinking and why he was thinking it. How did he get to this point? Is he doing his job well? Is he doing the job his constituents want him to do?
And what about that anger-filled town hall meeting?
It seemed to be a turning point, perhaps not for Chaffetz, but for the country. It means something, but what?
"We wanted to know what's in his head. We were trying to show what this person thinks," said Hyde, reflecting on the story he and Schulzke reported and wrote: The calculus behind Jason Chaffetz's sudden decision to walk away, which appeared online at deseretnews.com beginning Friday and is in the print edition anchoring Page A1 Sunday.
The story does go deeper into that town hall meeting and takes readers to the governor's office in Utah and the president's office in Washington, D.C., to track what brought the congressman to this decision. The reporting and writing are exemplary.
We learned that the congressman had been receiving death threats. We talked to people who were at the town hall — most were local, others came from out of state. Our reporters saw credible pictures showing that a few protesters were armed, masked and dressed in black. They were looking for his car.
As Hyde and Schulzke wrote:
"Something had flipped after the election, Chaffetz had noticed, an ugly impulse unfurling across America. He had seen anger directed at him before, but nothing like this. He’d been getting death threats, on his voicemail and in his inbox, and in the ensuing weeks it would only get worse.
"He had become a target, the face of Republican fecklessness. At his D.C. office, his young staffers fielded calls from all over the country, hundreds a day, demanding he investigate Trump."
Some readers reacting to the piece thought our writers were trying to build sympathy for Chaffetz. Others thought we did a hit piece on the man. Our motivation was to do neither. We wanted to bring readers behind the curtain, understand what he and his wife are feeling, look at the work he is doing (or ignoring). Many spoke to us off the record. We then took that information and corroborated the information with other sources.
Roche and Romboy built off the reporting they have previously done. Chaffetz told Roche in 2016 that he was considering a run for governor.
He said then, "I'm not going to be here forever. I would take a serious, serious look at running for governor. I want to go as hard and fast as I can in the House and then go home," information referenced this week by the Washington Post and other media as the story on Chaffetz broke.
No profile is entirely complete, and no one knows exactly what's in the mind of Jason Chaffetz. But our newsroom staff and our in-depth reporters gave you the best opportunity this week to make informed decisions about Chaffetz's future and its impact on Utah and ultimately yourself.