WASHINGTON (AP) — Opinion writer Karen Attiah has decided not to return to her job at The Washington Post, despite winning reinstatement after her firing over social media posts about the 2025 killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Attiah wrote Sunday on her Substack, “The Golden Hour by Karen Attiah,” that she reached a settlement with the Post and plans to move forward with her life and career.
“While I remain proud of the victory, I came to the painful realization that returning to The Washington Post meant coming back without the guaranteed freedom and institutional support to do what I loved: use my voice, seek truth, and serve readers,” Attiah wrote.
Attiah didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. A Washington Post spokesperson declined to comment Monday on Attiah's decision.
At the time of her firing, Attiah was the only Black full-time member of the Post’s opinion desk.
In August, an arbitrator ordered the newspaper to reinstate Attiah, ruling that it didn't have sufficient cause to fire her and ordering it to award her full back pay and lost benefits.
Kirk, who was white, launched the conservative Turning Point USA in 2012 and made provocative statements about race, gender and politics. He was critical of the Black Lives Matter movement on college campuses and called George Floyd, the Black man whose 2020 murder at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked protests, a “scumbag.”
Kirk, 31, also was an ally of President Donald Trump and used his popular podcast to espouse rhetoric many critics felt was racist and divisive. He was shot and killed Sept. 10, 2025, during an event at Utah Valley University.
His death elicited a torrent of comments from Trump and others about him, both pro and con.
After Kirk’s killing, Attiah made several social media posts, including “if anything, the rush to coddle violent white men is self-protective — that we know they are not used to feeling vulnerable and mortal — and will react violently out of fear. And we will all suffer.”
The Post fired Attiah in an email, accusing her of “gross misconduct.”
“Your public comments on social media regarding the death of Charlie Kirk violate the Post’s social media policies, harm the integrity of our organization, and potentially endanger the physical safety of our staff,” it wrote.
Attiah was among dozens of people from various professions who were fired over comments they made about Kirk’s assassination, which raised questions over free speech as Trump vowed retribution for remarks he considered disparaging.
The Democracy Defenders Fund and the Washington-Baltimore News Guild represented Attiah in the arbitration case. At the time of the arbitrator's ruling, they said the ruling marked a landmark moment for press freedom.
“We are proud to have won the arbitration for Karen and are glad Karen was able to make her own choice about returning to The Post,” a spokeswoman for the Washington-Baltimore News Guild told AP in an email.
FILE - Former Washington Post opinion columnist Karen Attiah, center, speaks during a panel discussion about the impact of Black women in media at the Congressional Black Caucus's Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, Sept. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Brown, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Thomas Massie moved Monday to force a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, pressing his fellow Republicans to remove one of the Trump administration's most prominent figures following sweeping election losses blamed in part on fallout from the war in Iran.
Massie, a Kentucky Republican, read the impeachment resolution from the House floor just hours after it opened for the first day of sessions after the midterms. It largely focuses on the war in Iran but also includes references to Hegseth’s role in carrying out military actions in Yemen and Venezuela.
The congressman, who was defeated by a Trump-backed challenger in a primary earlier this year, said Hegseth's actions amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Hegseth, he said, “knowingly executed and implemented unlawful orders” and “remains a threat to the Constitution.”
A vote in the House could come by mid-week, but next steps are highly uncertain. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries supports the measure. If most Democrats follow him, Massie would only need support from a few Republicans to impeach Hegseth.
If the House votes to impeach, it would fall to to the Senate to either dismiss the charges or hold a trial. Republicans remain in the majority in both chambers, until the new Congress convenes in January with Democrats in control.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, endorsed the impeachment push. "Hegseth must stand trial before the Senate," he said.
Republican leaders, who are eager to use their final weeks in power executing their own agenda, expressed frustration at the move. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has tried to prevent the vote, said impeachment “in the middle of hostilities abroad would be a terrible, terrible look, a terrible thing for our allies and our enemies to see that.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wasn’t sure why the vote was being held now.
“We’ll see what their ultimate decision is over there,” he said of the House. “We’ll have to deal with it accordingly here."
Hegseth is stepping up his public statements ahead of the vote, telling reporters that he's eager to defend the military actions that he and President Donald Trump have taken against Iran, Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and Venezuela's previous leaders.
After giving a speech at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, he brushed aside the impeachment push.
“There’s a lot of politically motivated people who may have substantial policy disagreements, but their disagreements are with success,” he told reporters. He added that “if we want to litigate” the military actions that the Trump administration has taken, “I’m happy to do it all day long.”
Asked about Vice President JD Vance blaming the Iran war for the massive GOP losses in the election, Hegseth noted that Trump said he would do it again, and “I agree.”
Hegseth also announced that he would hold a rare news conference on Tuesday — his first in over 180 days — on the impeachment threat.
Hegseth argued that the war was necessary because “someone had to confront the Iranian regime’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon” and said “the choice was don’t act and wish it away or take a bold move."
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Trump defended Hegseth to reporters on Sunday night.
“He’s guilty of two things, basically winning two wars,” Trump said. “I believe we saved the Middle East and Israel combined. And it’s awfully hard to say let’s impeach somebody who did that.”
Hegseth reiterated that “Iran is devastated,” even though the Islamic Republic has been able to keep striking military bases in the Middle East that are used by the United States, causing billions of dollars in damage, as well as commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Disruptions to shipping in the waterway, where one-fifth of the world's oil passed before the war, have led to higher energy prices that hit voters' pocketbooks.
Hegseth's defense of the war comes after about 6 in 10 voters said the U.S. made the “wrong decision” in taking military action against Iran, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 voters in the United States.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended his fellow Cabinet secretary, saying that he believes Hegesth has been doing “a great job” and that its unfair that a Republican is pushing the impeachment effort.
“I work with him. And so I see perhaps a side of him that the media doesn’t see and members of Congress may not see,” Rubio told reporters at the Group of Seven industrialized democracies gathering in Paris. “But I think Pete works really hard. He’s incredibly smart.”
Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Lisa Mascaro, Joey Cappelletti and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth leaves after attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Defense Ministers' Meeting in Cebu, central Philippines, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, Pool)
