Washington Post hires Weil to cover new tax beat

For the past five years, Julie has volunteered as an IRS-certified tax preparer at D.C.’s Community Tax Aid, completing tax returns for low-income residents. That experience taught her how a person’s tax return can speak volumes about their life story – including how their government values their work and their wealth. Meanwhile, Julie has worked as a Local reporter for the past eight years, honing her skill at explaining the unfamiliar in accessible terms. As a religion reporter, she described the political impact of Christian theology for non-believers. On her current beat covering the D.C. government, she made sense of D.C.’s vaccine system. Most recently, Julie compiled the first comprehensive list of slaveholders in the U.S. Congress, researching the lives of 5,559 lawmakers who were born before 1840. The result was a massive interactive that inspired readers to share their own histories, including a D.C. judge who had spent years trying to unravel the mystery of why his great-grandmother – though born into slavery – had been married in the home of a U.S. senator.

Before coming to The Post, Julie worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer, her hometown paper. And before that, she was among the legions of future superstars who launched their careers as Post summer interns. A graduate of Harvard University, where she majored in English, Julie also served as managing editor of the Harvard Crimson.

Outside of work, Julie enjoys balloon twisting, knitting and sourdough baking. She will be based in New York, where she and husband Gabe, a law professor, are expecting their first child – and where Julie will have ready access to Wall Street financiers, executives of the nation’s wealthiest corporations and many of the tax experts who make the system hum.

Please join us in congratulating Julie on her new role. Her first day is Nov. 28.