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Ben Wolfgang

Ben Wolfgang is a national security correspondent at The Washington Times, a senior member of its Threat Status team, and the host and producer of the award-winning Threat Status Podcast. Ben covers national security, foreign policy, military affairs, the defense industry and the rapidly evolving landscape of military technology.
A Pennsylvania native, he joined The Washington Times in 2011 after serving as a political reporter at The Republican-Herald in Pottsville, Pa. Over the course of his career, Ben has covered the White House, Congress, and four presidential campaigns.
His reporting has earned recognition from some of journalism's most respected organizations, including the Virginia Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists' Washington, D.C. Chapter, among other honors.
Ben has interviewed heads of state, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, senior military commanders, cabinet secretaries, senior government officials, and the CEOs of many of the nation's largest and most influential defense companies.
Ben is a frequent guest on broadcast media, with appearances on C-SPAN, the Sirius XM POTUS channel, and other outlets.
He can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.

Articles by Ben Wolfgang

Civil rights leaders slam Obama on judicial picks

The Obama administration is under fire from powerful House Democrats and some in the civil rights community for its recent picks to fill four judicial vacancies on Georgia's Northern District federal bench.

December 23, 2013

Obama’s Hawaii getaway includes golf, basketball, meal at ‘Iron Chef’ restaurant

President Obama may have escaped Washington for a lengthy holiday vacation, but his weekend still was dominated by two of the commander in chief's favorite activities: golf and basketball.

December 23, 2013

Obama sends 45 service members to South Sudan

Amid growing chaos in South Sudan, President Obama has deployed military forces to that country to protect the U.S. embassy and other American assets, he told congressional leaders in a letter Thursday night.

December 19, 2013

White House says it’s open to 45 of panel’s proposed 46 NSA changes

A long-awaited review of U.S. mass surveillance and data-collection programs produced a laundry list of recommendations for how the Obama administration should clean up its intelligence-gathering efforts to better protect sensitive information and the privacy of American citizens.

December 19, 2013

President gets budget win — but only by staying out of negotiations

President Obama wasn't in the room when negotiators hammered out the details of the landmark budget agreement that cleared Congress on Wednesday, but his fingerprints are all over the deal.

December 18, 2013

‘There’s something about moms:’ White House enlists mothers to sell Obamacare

To sell Obamacare, the president and first lady on Wednesday told a group of eight mothers that they must talk about the benefits of the law "in the grocery store" and elsewhere in their day-to-day lives.

December 18, 2013

White House hints Olympic envoys a shot at Putin over gay rights

With a wink and a nod, the White House on Wednesday admitted it's sending a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin by choosing openly gay athletes to represent the U.S. at February's Olympic Winter Games opening ceremony in Sochi.

December 18, 2013

Under pressure, White House to unveil key surveillance report

In a change of course, the White House on Wednesday afternoon will publicly release an internal report on government surveillance efforts, a highly anticipated document that also will include recommendations for how the federal government can best balance its intelligence-gathering efforts with Americans' right to privacy.

December 18, 2013

Top Democrats reject court ruling over NSA spying on Americans

Top Democrats pushed back Tuesday against a federal judge's ruling that the NSA's phone-records collection program violates privacy rights, asking for higher courts to quickly get involved and bring legal certainty to the murky world of intelligence gathering.

December 17, 2013

White House announces delegation for winter Olympics

With less than two months before the games begin, the Obama administration on Tuesday revealed the roster of the American delegation to the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

December 17, 2013

Apple, Google, Facebook tell Obama: Rein in government snooping

The nation's leading technology companies took their concerns over government surveillance directly to the source Tuesday, pressing President Obama to rein in what is widely viewed as excessive and intrusive data-collection and snooping.

December 17, 2013

Obama envious of ‘House of Cards’

President Obama, while talking to a Netflix executive, says he wishes Washington were as "ruthlessly efficient" as portrayed on network's show "House of Cards."

December 17, 2013

Obama administration refuses to negotiate on debt ceiling increase

Despite the recent bipartisan breakthrough on the budget, the White House insisted Monday it will not negotiate with congressional Republicans on the next debt ceiling increase and will demand an unconditional increase before the government hits its borrowing limit early next year.

December 16, 2013

White House: Once again, no negotiations on debt ceiling

With the threat of a government shutdown off the table for the next two years, attention now has turned to another looming fight over the nation's debt ceiling — and the White House has no interest in negotiating with Republicans as that limit approaches.

December 16, 2013

A year after Newtown, answers and action remain elusive

One year after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., all sides of the debate — from President Obama and single-issue groups led by outgoing New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others to powerful gun advocacy voices — sound much the same as they did 12 months ago in the immediate aftermath of one of the worst shootings in American history.

December 14, 2013

Biden guarantees victory on immigration reform

Republican leaders in the House already have said they won't take up the immigration reform bill that passed the Senate earlier this year.

December 11, 2013

High court likely to allow Obama’s clean-air rules

The fate of key clean-air regulations — central to the President Obama's larger environmental agenda — now rests with the Supreme Court, which on Tuesday hinted it may throw the administration a lifeline and allow controversial pollution rules to be reinstated.

December 10, 2013