Pete Williams
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Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent based in Washington, D.C. He has been covering the Justice Department and the U.S. Supreme Court since April 1993. Williams was also a key reporter on the Microsoft anti-trust trial and Judge Jackson's decision.
Prior to joining NBC, Williams served as a press official on Capitol Hill for many years. In 1986 he joined the Washington, DC staff of then Congressman Dick Cheney as press secretary and a legislative assistant. In 1989, when Cheney was named Secretary of Defense, Williams was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. He also served as spokesman to the Pentagon. While in that position, Williams was named Government Communicator of the Year in 1991 by the National Association of Government Communicators.
A 1974 graduate of Stanford University, Williams was a reporter and news director at KTWO-TV and Radio in his hometown of Casper, Wyoming from 1974 to 1985. Working with the Radio and Television News Directors Association, for which he served as a member of the board of directors, he successfully lobbied the Wyoming Supreme Court to permit broadcast coverage of its proceedings and twice sued Wyoming judges over pre-trial exclusion of reporters from the courtroom. For these efforts, he received a First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
In 1991, while serving as Pentagon spokesperson during the Gulf War, Williams was outed as a homosexual by activist and author Michelangelo Signorile [1].
He also has a bobble-head doll of the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist in his office.
[edit] Further reading
- Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A. Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Harrington Park Press, 1994, pp. 190, 195-9, 204-5.
- Panelist, Columbia Law School Alumni Forum on Law & Journalism, April 7, 2005.
