Tracey Tully said she was denied entry to a Tom Kean campaign fundraiser on Friday, then watched police confront her after she waited in the parking lot for an interview with the New Jersey Republican.
The incident unfolded at Hawk Point Golf Club in Washington Township, where Speaker of the House Mike Johnson appeared for Kean's re-election effort in New Jersey's 7th congressional district. Tully, a New York Times reporter, said she was told the event was private even though she could see other journalists inside. She said she had been hoping to speak with Kean before officers arrived.
The episode matters now because Kean had just returned to public life after a three-month absence from Congress earlier this year, a stretch that drew scrutiny over how much he had shared with constituents. Kean later said he had been in treatment for depression. On X, he has said he has the most local press engagements of any NJ Member of Congress, which makes Tully's account of being turned away at a campaign event harder to dismiss as a simple misunderstanding.
Police were called from inside the event after someone claimed Tully was trespassing, according to the account she gave. Local officers and New Jersey state troopers stationed outside for Johnson's security detail then confronted her, but it remains unclear who made the call or why. Sgt. Dallas Overko said he did not know it was just a nice little reporter waiting for an interview and said there were some things lost in communication.
That gap is the point that now hangs over the fundraiser. Kean's office has declined other interview requests, and Tully never got the chance to ask her questions. Johnson, meanwhile, said he would have told voters about Kean's prolonged absence sooner if it were him, adding that what Kean was dealing with affects many millions of Americans. For Kean, the issue is no longer whether he can keep control of the room. It is who inside that room thought a reporter had to be removed from it.
