Work / Kevin T. Dugan

Work

My work has been published by New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Insider, The Trace, the Daily Beast, Slate, and Documented New York. I was previously a staff writer for the New York Post, Bloomberg, and The Information, where I covered Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and economics.

I won a 2020 SABEW award for my coverage in the Post of Earnin, a Silicon Valley lender, and how it skirted payday loan laws across the country. In April, 2021, I was part of the Documented New York team named a finalist for the Deadline Club Award for our coverage of the impact COVID-19 had on immigrants here. I’ve also won awards from the New York Press Association for my work covering risky personal loans, Paul Manafort, and Goldman Sachs.

The Trace • 24th October 2020

The NRA Has Paid Millions to a Firm Tied to Shady Election Practices

On August 3, the political arm of the National Rifle Association sent $529,504 to Stampede America, a political canvassing firm. At the time, it was the gun group’s third-largest political expense during the 2020 election cycle, and, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, it was going toward canvassing for President Donald Trump.

RS • 6th December 2020

Inside Operation Gideon, a Coup Gone Very Wrong

The two Americans left late on May 2nd, 2020, well after dark had fallen on an arid beach near Castilletes, in northern Colombia. The men, both ex-Special Forces, had been waiting to pile into a flat-bottomed boat stocked with guns and ammunition and about 50 Venezuelan revolutionaries for a journey into the heart of enemy territory. The mission was Operation Gideon, and its objective was to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro.

The Trace • 19th September 2020

The NRA and the Trump Campaign Appear to Be Flouting Election Laws. Again.

In a recent ad bankrolled by the National Rifle Association, two masked men chase a woman through a parking lot to her gray sedan. She locks the doors and scrambles to grab her gun from the car’s console. A voiceover kicks in: “Joe Biden would take her rights away.” The gun dissolves into thin air, just as the driver’s side window shatters.

Intelligencer • 31st January 2021

‘I Vaccinated 3 People’: NYC Stopped Workers From Giving Out More Shots

When vaccination workers showed up to work Saturday morning at the George Westinghouse vocational high school in Downtown Brooklyn, they noticed something was off about the schedule: Only about ten people were signed up to get a shot immunizing them against COVID-19.

New York Post • 22nd March 2019

Popular cash advance app Earnin operating in payday loan ‘gray area,’ critics claim

Critics say Earnin’s marketing and business models resemble those of Payday 2.0, and that its tactics may be intended to skirt regulations on payday lending, which has been banned in 15 states including New York because of sky-high interest rates that can top 500 percent on an annualized basis.

The Trace • 2nd December 2020

Before They Were Right-Wing Media Stars, NRATV Gave Them a Platform

Before Dan Bongino was one of the loudest voices in Trump-era conservative media, he was a congressional candidate. With a background as a Secret Service agent who protected Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, he tried in vain to use that bipartisan glow to win over Maryland voters in a U.S. Senate race. “The president was a wonderful guy,” Bongino said of Obama in 2011. “From what I saw he was a wonderful father and a wonderful man and he was very, very nice and very kind to me.”

Business Insider • 8th July 2020

How much did Trump's hydroxychloroquine obsession cost taxpayers? We found out.

Most Americans had never heard of hydroxychloroquine — the obscure antimalarial drug discovered in 1945 — until March 19. That's when President Donald Trump, speaking at a Coronavirus Task Force press conference in the White House briefing room with the blustering confidence of an old-time snake-oil salesman, first touted it as a likely miracle cure to defeat COVID-19.

Documented • 24th June 2020

Where Is the OSF Money For Undocumented Immigrants in NYC?

On June 21, Clara, an out-of-work nanny, and her aunt took two trains and a bus down from The Bronx to Inwood, Manhattan to get as much as $1,000 each in economic relief for their families. Clara, an undocumented Dominican immigrant, has been struggling to pay for food and her bills and hasn’t been able to work while she takes care of her family. The night before, her aunt had heard that a nonprofit group, the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights (NMCIR), was giving out as much as $400 a person on economic relief to immigrants who had been out of work amid the coronavirus lockdown.

Documented • 30th June 2020

OPT Visa Holders at Risk Over Coronavirus Layoffs

When Yassine Berrehouma lost his job as a software engineer at ADP in April, he knew he would have a harder time than most finding new employment. It wasn’t that he was unqualified. At 26, he had a software engineering degree from the University of Oklahoma and a master’s in computer science from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

New York Post • 19th May 2019

Grubhub charging us even when our customers don’t order: restaurant owners

Restaurateurs across the country say they are waking up to a years-long, high-tech bamboozling by Grubhub involving hidden fees for orders that never happened — an allegation that could cost the company millions, The Post has learned.