Jane Meredith Mayer (born January 1, 1955) is an acclaimed American investigative journalist and author, renowned for her award-winning work at The New Yorker since 1995, where she is a veteran investigative reporter. She specializes in political funding, conservative networks, billionaire influence, intelligence, power networks, government prosecution of whistleblowers, the U.S. Predator drone program, and the influence of political donors. Mayer is particularly known for her reporting on dark money in politics, including the Koch network's funding of conservative causes, as well as her coverage of the Bush administration's war on terror policies. She is the author of the books Dark Money (2016), which critically examines the Koch brothers' conservative fundraising network and the funding mechanisms behind conservative political movements, and The Dark Side, which explores the Bush administration's war on terror policies. Her work has earned widespread acclaim for tracing opaque financial influences in American politics and for investigative reporting on political finance and power structures. Mayer began her career as a stringer for Time magazine while in college, then worked at small Vermont newspapers including The Weathersfield Weekly, The Black River Tribune, and the Rutland Herald before joining the Washington Star as a metropolitan reporter. In 1982, she moved to The Wall Street Journal, becoming its first female White House correspondent in 1984 and covering major events such as the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, the Gulf War, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. She has also profiled entities like the Donors Capital Fund and reported on figures such as Donald Trump's ghostwriter Tony Schwartz and financier Robert Mercer, establishing her as a key voice in investigative journalism on political finance, power structures, and national security issues.