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Melissa Nathan, the crisis management public relations pro hired by actor-director Justin Baldoni amid his lengthy legal feud with actor Blake Lively, is in the hot seat after Baldoni’s former publicist claimed that Nathan played a key role in operating a network of anonymous “smear” websites.

The publicist, Stephanie Jones, filed an initial complaint in New York Supreme Court in December 2024, accusing Baldoni’s crisis PR team of waging a coordinated effort to undermine her and deflect blame for what she called a retaliatory smear campaign targeting Lively.

But new documents filed last week brought front and center a “key question from the outset of this case”: Who was behind the creation of anonymous websites that popped up in May 2024 and accused Jones of “holding clients hostage” and leaking their secrets?

Nathan did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment Friday. But in a deposition, she said she was absolutely not the mastermind behind the now-defunct stephaniejonesleaks.com.

In the recent filing, Jones claims she repeatedly sought communications that could support her suspicions about the website’s origin, and last week received documents from Katherine Case, a former employee of Jones’ PR firm, Jonesworks, who subsequently worked for Nathan’s crisis management firm, the Agency Group.

Those documents, the filing alleges, show Nathan repeatedly testified falsely about the websites, and confirm that “Melissa Nathan was directly involved in a scheme to utilize untraceable websites to destroy the reputation of her competitors and those adverse to her clients. Stephanie Jones and Jonesworks were among her victims.”

In alleged text messages between Nathan and Case included in court documents, Nathan appears to have offered Case “three or four grand” to make the website copy tarnishing Jones’ reputation “a lot more meaty” — “good enough for us to be able to point a journalist towards.”

Nathan also appears to direct Case to discuss “holding clients hostage” and detail how people are “scared of” Jones, the documents allege.

Nathan is alleged to have instructed Case to write copy that would “follow along the lines of a purported ‘whistleblower’ narrative.” In Case’s notes from a subsequent phone call, she allegedly wrote, “Copy for the website along the lines of — I can’t sit and watch this woman continue to do this, this is what she does … it’s now a time where I can speak my truth about what I saw there.”

The filing claims that a record from Zelle, a money-transferring service, shows a subsequent payment to Case in the amount of $4,000 from “Melissa E. Nathan.”

The websites weren’t a one-off, according to the filing. They were allegedly one of Nathan’s specialties, and a hot commodity among embattled celebrities.

Three months after the Jones website went live, Nathan allegedly texted “Pitch Perfect” star Rebel Wilson, who was involved in a dispute with producer Amanda Ghost over Wilson’s directorial debut, the 2024 musical “The Deb.”

“Nathan quoted Wilson $110,000 for an untraceable site with a satellite, ghost server, ghost hosting, full build, maintaining, and full algorithmic push across all platforms … for 3 months,” the filing alleges. “The next day Nathan texted Case, ‘Rebel wants a one of those sites.’ ”

Several dozen presidential briefing documents declassified Friday, the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, detail intelligence government officials had gathered about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda leading up to the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people and upended American national security.

The documents illustrate security analysts’ tracking of Bin Laden’s movements and support system, as well as concerns about possible threats to U.S. targets.

Proclaiming “an act of exceptional transparency,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the documents were the agency’s single largest release of declassified presidential daily briefs — the highly classified briefing prepared by the nation’s intelligence community for the government’s most senior leaders.

The documents range from a February 1998 file — prepared for then-President Clinton — titled “Terrorists seeking WMD capability” and mentioning “bin Ladin and other Islamic extremists” to a Sept. 12, 2001, report in which a source indicated the attacks had been planned for two years and had also targeted the U.S. Capitol.

Another, from just weeks before the attacks, details how Al Qaeda’s “flexible operational decision making and broad definition of acceptable targets enable the group to adjust plans to changing conditions.”

Asked for comment on the release, the White House noted the release of another batch of documents by the National Archives, also Friday. That batch, including interviews with national security officials in the Clinton and Bush administrations, was a product of the commission that probed the attacks from 2002 to 2004.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

Dana Williamson, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s onetime chief of staff, is seeking to delay her criminal sentencing date for political corruption because of health issues, according to documents filed last week in federal court.

Williamson’s attorney McGregor Scott, asked the court to delay her Sept. 17 sentencing and seal documents related to her health condition.

Scott submitted documents that reference a Sept. 4 surgery that Williamson underwent, medical records, and a text message from Williamson’s mother about the surgery.

Williamson underwent a liver transplant earlier this year, prompting a judge to delay a February hearing in her case.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of California didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the requested sentencing delay.

Scott declined to comment.

Williamson, who worked for Newsom until 2024, pleaded guilty in May to three counts, including committing bank and wire fraud.

Williamson, a veteran political consultant who also formerly worked for former Govs. Jerry Brown and Gray Davis, admitted she took part in a scheme from 2022 to 2024 to skim campaign funds from then-U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, now a leading candidate for governor, and divert the money to Becerra’s then-chief of staff.

She also admitted in her plea deal to filing a false tax form in 2024 and lying to FBI agents that same year.

Beyond lying to the FBI about the scheme involving Becerra, Williamson misled federal authorities on another topic, the plea agreement stated.

She lied to FBI agents when asked about the state’s lawsuit against video game company Activision Blizzard Inc., details contained in the November indictment against Williamson and other public records show.