A caller had a lewd tape of Donald Trump. Then the race to break the story was on. - The Washington Post - 0 views
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Reporter David Fahrenthold got a phone call around 11 a.m. Friday from a source with a tip about Donald Trump. The source asked: Would Fahrenthold be interested in seeing some previously unaired video of Trump? Fahrenthold didn’t hesitate. Within a few moments of watching an outtake of footage from a 2005 segment on “Access Hollywood,” the Washington Post reporter was on the phone, calling Trump’s campaign, “Access Hollywood” and NBC for reaction. By 4 p.m., his story was causing shock waves.
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Fahrenthold’s story about the recording — which some observers said might deal a death blow to Trump’s presidential campaign — was the second major revelation, or “October surprise,” that came courtesy of an anonymous source. The New York Times last week revealed that Trump took a $916 million loss on his 1995 taxes, which could have relieved him from paying federal income taxes for as many as 18 years. The Times’ story was based on tax returns supplied by a source whose identity is unknown even to the Times. Fahrenthold, a 16-year veteran of The Post, said he knows who pointed him to the “Access Hollywood” video, but he will not reveal the identity because he promised anonymity to his tipster. But like many readers, he said he was surprised and shocked by what he saw on the tape.
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As it happens, Fahrenthold was racing to produce his story in competition with “Access Hollywood” itself. The syndicated show, owned by NBC Universal, had found the Trump recording in its archives and was preparing its own story. NBC News, tipped by “Access Hollywood,” was also aware of the tape and was preparing a story, which it intended to broadcast after the entertainment show aired the recording. It was not clear, however, when “Access Hollywood” and NBC News were planning to go ahead with their stories.
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I went looking for what was known about the source of the Trump video. This is all I found. The original WaPo story on the video is here. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html I'm reminded of the Republican drive to impeach Bill Clinton that resulted in Larry Flynt (of Hustler magazine fame) offering a million-dollar reward for dirt on Republican members' of Congress affairs with women. He found a lot of takers and several Repubs were forced to resign from Congress after their affairs were publicized. I recall that Newt Gingrich said something along the lines of "I've never seen such a strong counterpunch before." The timing was exquisite, just after Trump let it be known that he'd be attacking Hillary in the next debate for her attacks on the women who had come forward claiming that Bill Clinton had either had affairs with them or made unwelcome sexual advances on them. The timing was also great to pull the sting from the Wikileaks release of the latest 2,000 Hillary emails showing that she perjured herself before Congress about shipment of arms to al-Qaeda in Syria from Libya. That never made it into mainstream media, although a few articles resulted from the leak of Hillary's talk to Goldman Sachs. All swept from the headlines by the eleven-year-old recording of Trump making sexist remarks. It says something about American politics that the next election may be determined by such a recording as opposed to life and death issues like U.S. foreign wars that are killing hundreds of thousands of people, climate change that threatens the extinction of the human race in as little as 100 years, etc.