According to a new CNN report, Fox News knew about but sat on information about Donald Trump’s alleged extramarital affair with porn actress Stephanie Clifford, known as “Stormy Daniels,” in October, 2016, shortly before the presidential election.
Kudos to CNN’s Oliver Darcy for the scoop. It comes in the wake of Friday’s report in The Wall Street Journal, that Trump attorney Michael Cohen had arranged $130,000 in hush money to Daniels in 2016. Darcy explains that Fox had on-the-record confirmation of the affair yet killed the story anyway:
One of the network’s reporters, Diana Falzone, had filed a story in October 2016 about an alleged sexual relationship between Clifford and Trump, people familiar with the matter said.
Falzone had an on-the-record statement from Clifford’s manager at the time, Gina Rodriguez, confirming that her client had engaged in a sexual relationship with Trump, three of these people said, and Falzone had even seen emails about a settlement.
According to CNN, Fox claims it sat on the story because “we were unable to verify all of the facts.” And yet it did not run with the facts it had, which seem pretty darned substantial. Curious, eh?
So is the fact that Fox didn’t use what it had in its own recent reporting on Trump and Daniels. Darcy noted:
A Fox News spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry about why the outlet did not use any of its previous reporting in its recent stories on the alleged relationship between Clifford and Trump.
Meanwhile, an article by Slate editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg lays out a very, very convincing case that Clifford did, in fact, have a sexual relationship for about a year, beginning in 2006. Donald and Melania Trump married in 2005. The Daily Beast recently published more corroboration of an affair.
Originally published at Newshounds.us
