Political Randomness

[em2nought]

Looks like Jabba is the next to fall http://newsthump.com/2017/04/06/jabba-t ... ialnetwork

[pr0ner]

A satirical article from April is about on par with your other contributions to this thread.

[Moliere]

An “Embarrassed and Ashamed” Al Franken Is Returning to Work

Sen. Al Franken is finally speaking up. After only communicating through written statements since the first allegation of sexual misconduct arose, Franken reached out to Minnesota media outlets on Sunday to say he’s ready to return to work on Monday. “I’m embarrassed and ashamed. I’ve let a lot of people down and I’m hoping I can make it up to them and gradually regain their trust,” said Franken, who has been accused of misconduct by four different women. “I’m looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow,” he told the Star Tribune.

A week and a half after the first allegations surfaced, Franken said that despite shame over his conduct he has no plans to leave the Senate. "I'm going to do my job and I'm going to go forward. I'm going to take responsibility. I'm going to be held accountable and I'm going to try to be productive in the way I speak about this,” he told Minnesota Public Radio.

[hepcat]

He could’ve just pulled a Trump and said everyone was lying, I suppose. It seems to make Republicans happy enough.

[Defiant]

CFPB deputy director sues Trump to block Mulvaney as interim leader

LEANDRA ENGLISH, Deputy Director and Acting Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 1700 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20552,
Plaintiff,

v.

DONALD JOHN TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States of America, 1600 Pennsylvania, Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20500,

JOHN MICHAEL MULVANEY, in his capacity as the person claiming to be acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 725 17th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20503,
Defendants

Oh, the shade.

[pr0ner]

Yeah, that's going to end well.

[GreenGoo]

Mostly this hasn't come up before and I think the lawsuit is probably just to solidify into established law which appointment takes precedence.

From what I've read, it's Drumpf's appointment to make. Much to the chagrin and detriment of everyone else.

[Kraken]

He can appoint the new director, subject to confirmation. He can't appoint the interim director. The deputy fills that role.

He'll ultimately be able to gut this agency, but not yet.

[Rip]

He can appoint the new director, subject to confirmation. He can't appoint the interim director. The deputy fills that role.

He'll ultimately be able to gut this agency, but not yet.

But he can appoint someone who has already been confirmed for another cabinet post. No additional confirmation required.

[malchior]

He can appoint the new director, subject to confirmation. He can't appoint the interim director. The deputy fills that role.

He'll ultimately be able to gut this agency, but not yet.

But he can appoint someone who has already been confirmed for another cabinet post. No additional confirmation required.

This a novel new theory. So the Sec. Of Defense can just be swapped for the Sec. of Education?

[Carpet_pissr]

Under this administration and its penchant of putting non-qualified ppl in positions of power (including the head Cheeto himself, but that’s on us), why not? Makes as much sense as some of the other appointees.

In fact, I would argue that that kind of bullshit shenanigan would be more in line with the current dumpster fire MO of Fox & Trumps than the typical procedure under these circumstances.

[malchior]

I'm not going to pretend to understand the civil service code and assume the courts will settle all this. Isn't it a little more disconcerting that a Federal agency head felt he needed to attempt to block the President from appointing a successor? The level of dysfunction of our government is spiraling out of control. It certainly feels like the psychopaths have all the luck -- governing a docile population of idiots and fantasists who have no clue what is going on.

[GreenGoo]

He can appoint the new director, subject to confirmation. He can't appoint the interim director. The deputy fills that role.

He'll ultimately be able to gut this agency, but not yet.

And that's where the lawsuit comes into play. We'll see.

[Rip]

Seems pretty clear.

https://www.consumerfinancemonitor.com/ ... ct1998.pdf

if an officer of an Executive agency…whose appointment to office is required by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, dies, resigns or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office…the President (and only the President) may direct a person who serves in an office for which the appointment is required to be made by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to perform the functions and duties of the vacant office temporarily in an acting capacity [subject to the Act’s time limitations.]

[GreenGoo]

We'll see. This is probably the first time the President was a dick about it, otherwise there wouldn't be confusion now. The courts will make a decision and that's the way it will be from here on out.

I assume he's just "draining the swamp" like with his other appointees. He inspires such confidence.

[pr0ner]

I am hearing John COnyers is one of the secret congressional sexual harassers....

I've heard that too, and he's probably going to be out. Maybe Roy Moore gets his parking space?

Conyers was the highest payout. There are rumors that the second-highest is a GOP senator whose name has yet to be leaked.

Conyers out after his sexual harassment stuff came to light? Nah. Nancy Pelosi is defending him because he is an "icon" who has worked to protect women.

Conyers did step down from his House Judiciary Committee post as ranking member, but out of Congress? LOL. The Democrats are just as bad about protecting their own as the Republicans are.

[Isgrimnur]

He's also denied the allegations.

NBC News

Conyers’ office recently confirmed issuing a settlement of $27,000 to a former staffer who says she was fired for resisting the congressman’s sexual advances. Conyers has acknowledged the payout, which he said amounted to a severance package, but he denied the allegations about what it was for.
...
[Pelosi] repeatedly said that she wants to see the House Ethics Committee investigation of Conyers play out.
...
Pelosi said in a statement later Sunday, "Zero tolerance means consequences. I have asked for an ethics investigation, and as that investigation continues, Congressman Conyers has agreed to step aside as Ranking Member."

Yup, nothing like a complete stonewall defense.

[Holman]

I am hearing John COnyers is one of the secret congressional sexual harassers....

I've heard that too, and he's probably going to be out. Maybe Roy Moore gets his parking space?

Conyers was the highest payout. There are rumors that the second-highest is a GOP senator whose name has yet to be leaked.

Conyers out after his sexual harassment stuff came to light? Nah. Nancy Pelosi is defending him because he is an "icon" who has worked to protect women.

Conyers did step down from his House Judiciary Committee post as ranking member, but out of Congress? LOL. The Democrats are just as bad about protecting their own as the Republicans are.

Probably. But there's a rumor that Conyers will be retiring in contrition and that Pelosi's comments were a way of allowing him to prepare to do so without pre-emptive ass-kicking.

If so, that's unseemly, but it's not the equivalent of, say, electing a known child-molester to the Senate.

[pr0ner]

I'm sure there's some cynicism involved in this statement, but for those career politicians, staying in power is more important than anything else.

Edit to add: This was in response to Isgrimnur, not Holman.

[pr0ner]

I am hearing John COnyers is one of the secret congressional sexual harassers....

I've heard that too, and he's probably going to be out. Maybe Roy Moore gets his parking space?

Conyers was the highest payout. There are rumors that the second-highest is a GOP senator whose name has yet to be leaked.

Conyers out after his sexual harassment stuff came to light? Nah. Nancy Pelosi is defending him because he is an "icon" who has worked to protect women.

Conyers did step down from his House Judiciary Committee post as ranking member, but out of Congress? LOL. The Democrats are just as bad about protecting their own as the Republicans are.

It's possible. There's a rumor that Conyers will be retiring in contrition, and that Pelosi's comments were a way of allowing him to prepare to do so without pre-emptive ass-kicking.

If so, that's unseemly, but it's not the equivalent of, say, electing a known child-molester to the Senate.

That's a fair point. I hadn't heard any rumors about Conyers retiring yet, either.

[El Guapo]

I am hearing John COnyers is one of the secret congressional sexual harassers....

I've heard that too, and he's probably going to be out. Maybe Roy Moore gets his parking space?

Conyers was the highest payout. There are rumors that the second-highest is a GOP senator whose name has yet to be leaked.

Conyers out after his sexual harassment stuff came to light? Nah. Nancy Pelosi is defending him because he is an "icon" who has worked to protect women.

Conyers did step down from his House Judiciary Committee post as ranking member, but out of Congress? LOL. The Democrats are just as bad about protecting their own as the Republicans are.

I'm intrigued by the URL in your link. Did OO recently establish a Judiciary Committee? Can I be on it?

Is there much detail on the allegations against Conyers? All I know so far is that Conyers had made payouts via the 'harassment fund', but I haven't seen much detail about what he allegedly did.

[pr0ner]

I am hearing John COnyers is one of the secret congressional sexual harassers....

I've heard that too, and he's probably going to be out. Maybe Roy Moore gets his parking space?

Conyers was the highest payout. There are rumors that the second-highest is a GOP senator whose name has yet to be leaked.

Conyers out after his sexual harassment stuff came to light? Nah. Nancy Pelosi is defending him because he is an "icon" who has worked to protect women.

Conyers did step down from his House Judiciary Committee post as ranking member, but out of Congress? LOL. The Democrats are just as bad about protecting their own as the Republicans are.

I'm intrigued by the URL in your link. Did OO recently establish a Judiciary Committee? Can I be on it?

Is there much detail on the allegations against Conyers? All I know so far is that Conyers had made payouts via the 'harassment fund', but I haven't seen much detail about what he allegedly did.

Wow, not sure how that URL happened. Fixed to the appropriate NBC News article.

[stessier]

I am hearing John COnyers is one of the secret congressional sexual harassers....

I've heard that too, and he's probably going to be out. Maybe Roy Moore gets his parking space?

Conyers was the highest payout. There are rumors that the second-highest is a GOP senator whose name has yet to be leaked.

Conyers out after his sexual harassment stuff came to light? Nah. Nancy Pelosi is defending him because he is an "icon" who has worked to protect women.

Conyers did step down from his House Judiciary Committee post as ranking member, but out of Congress? LOL. The Democrats are just as bad about protecting their own as the Republicans are.

I'm intrigued by the URL in your link. Did OO recently establish a Judiciary Committee? Can I be on it?

Don't forget the interns when you make the big time!

[Isgrimnur]

Fastest anti-corruption committee in the Middle East:

The sweeping campaign of arrests appears to be the latest move to consolidate the power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the favorite son and top adviser of King Salman.

Independent

Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has vowed terrorists will be pursued until they are “wiped off the face of the earth” in the first meeting of a new Arab alliance designed to defeat extremism.

“We will not allow them (terrorists) to distort our peaceful religion. Today we are sending a strong message that we are working together to fight terrorism,” Prince bin Salman told assembled defence ministers in a keynote address in Riyadh on Sunday.
...
The first meeting this week comes as Isis faces the collapse of its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria – but in the wake of a suicide bombing and gunmen assault on a mosque in Egypt’s Sinai province last week which killed more than 300 people.

The “painful event” was a reminder of the “danger of terrorism and extremism”, Prince bin Salman said.
...
Countries involved in the coalition include Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Uganda, Somalia, Mauritania, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen and Turkey.

Iran – Saudi Arabia’s regional arch-rival – is not included in the group. Syria and Iraq, whose governments have close connections to Tehran, are also not part of the alliance.

While the alliance officially includes Qatar, the target of a six-month boycott led by Saudi Arabia, organisers in Riyadh said no Qatari officials were present.

“The pillar of this coalition is inclusion,” said Saudi General Abdulelah al Saleh, the alliance's acting secretary general, playing down the perceived tensions.

“Our common enemy is terrorism, not any religion, sect or race.”

[tjg_marantz]

https://twitter.com/scotusreporter/stat ... 9782969344
Link to article in tweet: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/ ... story.html

[Isgrimnur]

Ever wonder why one side seems to be preoccupied with false flag operations?

[Moliere]

So their plan was to create a fake story against Moore, come out as fake, and thereby discredit all the allegations against Moore?

[tjg_marantz]

So their plan was to create a fake story against Moore, come out as fake, and thereby discredit all the allegations against Moore?

Ding ding ding

[Captain Caveman]

So their plan was to create a fake story against Moore, come out as fake, and thereby discredit all the allegations against Moore?

Ding ding ding

That is one masterstroke of an article, and the accompanying video is not to be missed... seeing the lady slowly come to realize that the Washington Post journalist has turned the tables and she's totally and completely fucked is a sight to behold.

[Holman]

And the thing to remember here is that this isn't just an attack on the Post.

It's chiefly an attack on the women who have independently come forward to accuse Roy Moore.

James O'Keefe can eat shit.

[Holman]

That is one masterstroke of an article, and the accompanying video is not to be missed... seeing the lady slowly come to realize that the Washington Post journalist has turned the tables and she's totally and completely fucked is a sight to behold.

The good part really starts at 6:30.

That journo is a total pro. You can tell that she is suppressing her contempt, but she seems genuinely to want to get the whole story.

When Project Veritas and its backers throw Jaime Phillips under the bus, it will be this journalist who talks to her again and gets the full truth of the scam.

[malchior]

I am hearing John COnyers is one of the secret congressional sexual harassers....

I've heard that too, and he's probably going to be out. Maybe Roy Moore gets his parking space?

Conyers was the highest payout. There are rumors that the second-highest is a GOP senator whose name has yet to be leaked.

Conyers out after his sexual harassment stuff came to light? Nah. Nancy Pelosi is defending him because he is an "icon" who has worked to protect women.

Conyers did step down from his House Judiciary Committee post as ranking member, but out of Congress? LOL. The Democrats are just as bad about protecting their own as the Republicans are.

I'm intrigued by the URL in your link. Did OO recently establish a Judiciary Committee? Can I be on it?

Is there much detail on the allegations against Conyers? All I know so far is that Conyers had made payouts via the 'harassment fund', but I haven't seen much detail about what he allegedly did.

This is my problem in a nutshell. Where are the multiple complaints against him? Where is the detail? In the end he stepped aside from his most powerful position and asked for an investigation. Let that process play out or have the dam break loose with multiple accusers before whatabouting this as equivalent to Moore or even Trump. Especially since Trump is pretending it wasn't him on the tape. These allegations are in a complete different scale at the moment IMO.

[Alefroth]

https://twitter.com/scotusreporter/stat ... 9782969344
Link to article in tweet: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/ ... story.html

Here's to you, WaPo.

[Kraken]

I guess my ration of free articles must not reset until 12/1. Stoopid paywall....

[malchior]

I guess my ration of free articles must not reset until 12/1. Stoopid paywall....

To be honest it is pretty mundane. They had a pretty decent circumstantial case to not believe her and then she went into the Project Veritas office. That clinched it. She was clearly a plant at that point. Nicely done reverse sting operation.

[Max Peck]

I guess my ration of free articles must not reset until 12/1. Stoopid paywall....

I keep hearing about this paywall, but I've never seen any sign of it (and I read a lot of WaPo articles).

Is Mexico paying for it on my behalf?

[Fitzy]

I guess my ration of free articles must not reset until 12/1. Stoopid paywall....

I keep hearing about this paywall, but I've never seen any sign of it (and I read a lot of WaPo articles).

Is Mexico paying for it on my behalf?

Some reads don’t seem to count. Through google news for example.

If you’d like to see the paywall,just go directly to WP and click on eleven links.

[Holman]

Full text of the article, missing only two fascinating embedded videos:

Spoiler:

A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation.
By Shawn Boburg, Aaron C. Davis and Alice Crites November 27 at 5:55 PM


A woman who falsely claimed to The Washington Post that Roy Moore, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama, impregnated her as a teenager appears to work with an organization that uses deceptive tactics to secretly record conversations in an effort to embarrass its targets.

In a series of interviews over two weeks, the woman shared a dramatic story about an alleged sexual relationship with Moore in 1992 that led to an abortion when she was 15. During the interviews, she repeatedly pressed Post reporters to give their opinions on the effects that her claims could have on Moore’s candidacy if she went public.

The Post did not publish an article based on her unsubstantiated account. When Post reporters confronted her with inconsistencies in her story and an Internet posting that raised doubts about her motivations, she insisted that she was not working with any organization that targets journalists.

But on Monday morning, Post reporters saw her walking into the New York offices of Project Veritas, an organization that targets the mainstream news media and left-leaning groups. The organization sets up undercover “stings” that involve using false cover stories and covert video recordings meant to expose what the group says is media bias.

James O’Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas who was convicted of a misdemeanor in 2010 for using a fake identity to enter a federal building during a previous sting, declined to answer questions about the woman outside the Project Veritas office, a storefront in Mamaroneck, N.Y., on Monday morning shortly after the woman walked inside.

“I am not doing an interview right now, so I’m not going to say a word,” O’Keefe said.

In a follow-up interview, O’Keefe declined to answer repeated questions about whether the woman was employed at Project Veritas. He also did not respond when asked if he was working with Moore, former White House adviser and Moore supporter Stephen K. Bannon, or Republican strategists.

The group’s efforts illustrate the lengths to which activists have gone to try to discredit media outlets for reporting on allegations from multiple women that Moore pursued them when they were teenagers and he was in his early 30s. Moore has denied that he did anything improper.

A spokesman for Moore’s campaign did not immediately respond to a message for comment.

The woman who approached Post reporters, Jaime T. Phillips, did not respond to calls to her cellphone Monday morning. Her car remained in the Project Veritas parking lot for more than an hour.

After Phillips was observed entering the Project Veritas office, The Post made the unusual decision to report her previous off-the-record comments.

“We always honor ‘off-the-record’ agreements when they’re entered into in good faith,” said Martin Baron, The Post’s executive editor. “But this so-called off-the-record conversation was the essence of a scheme to deceive and embarrass us. The intent by Project Veritas clearly was to publicize the conversation if we fell for the trap. Because of our customary journalistic rigor, we weren’t fooled, and we can’t honor an ‘off-the-record’ agreement that was solicited in maliciously bad faith.”

Phillips’s arrival at the Project Veritas office capped a weeks-long effort that began only hours after The Post published an article on Nov. 9 that included allegations that Moore once initiated a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old named Leigh Corfman.

Post reporter Beth Reinhard, who co-wrote the article about Corfman, received a cryptic email early the next morning.

“Roy Moore in Alabama . . . I might know something but I need to keep myself safe. How do we do this?” the apparent tipster wrote under an account with the name “Lindsay James.”

The email’s subject line was “Roy Moore in AL.” The sender’s email address included “rolltide,” the rallying cry of the University of Alabama’s sports teams, which are nicknamed the Crimson Tide.

Reinhard sent an email asking if the person was willing to talk off the record.

“Not sure if I trust the phone,” came the reply. “Can we just stick to email?”

“I need to be confident that you can protect me before I will tell all,” the person wrote in a subsequent email. “I have stuff I’ve been hiding for a long time but maybe it should stay that way.”

The tipster’s email came amid counterattacks by Moore supporters aimed at The Post and its reporters.

That same day, Gateway Pundit, a conservative site, spread a false story from a Twitter account, @umpire43, that said, “A family friend in Alabama just told my wife that a WAPO reporter named Beth offer her 1000$ to accuse Roy Moore.” The Twitter account, which has a history of spreading misinformation, has since been deleted.

The Post, like many other news organizations, has a strict policy against paying people for information and did not do so in its coverage of Moore.

On Nov. 14, a pastor in Alabama said he received a voice mail from a man falsely claiming to be a Post reporter and seeking women “willing to make damaging remarks” about Moore for money. No one associated with The Post made any such call.

In the days that followed the purported tipster’s initial emails, Reinhard communicated with the woman through an encrypted text messaging service and spoke by phone with the person to set up a meeting. When the woman suggested a meeting in New York, Reinhard told her she would have to know more about her story and her background. The woman offered that her real name was Jaime Phillips.

Phillips said she lived in New York but would be in the D.C. area during Thanksgiving week and suggested meeting Tuesday in a shopping mall in Tysons Corner, Va. “I’m planning to do some shopping there so I’ll find a good place to meet before you get there,” Phillips wrote in a message sent via Signal, the encrypted messaging service.

When Reinhard suggested bringing another reporter, Phillips wrote, “I’m not really comfortable with anyone else being there this time.”

Reinhard arrived to find Phillips, wearing a brown leather jacket and with long red hair, already seated in a booth in the restaurant.

The 41-year-old said she had been abused as a child, Reinhard said. Her family had moved often. She said she moved in with an aunt in the Talladega area of Alabama and started attending a church youth group when she met Moore in 1992, the year he became a county judge. She said she was 15. She said they started a “secret” sexual relationship.

“I knew it wasn’t right, but I didn’t care,” she said.

She said that she got pregnant, that Moore talked her into an abortion, and that he drove her to Mississippi to get it.

In the interview, she told Reinhard that she was so upset she couldn’t finish her salad.

Phillips said she had started thinking about coming forward after the allegations about Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein surfaced. Then she said she saw the news about Moore flashing across the television screen while in a break room at her job at a company called NFM Lending in Westchester County, N.Y., Reinhard said.

Phillips also repeatedly asked the reporter to guarantee her that Moore would lose the election if she came forward. Reinhard told her in a subsequent text message that she could not predict what the impact would be. Reinhard said she also explained to Phillips that her claims would have to be fact-checked. Additionally, Reinhard asked her for documents that would corroborate or support her story.

Later that day, Phillips told Reinhard that she felt “anxiety & negative energy after our meeting,” text messages show. “You just didn’t convince me that I should come forward,” she wrote.

Reinhard replied, “I’m so sorry but I want to be straight with you about the fact-checking process and the fact that we can’t guarantee what will happen as a result of another story.”

Phillips was not satisfied. On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, she suggested meeting with another Post reporter, Stephanie McCrummen, who co-wrote the initial article about Corfman. “I’d rather go to another paper than talk to you again,” Phillips told Reinhard.

Back at the newsroom, Reinhard became concerned about elements of Phillips’s story. Phillips had said she lived in Alabama only for a summer while a teenager; but the cellphone number Phillips provided had an Alabama area code. Reinhard called NFM Lending in Westchester County, but they said a person named Jaime Phillips did not work there.

Alice Crites, a Post researcher who was looking into Phillips’s background, found the document that strongly reinforced the reporters’ suspicions: a Web page for a fundraising campaign by someone with the same name. It was on the website GoFundMe.com under the name Jaime Phillips.

“I’m moving to New York!” the May 29 appeal said. “I’ve accepted a job to work in the conservative media movement to combat the lies and deceipt of the liberal MSM. I’ll be using my skills as a researcher and fact-checker to help our movement. I was laid off from my mortgage job a few months ago and came across the opportunity to change my career path.”

In a March posting on its Facebook page, Project Veritas said it was seeking 12 new “undercover reporters,” though the organization’s operatives use methods that are eschewed by mainstream journalists, such as misrepresenting themselves.

A posting for the “journalist” job on the Project Veritas website that month warned that the job “is not a role for the faint of heart.”

The job’s listed goal: “To adopt an alias persona, gain access to an identified person of interest and persuade that person to reveal information.”

It also listed tasks that the job applicant should be able to master, including: “Learning a script,” “Preparing a background story to support your role,” “Gaining an appointment or access to the target of the investigation,” and “Operating concealed recording equipment.”

Project Veritas, founded in 2010, is a tax-exempt charity that says its mission is to “investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud and other misconduct.” It raised $4.8 million and employed 38 people in 2016, according to its public tax filing. It also had 92 volunteers.

O’Keefe’s criminal record has caused the charity problems in some states. Mississippi and Utah stripped the group of a license to raise money in those states because it failed to disclose O’Keefe’s conviction on state applications, records show.

Also working at Veritas is former television producer Robert J. Halderman, who was sentenced to six months in jail in 2010 after he was accused of trying to blackmail late-night host David Letterman. Halderman was with O’Keefe outside the Project Veritas offices Monday as a reporter tried to ask about Phillips’s role with the organization.

Because Jaime Phillips is a relatively common name, it wasn’t a certainty that the GoFundMe page that Crites found was created by was the same woman who approached The Post. But there was another telling detail, in addition to the name. One of two donations listed on the page was from a person whose name that matched her daughter’s, according to public records.

McCrummen agreed to meet Phillips that afternoon.

Phillips suggested meeting somewhere in Alexandria, Va., saying she was shopping in the area. Post videographers accompanied McCrummen, who brought a printout of the fundraising page to the interview.

Again, Phillips had arrived early and was waiting for McCrummen, her purse resting on the table. When McCrummen put her purse near Phillips’s purse to block a possible camera, Phillips moved hers.

The Post videographers sat separately, unnoticed, at an adjacent table.

Phillips said she didn’t want to get into the details of what she had said happened between her and Moore.

She said she wanted McCrummen to assure her that the article would result in Moore’s defeat, according to a recording. McCrummen instead asked her about her story regarding Moore.

Phillips complained that President Trump had endorsed Moore.

“So my whole thing is, like, I want him to be completely taken out of the race . . . ” she said. “And I really expected that was going to happen, and now it’s not. So, I don’t know what you think about that.”

McCrummen asked Phillips to verify her identity with a photo identification. Phillips provided a Georgia driver’s license.

McCrummen then asked her about the GoFundMe page.

“We have a process of doing background, checking backgrounds and this kind of thing, so I wanted to ask you about one thing,” McCrummen said, pulling out a copy of the page and reading from it. “So I just wanted to ask you if you could explain this, and I also wanted to let you know, Jaime, that this is being recorded and video recorded.”

“Okay,” Phillips said. “Um, yeah, I was looking to take a job last summer in New York, but it fell through,” Phillips said. “Yeah, it was going to be with the Daily Caller, but it ended up falling through, so I wasn’t able to do it.”

When asked who at the Daily Caller interviewed her, Phillips said, “Kathy,” pausing before adding the last name, “Johnson.”

Paul Conner, executive editor of the Daily Caller, said Monday that no one with the name Kathy Johnson works for the publication and that he has no record of having personally interviewed Phillips. Conner later said in email that he had asked other top editors at the Daily Caller and the affiliated Daily Caller News Foundation about Phillips.

“None of us has interviewed a woman by the name Jaime Phillips,” Conner wrote.

At the Alexandria restaurant on Wednesday, Phillips also told The Post that she had not been in contact with the Moore campaign. As the interview ended, Phillips told McCrummen she was not recording the conversation.

“I think I probably just want to cancel and not go through with it at this point,” Phillips said at Souvlaki Bar shortly before ending the interview.

“I’m not going to answer any more questions,” she said. “I think I’m just going to go.”

She picked up her coat and bag, returned her drink to the front counter and left the restaurant.

By 7 p.m. the message on the GoFundMe page was gone, replaced by a new one.

“Campaign is complete and no longer active,” it read.

[malchior]

It is worth the $9.99 a month at this point. They are one of the last non crazy papers left since the NY Times went semi bonkers.

[Alefroth]

I guess my ration of free articles must not reset until 12/1. Stoopid paywall....

I keep hearing about this paywall, but I've never seen any sign of it (and I read a lot of WaPo articles).

Is Mexico paying for it on my behalf?

Do you browse in Incognito mode?