Editorials & Other Articles

Grasswire2

(13,569 posts) Sat Sep 8, 2018, 06:26 PM Sep 2018

Columbia Journalism Review: Reporters Should Out Kavanaugh (many past off the record interviews...)

[link:https://www.cjr.org/criticism/reporters-should-out-kavanaugh.php|

From the article......

“I have talked with reporters on background on some occasions,” Starr told Brill. He named Jackie Bennett, his deputy, as someone who had “talked ‘extensively about the case’ to three reporters—Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, Susan Schmidt of The Washington Post and Jackie Judd of ABC News.” None of those reporters confirmed Starr’s statement. He did not name other leakers.

But we know now that at least one reporter received information from Kavanaugh: Dan Moldea, who published a book, A Washington Tragedy: How the Death of Vincent Foster Ignited a Political Firestorm, that April. At the time, Kavanaugh had just completed a stretch working for Starr on an investigation of the death of Vincent Foster, a White House adviser; the case was ruled a suicide. Soon after speaking with Moldea, Kavanaugh returned to Starr’s office in a formal job. During the period in between, when he was chatting with Moldea, was he serving as a cutout for Starr—not technically on the books, but privy to his work? We don’t know what information Kavanaugh shared.

In July, Kavanaugh acknowledged having “been a source for several books written about the Starr investigation.” Last week, he told Washington Post reporters Tom Hamburger, Robert Barnes, and Robert O’Harrow, Jr., “I have also spoken to reporters on background as appropriate or as directed.” Moldea told the Post that Kavanaugh “was the designated person” the Office of the Independent Counsel “puts with people like me.” As evidence, Moldea kept recordings of his conversations with Starr deputies and has played them for Judiciary Committee lawyers. According to the Post, “The recordings suggest that Starr’s top deputies referred Moldea to Kavanaugh for answers to questions about the Foster matter.”

To whom else did Kavanaugh leak? And what did he leak?

Dan Moldea is an old friend of mine. He was asked to provide information to the Senate in the hearings on Kavanaugh. Here is his affidavit of last week: [link:http://www.moldea.com/Affidavit-OIC-09032018.pdf|