All Three Nets Now Covering Anti-Cruz Smear; ABC Scolds Both Cruz and Trump

On Saturday, all three broadcast morning news shows talked about the National Enquirer allegations against GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, allegations for which there is still no on-the-record source or any other supporting evidence.

CBS, which took the high road and skipped the tawdry allegations on Friday’s Evening News, this morning offered a 68-second item read by CBS This Morning: Saturday co-anchor Anthony Mason, which cast the matter as a “he said, he said,” between the two candidates.

ABC’s Good Morning America offered a full report from weekend political correspondent Devin Dwyer, in which Dwyer unfortunately cast both Cruz and Trump as guilty of soiling the campaign discourse: “On one of the most solemn days of the year for Christians, Good Friday, the Republican frontrunners descended into a battle over sleaze,” Dwyer fretted.

As she did on Friday’s Nightly News, NBC correspondent Hallie Jackson was the most thorough in explaining the many reasons to doubt the Enquirer story, listing the tabloid’s past boosting of Trump and the categorical denials of two of the women linked to Cruz in the story.

Unlike Friday, however, none of the networks on Saturday morning talked about the role of onetime Trump aide Roger Stone in promoting the Enquirer story to the media, although NBC’s Jackson showed viewers the spectacle of pro-Trump journalist Adriana Cohen hijacking a CNN interview on Friday to smear Cruz supporter Amanda Carpenter as a way to force the media to pay attention to the story.

Given that the Cruz story falls far below the normal journalistic threshold for covering such sensational claims, the only fair way to discuss it at all is to point out the evidence that it is, in all likelihood, part of a smear campaign from a political rival. NBC’s Jackson accomplished this in her report, but ABC and CBS limited themselves to merely running Cruz’s own condemnation of the story, juxtaposed with Trump’s Facebook declaration that he had nothing to do with it.

ABC’s premise that both “Republican frontrunners” had “descended into a battle over sleaze” does a disservice to Cruz, since Cruz — unlike Trump — did not attack his rival’s wife, while his attacks on Trump as “Sleazy Donald” are a reaction to what is by all journalist norms a false story being forced onto the national media by Trump supporters such as Adriana Cohen and Roger Stone.

Here’s a bit more of how each of the three networks covered the Cruz story on Saturday morning:

Some behind scenes facts as to why Ineligible Preacher Ted’s sex capades didn’t come out in February…..

NOTE - THIS PIECE IS NOT WRITTEN BY BEN SHAPIRO, BREITBART, OR THE DAILY WIRE

LAST UPDATED 3/25/2016 4:10PM PST

~ BEN SHAPIRO, #CRUZSEXSCANDAL, AND THE WILKS BROTHERS ~

Many people in the conservative, libertarian, and alt-right movements are familiar with journalist, radio host, and author Ben Shapiro. He has risen to prominence through his work at Breitbart, hosting a popular radio show on KTTH and a morning show on KTLA, and confronting liberals in the media- from Dr. Drew to Piers Morgan.

However, the 2016 election cycle has brought out the bad side of Ben Shapiro. He has exposed himself to not be the principled, honest truth-teller many thought he was- instead, he has shown himself to be just another bought and paid for pundit, masquerading as an edgy “facts don’t care about your feelings” conservative while constantly putting his own self interest (and that of Israel) above the truth.

Below you will find the facts that make the case against Mr. Ben Shapiro.

~ THE DAILY WIRE ~

In 2015, after being ousted from Truth Revolt, Ben Shapiro was hired as Editor in Chief of a new news site- The Daily Wire. Presenting itself as a conservative-leaning mashup of Drudge Report and Buzzfeed, TDW looked to be just another cookie cutter clickbait site. The site itself isn’t that interesting- the interesting part is who owns it.

The Daily Wire is owned by Forward Publishing, LLC. This name probably means nothing to you- neither do the Wilks brothers, Forward’s owners.

The Wilks brothers, who own the Daily Wire, are fracking billionaires and major Cruz donors. Like $10+ million to Cruz’ Super Pac major (the sources for all of this information is listed below). They obviously have a vested interest in seeing their candidate succeed, and if they are investing in a news site, they are going to hire the Editor in Chief who will do his best to make that happen.

That Editor in Chief is, of course, Mr. Ben Shapiro.

It doesn’t take much digging to find numerous Daily Wire hit pieces against Trump. Written in the typical clickbaity style, you’ll NEVER BELIEVE what Shapiro’s team is able to warp out of context and use to slander Trump. I will allow you to find these articles on your own. It shouldn’t take long.

Not surprising, then, that Daily Wire was one of the first organizations to try to discredit the #CruzSexScandal by labeling it as a Trump campaign lie (when Trump’s campaign actually had nothing to do with it).

~ BREITBART: MICHELLE FIELDS ~

So, Shapiro is a hired gun for the Cruz camp. Not surprising- this is fairly common practice in media. I’m not faulting Shapiro for doing what his employers want and trying to take out Trump- that’s to be expected.

Where this story takes an invidious turn is when Shapiro was Editor at Large for Breitbart. At a campaign rally in March 2016, Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields was allegedly “almost thrown to the ground” by Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski (source below). Obviously this is a major investigation, and responsible reporters would investigate it before blowing it up- well, not Ben Shapiro.

Shapiro immediately took the story and ran with it, accusing Lewandowski of assaulting Fields and demanding his immediate resignation. Never mind that video evidence disproved Fields and Shapiro’s claim. Never mind that Shapiro, not a year earlier, had ridiculed the “listen and believe” logic used by college feminists to attack male students. This story, if true, would hurt Trump. Shapiro needed it to stick.

Well, it didn’t. Video came out and showed Fields lied about the incident. Lewandowski was exonerated by the media- which would’ve loved nothing more than a huge Trump scandal!- and it was all put to rest.

Not good enough for Ben Shapiro. Angry about how his pet project hit piece failed, he took to clickbait kings Buzzfeed to announce he was taking his toys and going home- and taking Fields with him. They both resigned, and the story got buried on Buzzfeed below hard-hitting journalism and 5 HILARIOUS cat gifs.

This demonstrates how much Shapiro is willing to sacrifice to trash Trump.

~ BREITBART: THE COVERUP ~

Shapiro committing career seppuku isn’t the story here. A coverup, on the other hand, is.

On February 2 2016, Breitbart journalist Allum Bokhari (@LibertarianBlue on twitter) tweeted about big Cruz news coming soon. He had written the piece for Breitbart, and the “bombshell” was being delayed by the editors at Breitbart. Editors that included, presumably, Editor at Large Ben Shapiro.

There was temporary hype on Twitter, people were excited, and even Milo Yiannopolous vouched for Bokhari, promising that it would be huge news. And then, the story disappeared, and no one heard anything more about it.

That changed on March 7 when Bokhari tweeted that the bombshell had been released, and a satirical piece about Ted Cruz’ favorite My Little Pony character was posted on Breitbart. Bokhari tweeted the piece, claiming it was the news that he had been sitting on. He even tweeted the following:

“Despite @benshapiro’s best efforts to suppress it, the truth about Cruz is finally out:”

Now, maybe this is a joke, but I find it highly unlikely that Bokhari- an intelligent guy- would build up attention a MONTH ahead of releasing a major “bombshell”, go radio silent, and then put out the MLP piece. It just isn’t probable. Many were skeptical about what really happened, and after #CruzSexScandal broke in late March, Bokhari tweeted this:

“I hate getting scooped.”

This tweet cast much more doubt about the nature of Bokhari’s “bombshell”, and what really happened with the Breitbart editorial staff. Was the Cruz scandal the piece that Bokhari had written? Did he leak the info to National Enquirer? If so, why?

The answer may be simple.

~ HOW IT FITS TOGETHER ~

In his capacity at Breitbart, Shapiro had control and influence over what pieces got published and what pieces didn’t. It is not completely unreasonable to assume that he acted in the best interests of his bosses at Daily Wire and did what he could to protect their candidate, Senator Cruz.

Did Bokhari’s piece get scrapped by Ben Shapiro in order to protect his investor’s favorite candidate? There are no concrete answers, and no definitive proof- but this seems to be the most probable answer. Ben demonstrated during the Fields incident that he was willing to disregard facts and evidence to take down his opposition’s candidate.

I don’t know what happened between Allum Bokhari and Ben Shapiro. Hell, I don’t even know if the Cruz scandal is true or not.

What I do know is that in his capacity at Breitbart, Shapiro had the ability and motive to censor any potential “Cruz bombshells”, and five mistresses would certainly count.

And on that bombshell, I leave you to consider the evidence and reach your own conclusions.

UPDATE 3/25 2:49 PST // A screenshot has been posted on /pol/ purporting to be a conversation between anon and Milo Yiannopolous on Twitter. Milo confirms that this is “The Thing” (a term Rubio insiders used to describe Cruz scandal) and that Shapiro was trying to suppress it. Will update with imgur link.

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