Andrew Breitbart Did Not Run ‘Weinergate’ Evidence Which Turned Out To Be Fake
by Tommy Christopher
The “Weinergate” story has been a veritable clinic in the pitfalls of new media-influenced journalism, and one such pitfall has come to a head. Andrew Breitbart has been repeatedly accused of engineering a hoax against Rep. Anthony Weiner, and while journalistic ethics prevented me from explaining further, I tried to defend him. As rampant, baseless speculation ruled the week, I have been developing the story the old-fashioned way, by properly verifying facts before I release them.
There are reasonable criticisms to be made of Andrew Breitbart regarding the Weinergate story (I have made many), and I haven’t seen every statement he’s made on Twitter or TV, so I cannot vouch for their fairness, but when it comes to the publication of factual evidence, Breitbart has acted responsibly throughout.
In the instant-gratification landscape of the new media, so-called journalists bumble around posting information, with little regard for traditional journalistic processes, and the results have been disgraceful. One such result has been the unfair accusations against Andrew Breitbart, accusations which I am now able to refute. It has been exceedingly difficult to stand by silently while individuals on every side of the political spectrum have made a mockery of the truth, but the story is now ready to be told. Please excuse the long narrative, but it is all important to understand what really happened here.
Shortly after the Weinergate story first broke, one of several red flags I noticed, and shared with Breitbart, was the fact that there was only one unique retweet of the picture. My back-and-forth on Twitter caught the attention of a young girl who had information about the story, and she contacted me. Since she is a minor, and at her parents’ request, I will identify her pseudonymously as Betty.
It was Betty who pointed out the activities of Dan Wolfe (@patriotusa76) and his clique, including a man named Mike Stack (@goatsred). She had a lot of information that I could not verify, but those facts that were independently verifiable formed the basis of our reporting on Wolfe Sunday afternoon. Wolfe and Stack, along with several others, had engaged in a campaign of harassing young, mostly-underage girls who were being followed by Rep. Weiner, as well as a constant stream of vitriol, homophobic innuendo, and rumormongering against Rep. Weiner. Betty was one of those young girls, and their unwanted attention, she says, caused her to shut down her Twitter feed.
Betty’s mother (we’ll call her Mrs. Betty) says that she and her husband monitor all of Betty’s internet usage, and were incensed by this group’s behavior. Rep. Weiner, she confirms, never contacted Betty privately, with the exception of a Direct Message welcoming her to his Twitter stream, a message Mrs. Betty assumed was automatically generated.
A high school friend of Betty’s, whom I will call Veronica (she’s a minor), was also contacted, via Twitter, by a member of the group, Mike Stack (@goatsred). For personal reasons I won’t go into, Veronica saw a means of getting attention, and agreed to follow @Goatsred so that they could speak privately. She told him that she and Betty had incriminating Direct Messages from Rep. Weiner, a claim she now admits was false, and which she made without Betty’s knowledge.
In fact, she was simultaneously telling Betty that @Goatsred had tried to induce her to lie about Rep. Wiener, and to enlist Betty in the plot. Veronica now admits this was also false. Yes, @goatsred did contact her, and she did feed him false information about Rep. Weiner, but this was not at his urging.
When a tipster, Adam Shriver, sent me a screenshot of this Direct Message from Veronica, from @goatsred’s public YFrog account, I confronted Betty about it, and Mrs. Betty called Veronica’s mother. That’s when Veronica admitted she had been lying.
According to Veronica, she never even followed Rep. Weiner, nor did he ever follow her. “I saw many other girls in the news and I wanted to be famous,” she says. “Nothing I told goatsred was true. I’m sorry to everyone for lying and for embarrassing my mom.”
Both girls’ parents are livid that these grown men contacted their daughters in this way, knowing they were underage, and according to the girls and their parents, neither ever had any contact with Rep. Weiner, beyond that welcome DM.
We now know that when Dan Wolfe emailed Breitbart the Weinergate screenshots on Saturday (The Smoking Gun has the email), he told Breitbart “We have more!”
Among other things, Veronica’s false allegations were part of the “more.”
Since I have only now been able to verify this story (and the identities of the two girls), I was unable to divulge any of this until now. Since I became involved in this story, Andrew Breitbart and I have been in frequent contact (within the bounds of accepted journalistic practices). Initially, Andrew called me to discuss the criticisms I had made on Twitter, but in the course of our conversation, he talked about information that he had decided not to use because he was still trying to verify it.
Once we published our story about Dan Wolfe, Andrew called me again, and it was clear from the conversation that he had genuine concerns about Wolfe as a source, and that he had been unaware of his prior activity on Twitter. Through our contemporaneous conversations throughout this story, it has been clear that Andrew Breitbart followed leads that were submitted to him, rather than that he engineered any of this, and as far as presentation of documentary evidence, has acted responsibly throughout. He has also refrained from identifying the young women involved, unlike other websites on the left and the right, a fact that is to his credit.
Breitbart now confirms, to Mediaite, that @PatriotUSA76 referred him to another source, and that they each shopped him evidence, none of which he used, which included the DMs from @Goatsred’s YFrog account. He also confirmed that @Goatsred is not Big Government contributor Haystack, as has been alleged.
As our conversations were off the record, I have only divulged what Breitbart and I mutually agreed upon, but if he wants to share his end of the conversation, he can. For my part, I would testify in court that Andrew did not induce anyone to produce evidence against Anthony Weiner, fabricated or otherwise, and treated the documentation presented to him with circumspection.
I have long been a strong critic of Andrew Breitbart (in fact, ironically, the thing I’m 3rd most famous for is having him tell me “Put your ****** back in your pants!” at CPAC). We settle our differences like men, face-to-face, now, and will continue to do so, but one bit of strong common ground that we share is that we are both devoted fathers. Throughout this story, Andrew has expressed his concern for protecting the identities of the underage girls whose tangential involvement has led to harassment. I have taken great pains to do the same.
This is where the new media pitfalls come into play. Betty and Veronica are both terrified of being identified and further harassed, but since Betty contacted me, at least one blogger has repeatedly tried to contact her, based on clues from our social media accounts. This person was probably acting on a hunch, but it scared Betty. The reason it has taken me five days to publish this story is that I’ve been trying to verify everything, without jeopardizing my source.
hen, on Thursday, a blogger at DailyKos published a diary rife with wild speculation, and unfounded insinuations, including an unredacted version of Veronica’s Direct Messages to @Goatsred, which also contains Betty’s name. This is the problem with new media, an ignorance, or contempt, or simple disregard, for established journalistic practices. Redacting the names would have no effect on the item’s news value, and the message states they are high school girls, but the blogger either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.
When the girls’ parents became aware of this, they were very distressed, fearing for their children’s safety and privacy. I assured them that I would contact the blog’s proprietor, Markos Moulitsas (a father himself), and he would surely take it down, or redact their names.
The reality, though, was quite another story. When I contacted Moulitsas, he refused to call me, insisting upon email, which greatly hampered the amount of detail I could give him. The result was that he refused to redact their names, or make any changes, but the actual emails demonstrate a reprehensible lack of compassion or responsibility: (Warning: There is some very strong language)
VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:22 PM
subject VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
They are sources of mine, and scared ****less, please call me. xxx-xxx-xxxx
from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:26 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
Email me the info.
from Tommy Christopher
[email protected]to dkos
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:29 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
These are confidential sources. If you can’t call me, at least have this blog taken down, or redact the DM screenshot, including the names (redacted) and the name (redacted), and the girl’s picture. And any reference to those names in the comments or story
from Tommy Christopher
[email protected]to dkos
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 9:58 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
Please let me know what’s going on. I will be posting these girls’ story pretty soon, with proper protection. They just don’t want all these bread crumbs out there. They are 16 years old.
from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:34 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
That’s a community member’s post. Not my staff. I don’t exert editorial control over what the community writes absent legal imperatives or deeply offensive material. Right now, I’m seeing neither.
I’m not sure I get why you want me to pull that. Those DMs appear relevant to the story. As I understand it, those two individuals injected themselves into a political smear effort, why should they be protected now?
Open to a counter argument that has nothing to do with protecting your source.
from Tommy Christopher [email protected]
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 10:37 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
They are both minor children and (redacted) was not involved. Will discuss further if you need, not on email. There could be legal implications, I’m not a lawyer. I’m going to post their story fairly soon, but will discuss off the record by phone if you need.
from Tommy Christopher [email protected]
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:20 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
I’m prepping my story now. Are you going to leave it as is? These girls are afraid. Here’s a redacted version, if you want to drop it in. That’s all I ask. You’re a father, think about it for a sec.
from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:35 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
If they’re so afraid, why are they talking to you?
from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:35 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
And to be clear, no, I’m not getting involved. I see no reason to protect your scoop.
from Tommy Christopher [email protected]
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:35 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
Because I have promised to protect their identities.
from Tommy Christopher [email protected]
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:37 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
It’s not my scoop I’m protecting, it’s these young girls. Jesus, all I’m asking is that you redact the names of these children. Please.
from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:37 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
So did @goatsred.
Again, not my responsibility to protect your sources.
from Tommy Christopher [email protected]
to Markos Moulitsas
date Thu, Jun 2, 2011 at 11:40 PM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
Dude, it is your responsibility to protect the identities of minors, sources or not. I can’t believe you. This gesture will cost you nothing, and it will save these girls being subjected to **** knows what. As a father, I beg you, please redact these girls’ names.
from Tommy Christopher [email protected]
to Markos Moulitsas
date Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 12:17 AM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
This is the last I’ll say on the subject, and you can take it for what it’s worth, like I said, I’m not a legal expert, but this girl’s parents are livid and talking about legal action. Obviously, you didn’t know it was posted, but you know now.
from Markos Moulitsas
to Tommy Christopher
date Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 12:56 AM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
Wish them luck going after @goatsred.
from Tommy Christopher [email protected]
to Markos Moulitsas
date Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 1:08 AM
subject Re: VERY Urgent you call me! One of your bloggers is compromising identities of two minors
Well, he has removed it from his YFrog. Probably not out of decency, but now, you’re the only obstacle to their safety. I really can’t believe you’re doing this. I hope you think better of it.It disgusts me to see any person behave this way, particularly a fellow liberal. It is my hope that he rethinks this, or that enough of my fellow liberals (he’s not likely to be persuaded by conservatives) encourage him (perhaps via Twitter) to do the right thing, and protect these girls. Their parents are sick with worry over this, and the frustrating part is that I promised them, every step of the way, that I would protect them, that I would kill the story rather than risk harm to these girls.
Betty’s mother sent me the following statement, in which she describes the events from her point of view, discusses her concerns for the children’s safety, and promises legal action against anyone who publishes identifying information about these two girls:
My husband and I have been made aware of an image that a popular blog is posting of one of my daughter’s classmates. This classmate specifically mentions my daughter by name and this classmate mentions that she can supply another twitter user (a grown man) with Direct Messages from my daughter’s twitter account that were between my daughter and Representative Weiner.
First, no one was ever authorized to speak for my daughter and my husband, myself or my daughter were NOT aware this classmate was interacting with this grown man and speaking for our daughter without her permission and without mine or my husband’s permission.
My husband and I monitor every single moment of our daugther’s internet activity through both parental software and personal monitoring. We see everything – absolutely everything that she says on twitter and everything she does on the internet.
It is true that she did follow Rep. Weiner for a short time when she asked to be followed with his “WEINER YES” hashtag. She asked our permission before sending this tweet and my husband and I could not have been more happy of her admiration of Rep Weiner.
Anyone with teenagers knows that their crushes range from overpaid athletes to teen idols that are photographed partying, drinking and taking drugs. We were proud of our daughter’s interest in politics, as she is studying it in school and her teacher first introduced them to Congress. It was in class that she was made aware of Rep Weiner and she was very excited about learning more about our government. When Rep Weiner followed her back we were all thrilled.
When Rep Weiner followed my daughter the one and only message he sent her was welcoming her to his twitter followers and suggested he go to his website for more information. My husband and I were delighted with this message as it furthered our daughter’s interest in learning about government. We were very grateful to Rep Weiner for this and saw nothing wrong or inappropriate with this message.
This was the one and only message that Rep Weiner sent our daughter. Our daughter sent a message thanking Rep Weiner for following her and thanking him for the welcome message. This was the one and only message our daughter sent to Rep Weiner.
Soon after she was following Rep Weiner, a group of grown men and a few grown woman who described themselves as “concerned mothers” began harassing my daughter. I can assure you, as a mother, I’ve never heard of such disgusting behavior. My daughter, with our permission, responded to these attacks on Rep Weiner following her with grace and maturity – which is something that cannot be said for these “mothers” and their fellow grown men involved in the attack.
These mothers and their grown male friends attacked the intentions and character of Rep Weiner to our daughter and suggested that he was somehow perverse for following her. This disgusted myself and my husband. They were attacking a man, who has done nothing to them and has done nothing wrong.
Ultimately, Rep Weiner had to unfollow our daughter as a favor to her so these attacks would stop. We were sorry that these bullies caused this and we were disgusted to see that even after he unfollowed her, this group of so called mothers and grown men — continued to try and contact my daughter.
As a result, we forced her to shut her twitter account down. Isn’t that a shame? Bullied right off of something she enjoyed.
There are a few popular blogs with an image of these tweets that I referenced earlier in which a classmate inaccurately described herself as a spokesperson for my daughter. This could not be further from the truth. We know this classmate’s parents personally. This young girl is troubled and she was hounded by a couple of members of that pack of harassing grown men and women until one of them got her to agree to follow him so they could send each other direct messages.
From there, this man questioned this young girl and was gleeful over anything that he could find to incriminate Rep Weiner. He goes by the name goatsred. He also tried to contact my daughter and she locked her account when this happened. After she locked her account he continued to send requests to follow her, she refused to allow him to follow her.
This classmate of our daughters is troubled and got caught up in this media frenzy and this grown man, goatsred, took advantage of her youth – she is a minor like my daughter. My husband and I are adamant that the only perverse and inappropriate behavior that has occurred has been shown by this group of mothers and grown men and the media, and liberal and conservative blogs.
My husband and I have seen the attacks in recent days and have been sickened over the so called media and their allegations on Rep Weiner regarding younger girls. This is disgusting and only a perverse mind would be able to concoct such allegations on an innocent man who did nothing but encourage our daughter’s interest in government.
We are also disgusted at the targeted attacks by the so called media and blogs with publishing of pictures, names, tweets of my daughter and other young girls. The media and blogs – both liberal and conservative are high tech bullies. They are bullying our daughter and these other girls. As parents we could not be more disgusted and appalled by this behavior. It is no better than the group of mothers and grown men that attacked these girls for following Rep Weiner.
There is no crime in following a person you admire. There is also no crime for a young girl to say she has a “crush” on a public figure – as we’ve seen the media obsess on with a couple of these girls. If you are a parent of a teen or a young girl, then you know how many “crushes” a teen goes through in a week — sometimes a day. This is normal teen behavior. Any suggestion that it is perverse says more about the perversion of the person making that suggestion than it does about Rep Weiner or the girls.
This must stop. We are appealing to the media and blogs – both liberal and conservative, tabloids, on behalf of all parents of all kids and these girls. This is bullying that you are doing. Publishing their pictures, names. Trying to contact them via social media, looking up their names and contact information, finding out where they live, work, go to school — this is stalking, bullying and harassment on behalf of the so called media and blogs. Please put yourselves in the shoes of a parent, and ask yourselves if you would want that for your daughter or son.
We would also like to express our disgust at the harassment of Rep Weiner and hope that everyone remembers this man did nothing wrong. Look at your own behavior and your own mental hang-ups and ask yourself why you find certain things so perverse — it says more about you than it does about the person you are accusing.
And concerning a certain adult actress, we would like to add that this girl did nothing wrong. If you actually read her blog it is about politics and chronic illness. My husband and I read it together with our daughter. Again, ask yourself what your own personal prejudices and hangups are before you make accusations.
To all members of the media and blogs, both liberal and conservative, if someone were to take a microscope to your life, what would they find? Maybe you wouldn’t be so quick to accuse others if you had the spotlight turned towards you.
I would also like to add, that if this image with my daughter’s name appears or if her name or image appears in print anywhere or the image of her friend, both my husband and I and her classmate’s parents will be taking legal action against all blogs, members of the media that have published this information/images. We advise you to take it down immediately or you will deal with our attorneys.
Betty gave me information over the course of a long string of emails, but she summarized the ordeal in a statement of her own, which also included a plea to be spared further harassment:
I followed Rep. Weiner with the permission of my parents. I sent a request to Rep Weiner using his WEINER YES hashtag and he followed me back. He sent me one welcome direct message that said to visit his webpage. I sent him a message thanking him.
I was so excited because we were learning about politics in school and he is a great hero of mine. This excitement turned to fear when a group of women and men started harassing me for following Rep Weiner and for being followed by him. They said the most terrible things about him.
He was forced to unfollow me so they would stop harassing me. But they did not stop. One man, goatsred – tried to contact me. I locked my account. After I locked my account he tried to follow me and I denied him. My parents made me shut down my account as a result.
Rep Weiner never tried to contact me beyond his welcome message. I never had knowledge or gave my permission to my classmate to speak on my behalf. What she said was completely untrue. There was no truth to any of what she said. I believe she was taken advantage of by this man, goatsred.
Rep Weiner is a good person and it’s so mean what everyone is attacking him without any proof. It’s wrong. The media needs to leave all of us girls alone. You are scaring us. Please stop. We want to be normal kids and lead our lives. Leave us alone, please.Finally, here’s Veronica’s statement:
I am a classmate of (Betty)’s and we were following each other on twitter. I never followed Rep. Weiner and he never followed me at any time. (Betty) never gave me permission to speak for her. Goatsred contacted me on twitter with a mention @ and he friended me and I friended him back. I feel sorry I did this now. I know that he is not a nice person and I am sorry for lying about (Betty). I never saw any direct messages except the welcome message that (Betty) showed me Rep Weiner sent her. I lied to goatsred because I saw many other girls in the news and I wanted to be famous. I’m very sorry and my mom is punishing me for this. I have no television, internet or phone for the next 6 months. Nothing I told goatsred was true. I’m sorry to everyone for lying and for embarrassing my mom.When contacted for this story, Mike Stack (aka @Goatsred) declined to comment at this time.
Update: A friend on Twitter reached out to the original author of the Daily Kos diary, who immediately agreed to take down the photo, which has now been removed.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/andrew-breitbart-did-not-run-weinergate-evidence-which-turned-out-to-be-fabricated/
