New York Times reporters who authored a book about a new alleged sexual misconduct allegation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh admitted they should’ve included their “witness'” left-wing ties.
The comments came Tuesday during the co-authors Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly’s appearance on “The View” as they took questions about the essay they wrote for the Times over the weekend and explained why they left out several details. One such detail was that their alleged witness to the new misconduct claim against Kavanaugh once worked for Bill Clinton as a defense attorney during the Whitewater investigation and the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. (RELATED: Meghan McCain Warns Democrats Ahead Of Debate: ‘The Trump Ads Write Themselves’)
“Within that we talked about this new as yet unreported allegation because we thought it was germane,” Kelly explained. “It was a similar type of situation to the [Debra] Ramirez one. During the editing process there was an oversight and this key detail about the fact that the woman herself has told friends she doesn’t remember it and has not wanted to talk about it got cut and it was an oversight and the Times adjusted it and we’re very sorry that it happened.”(RELATED: Joy Behar: Female Trump Voters Don’t Know The Difference Between A Predator And A Protector)
“I understand that the woman didn’t want her name out publicly,” Meghan McCain responded. “If not, why is her name in the book?”
“Her name is in the book because we think it’s relevant information and we think it’s accurate,” Kelly replied. “And we know that her name was provided to members of the Senate and the FBI by a witness named Max Stier, who is a good governance activist in Washington.”
“Who is a respected figure and he provided this name, the name is in documents,” she added.
McCain then told the Times reporter that Stier was connected to the Clintons.
“He [Stier] did at one point I understand do work for Williams & Connolly, [the law firm he was with when he defended Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal in 1998]” the NYT reporter, Kelly, responded.
“Why wasn’t that in the piece, if we’re talking about credibility,” co-host Abby Huntsman interjected.
“I understand it’s relevant background,” Kelly explained. “In this case it was a very short mention and we only talked in brief terms about what he’s doing right now. So, we didn’t see all of that context to be necessary.”
“But I understand why you’re bringing it up and I think it’s fair,” she added.
Later, Pogrebin explained that in the “editing process” the details about the woman not “remembering” the incident was cut because editors were “concerned about naming her — because the “Times” has a tradition of not naming the victims.”
According to the Washington Examiner:
While Kavanaugh worked on independent counsel Ken Starr’s lengthy and contentious investigation into President Bill Clinton, ultimately helping author the Starr Report and its impeachment referral, Stier worked on Clinton’s impeachment defense team and helped the embattled president fight charges of perjury flowing from his false denials about an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Stier also worked with attorney David Kendall who later went on to defend Hillary Clinton after she was accused of mishandling classified information, per the Federalist.