Brent Bozell: NBC 2005 Lewd Tape Release a ‘Direct Threat’ to Democratic Process

The president of the Media Research Council says NBC executives timed their release of the lewd 2005 tape of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump to maximize its political impact.

“What NBC has done is a direct threat to the democratic process and evidence of what conservatives have been saying all along,” said L. Brent Bozell III, who is also a columnist and long-time conservative operative and leader.

“A network that purports to hold itself up as an objective news source while at the same time attempts to fix an election has lost all credibility,” he said.

“NBC must take responsibility, apologize to Donald Trump, and fire whoever was behind the strategic release of this tape. If the rest of the media does not call out NBC for their actions, they are complicit in a cover-up,” he said.

Bozell said the reports posted on the TMZ website Tuesday and Wednesday validate that NBC is looking to rig the election.

In their Tuesday post, TMZ reported that Billy Bush, the NBC personality heard on the tape egging on Trump and laughing along with him during the off-color conversation, told his bosses about the tape during the network’s coverage of the Summer Olympics in Rio.

In the Wednesday post, TMZ said that NBC seized the change to torpedo Trump:

NBC execs had a plan to time the release of the Donald Trump audio to have maximum impact on both the 2nd presidential debate and the general election … sources connected with the network tell TMZ. Multiple sources connected with NBC tell us … top network execs knew about the video long before they publicly said they did, but wanted to hold it because it was too early in the election. The sources say many NBC execs have open disdain for Trump and their plan was to roll out the tape 48 hours before the debate so it would dominate the news cycle leading up to the face-off.

According to TMZ, NBC executives intended to edit out Bush from the tape, but Hurricane Matthew disrupted the plans, and then an executive tipped off The Washington Post, to ensure the tape would be in play before Sunday’s presidential debate.

Bozell said he is watching and waiting to see if other outlets criticize NBC. “Until then,  I call on fellow conservative leaders to join me in denouncing this network for its hypocrisy and deliberate abandonment of journalistic integrity.”