The New York Times on Saturday published a story with a headline claiming “Inquiry of Democratic Senator Started With a Partisan Push,” referring to the multiple ongoing investigations of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez.
Times reporter Eric Lipton named National Legal and Policy Center chairman Ken Boehm as the person behind the story. “Sandwiched between two doctors’ offices at a roadside plaza here is the headquarters of a small team of veteran Republican investigators, operating almost as a private detective squad, who since late last year have had a determined goal: bringing down Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey,” Lipton described Boehm’s office in the lead sentence of his article.
Lipton could not be further from the truth. While Boehm and his group have done phenomenal work investigating the Menendez scandal and his ties to Democratic Party mega-donor Dr. Salomon Melgen, he was never an original source for this story. This reporter, who broke the original story while writing for The Daily Caller before the election, has never spoken to or received any information from Boehm about the Menendez scandal before the story broke or since it broke.
Lipton never made any effort to contact this reporter before printing the blatantly false information, despite the fact this reporter would have likely helped him understand that his narrative was incorrect. This reporter has done interviews with many media outlets about the story. All Lipton had to do was pick up the phone and call. For some reason, he chose not to do his journalistic due diligence.
This is the second questionable mainstream media article on the scandal in as many days, too. The Washington Post printed a story that had no news in it and blasted it out in a breaking news email alert to the outlet’s web subscribers on Friday night.
It appears the progressive press is working with aides from Sen. Menendez’s office on narrative reconstruction, in attempt to the blur the truth to help the senator skate off allegations of misconduct. The tactic is one that Attorney General Eric Holder and his aides have skillfully employed in the past.
Menendez hired former Holder aide Matt Miller as this scandal heated up to help him try to get out of the scandal, and this all appears to be the work of Miller. Miller cut his teeth in Democratic scandal management, getting Holder out of allegations of impropriety surrounding the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation scandal.