WeinerGate: We Are Simply Reporting the Facts

Ever since we first broke this story on Big Government and Big Journalism, we’ve been cautious in our reporting, making every effort to present the facts of the story in a fair and accurate way. For example, in connection with our original report, we noted that Congressman Weiner claimed his Facebook account was hacked, and we withheld the name and identity of the woman who allegedly received the offending photo from Congressman Weiner’s account.

What we know is that a link to a lewd photo was published from a sitting Congressman’s Twitter account, directed at a female recipient, whom he was “following,” but visible to everyone. Two broad possibilities exist: (1) the Congressman’s Twitter account (and perhaps other accounts) were hacked, or (2) the Congressman or someone with authorized access to his Twitter account sent the photo.

From here, we think the story most immediately goes two places: forensic analysis to determine the veracity of Congressman Weiner’s hacking allegation, which certainly bears criminal implications; and investigation into the veracity of developing reports of young women among the relatively few people Congressman Weiner “followed” on Twitter and who now claim they had direct communications with him.

Certainly, getting to the bottom of the story has been made more difficult by the relative silence of Congressman Weiner, as there remain many open questions he has not addressed and on which the mainstream media has failed to press him.

There are outrageous claims in the leftwing blogosphere that we did something other than report the facts fairly and accurately. For example, Salon Editor Joan Walsh lumps us in with those that disclosed the name of the girl. DailyKos alleges we somehow forged a screen grab of the photo in question. Others claim we hacked the Congressman’s accounts. All such claims are categorically false and frankly, pardon the pun, hackwork.

At Breitbart, we will continue reporting the facts as they develop.