Sen. Thad Cochran has been hard to access in the last stretch of his campaign against state Senator Chris McDaniel. For example, he played an elaborate game of “bait and switch” with a respected CNN reporter to avoid an interview. How then did Politico miss an opportunity to ask an important question when interviewing the Senator?
Politico’s Alex Burns got a rare opportunity to sit down with the six-term incumbent, and one might think he would ask a key unresolved question at the heart of a scandal that upended the race: Why did Cochran wait nearly three weeks before bringing information to the police about a blogger photographing his wife?
Cochran’s campaign won’t answer the question, and his attorney, Don Clark, didn’t directly answer it, either, in a statement to Breitbart News about the matter. The campaign has acknowledged they learned about a video that included the illicit photograph on April 26 and conducted a brief “internal investigation.” The Madison, Mississippi, police said they were provided information about the matter on May 15. Clark said he approached the police to tip them off about the blogger.
That leaves a gap of 20 days between when Cochran’s campaign learned a blogger had entered the residence of the Senator’s debilitated wife to photograph her and when his lawyer went to authorities. McDaniel has said that isn’t how he, or any person, would normally proceed under the circumstances.
Burns quoted Cochran as stating:
I was surprised. It sounded kind of bizarre to me. I couldn’t imagine why they would want to be taking photographs of Rose. What we did in terms of response was to advise the local law enforcement authorities – the sheriff’s office and city police in the area – and then let them decide what their responsibilities were.
“As Cochran tells the story, that’s where his role in the whole uproar ended,” Burns added.
The story does not indicate that Burns asked Cochran about the gap or that he even knew about it.
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