Variety’s Brian Steinberg reports on a potential bombshell in the fast-moving story of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams and his 12 year-old stolen valor lie about his helicopter being shot down by an enemy RPG over Iraq in 2003. A source told Steinberg that sometime in the past senior NBC News executives told Williams to stop telling the story:

What makes Williams’ admission worse, according to one person familiar with the situation, is that he had been counseled in the past by senior NBC News executives to stop telling the story in public. The advice, this person said, was not heeded. One person familiar with current NBC News operations disputes that information.

This could mean that top-level NBC News executives knew that Williams’ oft-repeated story wasn’t exactly true and could come back to bite him and the network.

Which, of course, is exactly what happened.

John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC