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Last week, U.S. website Gawker and the Toronto Star published stories saying journalists from both outlets had viewed a video that appeared to show the mayor smoking crack cocaine.

Ford’s presence in the video has not been independently verified.

Despite the mayor’s denials, City Hall watchers and Gawker, which first broke the story, immediately seized on Ford not ruling out having used the drug in the past.

The mayor’s statement also appeared to put him at odds with his former chief of staff who was fired Wednesday night after sources claimed he urged Ford to “go away and get help for his problem.”

The mayor responded by telling Mark Towhey he “might as well just leave,” according to the source, and officially fired him in person the next day.

The source suspects the problem is alcohol-related. The mayor had denied a report in March that suggested he has a problem with alcohol as an “outright lie.”

But in a story headlined “Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Says He No Longer Smokes Crack Cocaine” posted soon after Ford spoke, Gawker editor John Cook claimed Ford’s statement was not “inconsistent with Rob Ford having been caught on tape smoking crack cocaine within the past six months.”

Cook also noted Ford never said he hadn’t ever smoked crack cocaine.

“He did not say, as one who has never smoked crack cocaine might say, ‘I have never smoked crack cocaine,'” Cook writes.

“He said he does not smoke crack cocaine, which is the sort of thing that someone who woke up this morning and decided to stop smoking crack cocaine might say, on the grounds that it’s not presently untrue.”