Oh, my God, someone better give me a Trump dig that hasn’t been done to death by John Oliver or I’m going to scream. Because now that Rubio’s out, it looks like Ted’s next in line to be the subject of hundreds of emails and IRC logs.

Let’s do this, then.

UPDATE. THIS MAY BE REALLY, REALLY BIG. THIS IS A WASHINGTON TIMES REPORTER.

ANOTHER UPDATE. I LOVE YOU, ALLUM!

So, long story short, known supermarket wrapping paper and reputable tabloid the National Enquirer published a story that alleges that the Texas senator and Trump’s newest WWE-esque foe has betrayed his Christian family values by Cruzin’ it up with no less than 5 women. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn’t touch such a sordid, nasty, story with a 10 foot pole, much less one that came from the Enquirer, so we’re going to deal with with FACTS here. This means you, Trump and Cruz supporters, I do not want an inbox full of hate, and if I get it, this story comes straight down. This is objective research.

I was first clued into this story when people began telling me it was written by the same author who first broke the infamous John Edwards “love child” scandal, which, while impressive, is hardly sufficient to vouch for an anonymous source. So, it looks like we’ll have to do a bit of digging ourselves and see if this is plausible. No problem, I love investigating things.

(Oh, and Allum Bokhari of Breitbart, I know for a fact that the Ted Cruz Applejack story was not what you planned to break, you wouldn’t tease people like that. Like, seriously, Allum. We know this was you. If this scandal is, please respond to this article and let me know. It’s OK, I like Twilight Sparkle more, anyhow.)

So, assuming there’s not an MLP flame war in the comments, let’s take a look at these 5 mystery women. I tried the time honored research tactic of throwing some friends who helped me with the Soros stuff a copy of the Enquirer and then went off and did some coding. A few hours later, we now have the identity of 3 out of 5 of the women, and the knowledge that Cruz’s office email was listed on AshleyMadison, but anyone could have been added, so I’ll take that with a grain of salt… for now. See below.

Don’t you just love the Internet?

I’ll update the article later, but for now, let’s focus on the 3 that are known as of this writing, because the implications for this are pretty huge.

#1 Katrina Pierson

This one is definitely the most shocking, were it to be true. Pierson is Trump’s campaign manager, and had ties to Cruz in the past from her work in the Tea Party movement.

So, is she boinking Cruz? As of now, evidence points to “not really”. The most compelling piece of evidence so far is a Tweet that points to a “Clinton-Lewinsky vibe”, which is basically bullshit, but I’ll update if more info comes up.

PROBABILITY: NOT LIKELY

#2 Sarah Flores

As of now, Sarah currently has the most red-handed trail of evidence. She’s a long-time politician, having legally advised Romney back in 2012, and worked with Ted Cruz back in his Senate race, before becoming deputy communications director for the RNC. This puts her in exactly the right place, and there’s a clear path beyond that. Shortly after she joined Carly Fiorina’s Presidential campaign, the Cruz campaign suspiciously sent the Fiorina campaign $500,000. With no clear reason as to why, and Sarah pledging to support Cruz over Trump, even if Trump is the nominee, the waters are deep enough to have some crying “hush money”.

PROBABILITY: FAIRLY PLAUSIBLE

#3 Amanda Carpenter

There’s no question that Carpenter is pro-Cruz; she regularly appears on CNN to represent his campaign. She also is vehemently anti-Trump, having penned a blacklist of Trump supporters to kick out of the Conservative movement, á-la Richard Nixon. But, while they’ve certainly spent enough time together, it seems unlikely as of now that Cruz was getting it on with one of his top aides.

PROBABILITY: DON’T MIX WORK AND PLAY

#4 “Lollipop”

OK, props to Trump supporters Diamond and Silk for the name here.

We can assume this is the “Hooker”, as the Enquirer so eloquently puts it, seeing as they Tweeted out the same name while talking about this story earlier tonight. Problem is, there are a lot of prostitutes in DC. Like, a lot. And a quick search run on 30 totally-not-escort websites with a high rate of hits from K Street and Capitol Hill-located IP’s turned up an absolutely staggering amount of ladies of the evening (~200) with names like “sugar”, “candy”, and of course “lollipop”. Gross. Also, seriously, Congress, maybe use a proxy or something? FFS, the minds who run our country are the same people who search for escorts from the capitol and somehow get Cruz’s staff email on AshleyMadison, and I find that more than a little disheartening.

Combing through massive amounts of illegal sex offers is something I have neither the patience nor stomach to do, but if anyone wants to swing some data mining at the problem, you are more than welcome to go searching. No, I will not post the links here, go find them yourself, takes like, 10 seconds.

PROBABILITY: QUITE POSSIBLE

#5 ???

We know nothing about this unknown teacher, but if, as the Enquirer says, the affair happened when he was appointed Texas Solicitor General, that places it in the neighborhood of January 9th 2003, when Cruz was living in Austin. While his older daughter would have been the appropriate age to have begun school, Cruz has been very good at keeping information about his children’s schooling away from the media; even early articles seem intentionally vague. As a result, much like our friend Lollipop, there would have to be a massive cross-referencing of old Austin school records to find the picture the Enquirer used, and in the interest of getting this article out quickly, I’m not doing it yet.

PROBABILITY: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER

So, is there merit to the Enquirer’s story? As a standalone news item, no, it’s an unsubstantiated anonymous source, and several of the 5 leads ran dry. But, with as many links as there are, is there merit to this story as a springboard. Absolutley.

I’ll be updating with details as they come in. Until then, love to you all!