It is clear that we are in an ongoing moment right now. On Monday, we had another accusation against Al Franken in the morning, the Glenn Thrush episode at midday, and the Charlie Rose re-enactment of Caligula at dinnertime. For an aperitif, we had a BuzzFeed scoop about how one of the congressmen who had reached a private sexual-harassment settlement was John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, and, while the details did not reach Charlie Rose-levels of offense, the supporting affidavits in the Conyers case were bad enough.



Two staffers alleged in their signed affidavits that Conyers used congressional resources to fly in women they believed he was having affairs with. Another said she was tasked with driving women to and from Conyers’ apartment and hotel rooms.

However, buried deep within the BuzzFeed story was this curious passage.

The documents were first provided to BuzzFeed News by Mike Cernovich, the men's rights figure turned pro-Trump media activist who propagated a number of false conspiracy theories including the “Pizzagate” conspiracy. Cernovich said he gave the documents to BuzzFeed News for vetting and further reporting, and because he said if he published them himself, Democrats and congressional leaders would “try to discredit the story by attacking the messenger.” He provided them without conditions. BuzzFeed News independently confirmed the authenticity of the documents with four people directly involved with the case, including the accuser.

If BuzzFeed is doing business with Cernovich, no matter how thoroughly and independently they vetted the information he provided them, the reader needs to know that right up front. Put this together with the fact that ur-ratfcker Roger Stone apparently knew that the Franken accusations were coming, and the fact that a charge was lodged against Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal by someone who did not really exist, and it becomes clear that there are two important stories going on here that need covering.

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The first, and most important, of course, is the story about sexual harassment (and worse) on the part of this ever-expanding list of powerful men in the media and in politics and in entertainment and in god-knows-where-else. There are brave women coming forward to talk about it for the first time, and there are (finally) reporters and publications willing to hear and transmit their stories. It hardly needs to be said that this is all to the good.

However, there also is a story in how this moment in time is being weaponized for partisan political purposes. And here we find journalism in the same bind it was in during the 1990s. There were two stories then, too. One was the years-long campaign to destroy Bill Clinton and his administration by any means necessary. The other was the investigation by special counsel Kenneth Starr. Starr’s investigation was a sieve. However, if you tried to cover Story A, the sub rosa pursuit of the president, you could not cover Story B, the investigation, which was unquestionably transformed into the bigger story, because the tap would be shut off, Starr’s investigators being at the time hand-in-glove with the “elves” working to bring down the president. It was an impossible dilemma in many newsrooms.

Kenneth Starr Getty Images

I think I’m seeing this history repeat itself. You’d have to be a fool to think that people like Cernovich and Stone would hand over documents similar to the ones they handed over regarding Conyers about any Republican member of congress, and surely there are more than a few. But, if you cover how these guys are doling out the information on one of the biggest stories of the year, you wind up being cut off.

On the electric Twitter machine Tuesday morning, Jake Tapper of CNN made a proposal that would solve the whole matter: the Congress should nullify the non-disclosure agreements that were attached to all those settlements. That would enable reporters to chase leads that didn’t come from a nest of pit vipers, and it simultaneously would limit the influence that Cernovich and Stone have over the coverage of an important story that deserves so much more than the likes of them.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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