John Hinderaker at Power Line pointed out how energetically Associated Press congressional reporter Erica Werner could stretch the Harvey Weinstein scandal: “Steve Bannon had ties to Harvey Weinstein.”
Werner reported “Bannon served as chairman of a small company that distributed DVDs and home videos, and went into business in 2005 with The Weinstein Co., led by Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob. The Weinsteins became 70 percent owners of the now defunct venture, Genius Products.”
Werner is such an impressive reporter – or such a willing recipient of anti-Bannon intel – that she can quote transcripts of Bannon’s conference calls:
Transcripts of investor conference calls at the time show Bannon enthusing about the business opportunities with the Weinsteins.
“We are extremely honored to be in business with the new Weinstein Company,” Bannon told investors in one such call, declaring that “the Weinsteins have the most impressive track record in the film industry” and that “Bob and Harvey are two of the most prolific studio heads in the history of Hollywood.”
Hinderaker wrote that this story was intended to distract from how embarrassing this scandal was to Democrats and their supposed advantage on being sensitive to women:
The most interesting question about the AP’s story relates to its origin. Did an intrepid AP reporter scour obscure SEC filings, looking for a long-ago connection between Harvey Weinstein and a Republican? That is possible–the AP will go to considerable lengths to defend its party–but I think it is unlikely. In all probability, a loyal Democrat at the Weinstein Company fed this decade-old story to an equally loyal Democrat at the Associated Press. That is how “news” is frequently made.
AP and Werner thought their scoop should cause Breitbart to tone their website down a peg: “The ties to Weinstein open Bannon up to charges of hypocrisy given Breitbart’s intense focus on the scandal and its political fallout.”
Werner energetically tweeted out her story, and this hypocrisy angle:
Here’s what Werner didn’t tweet: the one story AP offered on the Clintons and the Obamas being forced to react to Weinstein. The AP never really noticed their five-day delay in reacting. The closest they got was the fourth paragraph: “The pressure was also on Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and Obama to respond to the reports.”
The headline was “Clinton ‘appalled,’ Obamas ‘disgusted’ by Weinstein reports.” They were not like what Bannon received, a headline like “Hillary Clinton had ties to Harvey Weinstein.” The unbylined story began:
Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she was “shocked and appalled” by the revelations about disgraced movie titan Harvey Weinstein, while former President Barack Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, were “disgusted.”
AP noted that Weinstein personally produced Michelle Obama's participated in the 2013 Academy Awards, but left out the Weinstein-organized Hillary Clinton rally last fall that Lena Dunham regretted.
PS: Werner is a regular on PBS's Washington Week on Friday nights, and she was on set last Friday night. But PBS stayed focused on evaluating Trump and not the Democratic Party's Weinstein problem.
