It's pretty close to a tie, but based on time stamps, Legal Insurrection's William Jacobson, at 11:23 a.m., was 22 minutes ahead of local DC TV station WJLA in breaking an important update to the David Gregory magazine clip saga going back to Sunday's Meet the Press program. (The classless credit hogs at Politico published a related story, didn't credit Jacobson, and while citing WJLA, failed to link to its report; thus I'm not linking to Politico.) Previous related posts on Sunday (NewsBusters; BizzyBlog) and Tuesday evening (NB; BB) only relayed the possibility that NBC might have asked DC Metro Police whether they could show a high-capacity magazine on the air.
The fresh news via Jacobson is that "NBC requested and was denied permission to use (i.e., show a) high capacity magazine in news segment" -- but went ahead and did it anyway (bolds are mine):
Officer Aziz Alali of the MPD Public Information Office further confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail, and gave me this statement by telephone:
“NBC contacted the Metropolitan Police Department inquiring if they could utilize a high capacity magazine for this segment. NBC was informed that that possession of a high capacity magazine is not permissible and the request was denied. This matter is currently being investigated and I cannot get into any further specifics on this investigation.”
NBC News has not responded to multiple inquiries as to the request and denial, or whether the magazine was real or just a prop. During the segment in question, Gregory stated “here is a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets.”
If it turns out the magazine was in violation of D.C. law, the fact that NBC News was warned by the D.C. Police not to use the magazine puts a whole new light on the incident, turning it into an intentional violation of the law. While the law does not require intent, the existence of intent could influence a decision whether or not to prosecute.
WSJA's succinct opening statement: "Metropolitan Police Department officials say they denied NBC's request for permission to use a high-capacity firearm magazine during a segment of Meet The Press this past Sunday."
Instapundit summarized the likely arrogance at NBC which pushed it to go ahead anyway: "Laws are for the little people."
We'll see.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
