Did Daily Caller pay to frame Menendez?

[VoluntaryAmerican]

The Washington Post just published a story with some big implications for the Daily Caller. The conservative website, the Post reports, is alleged to have paid to arrange interviews with Dominican prostitutes who would frame U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez as having done business with them.*

The allegation comes from Jose Antonio Polanco, a key district attorney in the case. It’s a complicated, twisted charge, too: According to Polanco, a Dominican lawyer, Melanio Figueroa, has stated that a “foreign man” under the name of “Carlos” had offered $5,000 to Figueroa to “find and pay women in the Caribbean nation willing to make the claims about Menendez.” This “Carlos,” the Post piece notes, represented himself as working for the Daily Caller.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/03/22/did-daily-caller-pay-to-frame-menendez/

[VoluntaryAmerican]

bump

[FrankRep]

Tucker Carlson, the Daily Caller’s editor-in-chief, issued an airtight denial of the allegation: The site, he says, "never paid anyone, was never asked to pay anyone and of course never would pay anyone for this story. It seems clear to me Figueroa is under pressure to change his story. What I know for certain is this claim is a lie."

[phill4paul]

Why would anyone paying for coerced testimony wish to identify themselves? These things usually go through a third party with no real trace back.

[juleswin]

If anything, I think the girls in DR got spoked by govt officials. You don't mess with powerful leaders like Menendez and away with it. But we will never really know the real truth unless there is some kind of video tape of him sleeping with those girls

[TonySutton]

Probably more along the lines of we will pay you $5000 if you say some guy named Carlos from the Daily Caller offered you $5000