Actually, the video clip of the interview at Charleston’s WCIV-TV was screwed up, so I can’t be sure that those were her exact words, but the station does report that she’s denying the whole thing:
Haley, who is still determined, says it’s nothing more than politics.
“It worries me because I think this is what keeps good people from running for office. I’m strong focused and very motivated and this is why we focus on the issues of the people of this state and not let these last minute distractions get in our way,” said Haley.
Haley flat out denies these claims on several occasions during recent stops. She says the hardest part, not the questions, but the effect on her family.
David Weigel at the Washington Post writes:
The surreality of this aside, obviously a confirmed story from Folks is going to be more damaging than any back story on why he came out with it.
Yeah, Dave, and if Will Folks had a “confirmed story,” he wouldn’t be playing these lame-ass games. Nikki Haley is not the defendant in a sexual harassment suit and she hasn’t testified before a grand jury, so there is no “perjury trap” risk, nor is there a special prosecutor to subpoena a blue dress for a DNA test.
If anybody thinks Will Folks is going to produce smoking-gun proof, they’re deluded. He’s an amateur gadfly who got in over his head, and is now trying to fake his way through it, just like he faked his way into a job as communication director for Mark Sanford at which he proved incompetent. In other Douchebag News Updates:
Stay tuned for the latest updates as Will Folks strives to earn the coveted Golden Douchebag Award from the American Academy of Advanced Douchebaggery.
UPDATE: Melissa Clouthier points the finger at Team Romney:
Who is paying the consultant Wesley Donahue, who is leaking all this? Also, who is paying Will Folks?
Oh wait, lookie here, Wesley Donahue is a consultant, or has been, for Mitt Romney. . . .
Could it be that Mitt Romney is deep-sixing Nikki Haley in anticipation of his presidential run? This, of course, is pure speculation, but there is no question that the Palin endorsement of Nikki Haley helped her and that Haley being governor would help Palin and whomever Palin endorses.
But Romney endorsed Haley first, so that doesn’t make sense. Political consultants are hired guns who have multiple clients and if Wes Dohanue is behind this take-down operation against Haley, it doesn’t mean that Romney’s money is paying for it.
BTW, I noticed that Dr. Melissa didn’t hat-tip me for the Will Folks TV interview, but I’m sure that’s just an oversight. (1o:45 p.m. ET **See special note below**) Or maybe she doesn’t like the word “douchebag.” (My wife hates it, too.)
More at Memeorandum. Stay tuned for more Douchebag News Updates.
UPDATE II: The incredible effrontery of Will Folks:
Asked by a South Carolina CBS affiliate on Wednesday if he intends to release any additional information on Haley prior to the June 8 primary, Folks responded: “That ain’t up to me, really.”
Wait a minute, douchebag: It ain’t up to you whether or not you release additional information? Like you’re the helpless victim in all this?
UPDATE III: Ahhhhh, now I see:
[Will Folks] says he was confronted in early 2009 with a photograph of himself and Haley in what he describes as “a compromising position.” He says Haley also knows about the photo.
“The picture that I made her aware of, I discussed it with her on numerous occasions. I discussed it more recently with her campaign manager, who I am told is aware of it and may have even seen it, I don’t know. Will it ever be released? I’ve got no idea about that. I don’t own it,” Folks told News Channel 7 by phone Thursday.
He says the photo was taken by a private investigator who was hired to dig up dirt on him, not Haley. He says his website is very influential politically and it’s not surprising that someone he criticized might want to have dirt on him.
He says he and his legal team are “gearing up” for the possibility of filing lawsuits against anyone who has called him a liar because of his postings about this allegation. . . .
The cell phone records do show numerous calls between Folks and Haley beginning in January of 2007. Many of the calls are one minute long, while one on January 9, 2007 is 65 minutes long.
But the records simply show the phone numbers, time of day of the call and the length of the call. Folks was doing political work for Haley at the time so the calls could have been strictly business.
OK, let’s take these things in order:
- One of my sources told me Tuesday that one of Folks’ political enemies had hired a private detective (which is what I meant by Folks being “an object of intense scrutiny“) and Folks thus confirms my source. Perhaps the identity of the private detective’s client might have something to do with this; perhaps not.
- Why doesn’t Will Folks describe the photo in more detail? Now that he has claimed to have had an affair with Haley — conveniently, two weeks before the GOP primary — why not just put it all out there? Were they hugging? Kissing? Knocking boots? He doesn’t say.
- The threat of Will Folks “gearing up” for legal action against his critics is a freight-trainload of unadulterated bullshit. He has made a damaging accusation against a public official, which she has denied, an accusation for which Folks has offered no proof. Anyone who believes her and not him is entitled to believe he is a liar, and to say so. Furthermore — and perhaps Will Folks is such a fool as not to realize this — he is arguably as much a “public figure” as Nikki Haley, which imposes upon Folks the high standards of the Sullivan precedent, making it almost impossible for him to win as a plaintiff in a libel suit.
- Of course, Folks proves nothing with phone records showing that he once spent a lot of time talking to Haley when he was her political consultant. I sometimes have long phone conversations wih Dan Riehl. Does that mean I can claim that Dan’s gay for me and then demand he prove that he’s not?
As I said yesterday, what Folks has yet to explain is why he freaked out because a couple of reporters were asking him about a rumor of an alleged affair that he says happened when he was a bachelor. If Wes Donahue or anybody else actually had any proof of the affair, wouldn’t we have seen it by now?
It doesn’t take an advanced degree in psychology to perceive that Folks is a sociopathic personality who realized that he was about to be exposed as having backstabbed Nikki Folks by spreading rumors about his former client. His behavior — including threats against his critics — is typical of the sociopath fearing exposure.
SPECIAL NOTE 10:45 p.m.: In a comment below, my friend Melissa Clouthier says she found the video through other means, which I’m sure she did. It is a common but erroneous assumption that because Blogger A posted something on Wednesday and Blogger B had the same thing on Thursday, that Blogger B got it from Blogger A. I know one blogger who is notorious for making such accusations (“So-and-so stole that from me!”) and it’s unfair.
I found the WCBD-TV interview shortly after it went online by doing a Google News search. Seeing that it hadn’t yet been posted at Hot Air — or at any other political blog that I know of, not even FITSNews.com — I subsequently cross-posted the video at the Green Room.
Having invested the effort to find the video and post it at two separate sites, and then to promote it via Twitter, I kinda hoped that maybe someone had noticed. Wrong again.
So Melissa Clouthier is not guily of failure to hat-tip a source. Rather, I am guilty of being too insignificant for Melissa Clouthier to notice.
Now I feel like a complete douchebag.
