Yet Another Glaring Inconsistency in Tommy Christopher’s Story About the Underage Girls
In Tommy Christopher’s story about Betty and Veronica, the high school fans of Rep. Weiner, Christopher wrote that “Veronica” had told Betty about Mike Stack aka goatsred:
A high school friend of Betty’s, whom I will call Veronica (she’s a minor), was also contacted, via Twitter, by a member of the group, Mike Stack (@goatsred). For personal reasons I won’t go into, Veronica saw a means of getting attention, and agreed to follow @Goatsred so that they could speak privately. She told him that she and Betty had incriminating Direct Messages from Rep. Weiner, a claim she now admits was false, and which she made without Betty’s knowledge.
In fact, she was simultaneously telling Betty that @Goatsred had tried to induce her to lie about Rep. W[ei]ner, and to enlist Betty in the plot. Veronica now admits this was also false.
Yet Betty’s parents, in their statement (which sounds so much like a press release from Weiner’s crisis management team), claimed that Betty never knew Veronica was talking to Stack:
My husband and I have been made aware of an image that a popular blog is posting of one of my daughter’s classmates. This classmate specifically mentions my daughter by name and this classmate mentions that she can supply another twitter user (a grown man) with Direct Messages from my daughter’s twitter account that were between my daughter and Representative Weiner.
First, no one was ever authorized to speak for my daughter and my husband, myself or my daughter were NOT aware this classmate was interacting with this grown man and speaking for our daughter without her permission and without mine or my husband’s permission.
Like the other glaring contradictions in Christopher’s story, this contradiction has gone without notice until I said something about it. But with the allegations from Ginger Lee that Weiner induced her to lie and contact his PR people, the need to reinvestigate Christopher’s sloppy story is greater than ever. Don’t ask him to do it. He’s not going to.
Someone else will have to do it.
UPDATE: My statement about Christopher was a prediction, not a statement of fact. He has not explicitly declined to investigate. But he has strongly implied there is no need for one, saying the answers to all questions are already self-evident based on his reporting to date.
Now he’s trying to have it both ways, claiming it’s obvious there is no need for further investigation, but of course we should not assume from that position of his that he is not investigating further.
I’ll ask again-
Does anyone know who the mysterious Johnreid9 on twitter is? Tommy and The Comely Coed and he were following each other and each other only while she was coming up with her statement.
Also some kid called Juan_Dodgers is in their 4 person circle- WTF?
The side of me that trusts Tommy X assumes this is another journalist,intermediary, family member in his attempt to arrange an interview.
The side of me that distrusts Tommy X has a lot of questions about who this person could be
Breitbartfan77 (e71ad9) — 6/7/2011 @ 9:50 pmInteresting questions! Thank you for asking them.
Patterico (135ea8) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:16 pmJohn Reid is a pseudonym used by a journalist, Anthony Tobias, who is also the current treasurer of the DNC.
Dustin (c16eca) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:29 pmTobias’s book, under the psuedonym Reid.
Tobias is a pretty prominent political player in NYC.
Dustin (c16eca) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:31 pmHis first name is Andrew.
Sorry.
The name John Reid just happened to stir the memory of that name.
Dustin (c16eca) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:33 pmTobias’s donations include a $500 donation to ‘Friends of Weiner’
Though he’s donated over one million dollars, so this means practically nothing.
But he’s a major nuts and bolts democrat, who just happens to deal with journalists all the time, lives in Weiner’s city, and happens to have used John Reid as a pseudonym.
Dustin (c16eca) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:36 pmHey Dustin, people have been asking about this John Reid for a while… How did you know his name? Are you sure of this, and how?
ace (2fc685) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:48 pmoh I see you’re saying he previously published as John Reid.
I don’t know, seems an easy pseudonym to crack.
ace (2fc685) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:52 pmAce, I’m not sure this is him. I read a book by John Reid a long time ago, and recall it was pseudoanonymous (authored by this Tobias).
If you check my link in #4, which is an Amazon page for this book, and search for the word “reid”, it tells you what I said.
Dustin (c16eca) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:54 pmwait, isn’t the real full name of john edwards “johnny reid edwards?” hmmm….
Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:56 pmWhat if that was just a name so they could talk to cone another?
Lee Stranahan (708cc3) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:56 pmYeah, that’s certainly true. If this was meant to be super cloak and dagger, then it’s not him. It just struck me that I remembered that name being used.
Though I’m not sure he would mind too much if people knew he was dealing with journalists and trying to help democrats any way he could.
Dustin (c16eca) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:56 pmYes I see that now. It’s possible, of course. I was just thinking this was a Secret Club, and I wasn’t expecting someone to use a d.b.a. name, then.
Possible, though. He might just have had this account as sockpuppet and deployed it.
ace (2fc685) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:57 pmyes, it is. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/john-edwards-indictment.html?hpid=z1
Aaron Worthing (73a7ea) — 6/7/2011 @ 10:57 pmWell I have passed on your tip to the part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy currently conspiring against JohnReid9.
ace (2fc685) — 6/7/2011 @ 11:00 pmJuan_Dodgers is obviously a new incarnation of @juan2487, who was a buddy of Veronica and Betty’s. And the name John Reid . . . has a relationship to the whole thing. That’s all I will say for now.
Patterico (135ea8) — 6/7/2011 @ 11:00 pmThe first thing Tommy told Genette was he had a message from a friend.
No?
MayBee (081489) — 6/7/2011 @ 11:02 pmYeah, this:
Who is the friend? | RT @tommyxtopher @GennetteC If you want to share, please DM me.Either way, I have message for u from a friend. #tcot
29 May via web
since deleted. Which is why I had to copy a RT
MayBee (081489) — 6/7/2011 @ 11:05 pmThe book was terrible, btw. I kinda recall seeing Tobias complain about how the Republicans must not win the 2008 elections because we increased the deficit by hundreds of billions each year.
Dustin (c16eca) — 6/7/2011 @ 11:05 pmYep, what this whole sordid affair was most lacking was certainly Tommy Christopher.
Now the degradation of the culture is complete.
Estragon (ec6a4b) — 6/7/2011 @ 11:50 pmOk – JohnReid9 makes perfect sense now. And, Dustin, nice try…
I think I safely trust Tommy not to be corrupt… but I don’t trust him not to be a sucker.
Here’s a BIG inconsistency
The Kos screenshot of Stack’s DM with Veronica clearly shows that Veronica wants her and Betty to be anonymous
HOWEVER
Veronica’s Email to Tommy States:
“Goatsred contacted me on twitter with a mention @ and he friended me and I friended him back. I feel sorry I did this now. I know that he is not a nice person and I am sorry for lying about (Betty). I never saw any direct messages except the welcome message that (Betty) showed me Rep Weiner sent her. I lied to goatsred because I saw many other girls in the news and I wanted to be famous. I’m very sorry and my mom is punishing me for this. I have no television, internet or phone for the next 6 months. Nothing I told goatsred was true. I’m sorry to everyone for lying and for embarrassing my mom.”
And who told her Goatsred was not a nice person.
Also- what welcome message? Pretty sure Ezra Dulis has been out there proving there was no pro forma welcome message that was sent by DM when Weiner starts following you— if that’s even possible to do.
Breitbartfan77 (e71ad9) — 6/8/2011 @ 1:11 amYeah, BFan77, that inconsistency was mentioned here a few days ago. Veronica did not want to be famous. It’s interesting how her tone sounded shady and elusive, like she was trying to frame Weiner, if treated with enough dark speculation.
It’s damn sleazy to make a kid fess up to something they didn’t actually do. I again wish this story would die. This reminds me of 9/10/2001, when we were all obsessed with the little details of Gary Condit’s life.
Maybee’s hint obviously makes me think Weiner was using this account to communicate with his floozie cadre, but perhaps he used an intermediary. If his crisis management was intelligent, of course he did, but then, his crisis management was asinine.
Tobias is the sort to email people and arrange solutions to political problems. For example, he’s the ‘declined to mention by name’ guy in this article, arranging for one democrat to agree not to primary another one.
Anyhow, if Weiner was going to use a respected and discrete intermediary who would get Tommy Christopher’s attention, Tobias really is a pretty good choice. I don’t recall Tobias ever doing anything sleazy, btw, and it’s still a longshot guess that he would be this Johnreid9, obviously.
Dustin (c16eca) — 6/8/2011 @ 2:10 amWe’ve had our run in with Christopher, back during
ian cormac (72470d) — 6/8/2011 @ 4:39 amthe fight against those baseless ethics complaints,
notably the Arctic Cat Jacket she wore, while denouncing the stimulus, were he would not correct
the record, of course if you do just a little googling, he was willing to tag her for the ‘targets’ on the map, after Tucson, so it doesn’t surprise me, he would either be unawares or worse.
In your first big post on this, Patterico, I complained about this in the comments and have been trying to explain it away. Wish TOMMY or SOMEBODY would. It depresses me no end that Tommy could miss this or worse, not miss it, but let it go (old comment below:
The form of Tommy Christopher’s 100% proof (or pmeans of personal certainty) that Veronica was a double agent liar then, but telling the whole truth now….intrigues.
I’m trying to imagine what that could be.
So, V was telling B that Stack ( et al.?) was pressing her to fabricate incriminating information about Weiner and his little ladies, and v tries to get B to help fabricate it, while at the same time Betty never knew ANYTHING about anything, …never knew V was mentioning Betty to Stack or anything related Betty and her Weiner related conversations. Ok.does that even make sense? I sense an inernal contradiction in those assertions….
… Betty at the very least knew Veronica was talking with Stack and wanted to cook something up for him related to Betty and her Twitter conversations with and about Weiner.
I would want to see Betty and Veronicas specific conversations on the subject. I do not trust Tommyx to catch ambiguity….
my impression so far is that Veronica could be more ashamed of getting caught telling the truth…
SarahW (af7312) — 6/8/2011 @ 6:15 amScraps of Juans Twitter still work, but his account has been scrubbed. (And its clear that all had assistance with the scrubbing.) That’s because he likely goes to the same high school as these girls.
If not they may know each other through high-schooly type things or mutual friends.
SarahW (af7312) — 6/8/2011 @ 6:19 amre: “John Reid”, may be meaningless – or some sign of egomania – but it’s often cited as “The Lone Ranger’s” real name. Hi Ho Silver!
Jay S. (79f341) — 6/8/2011 @ 7:09 amTrue, if a person has a predisposition to something it’s easy to be played.
Good point. “I want to be famous errr…. “anonymous”, I mean. Hmmmmm.
Jay S. (79f341) — 6/8/2011 @ 7:34 amJust too good not to mention, in case it hasn’t been noted already:
Jay S. (79f341) — 6/8/2011 @ 7:38 amThe Atlantic –
Weinergate Girl Elected ‘Most Likely to Be Involved in Tabloid Scandal’
Where’s Archie?
DohBiden (15aa57) — 6/8/2011 @ 7:40 amI love how when a left makes cuts to budgets we need to hold our noses and sacrifice.
DohBiden (15aa57) — 6/8/2011 @ 9:04 am#
Maybee, I am SO glad you save that. Who sicced him on the girls and Gennette. I really want to know.
Yeah, this:
Who is the friend? | RT @tommyxtopher @GennetteC If you want to share, please DM me.Either way, I have message for u from a friend. #tcot
29 May via web
since deleted. Which is why I had to copy a RT
Comment by MayBee — 6/7/2011 @ 11:05 pm
SarahW (af7312) — 6/8/2011 @ 11:29 am