The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Imani Gandy, #StopRush and Neal Rauhauser: Confirmation and Credibility

Posted on | June 23, 2012 | 10 Comments

FROM AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
The Brett Kimberlin story — necessarily involving the activities of Kimberlin’s associate Neal Rauhauser — keeps moving forward every day. This brings us now to a follow-up on two recent stories:

Neal Rauhauser turns up in those stories as a trusted associate of “Stop Rush” leader Matt Edelstein (aka “Shoq”), who assigned Rauhauser to investigate “Randy Hahn,” a Texan suspected of being an infiltrator of their anti-Limbaugh boycott group.

Those stories were based on interecepted e-mails and recorded phone conversations published by Brooks Bayne at The Trenches.

How do we know that the story was legit? The proof is in the statement issued this week to The Trenches by attorney Imani Gandy.

Gandy was eager to disavow having been closely involved with the “Stop Rush” leadership, and similarly eager to deny having anything to do with the recorded phone call. Why this eagerness? Because if Shoq was in Florida when he recorded that call, the recording would be illegal under Florida law and, as Gandy is a lawyer, it would be a clear-cut ethics violation for her to be complicit in such a crime.

Yet in the process of making those denials, Gandy ended up confirming the authenticity of both the recording and the e-mails published by The Trenches — and this is important why?

Because (a) it confirms that my reporting is accurate, (b) this has the collateral effect of confirming Rauhauser’s involvement with the “Stop Rush” boycotters, and (c) Shoq’s defenders cannot deflect blame by discrediting “Randy Hahn.” Nobody involved in the story trusts “Randy,” and discrediting him does nothing to detract from the legitimate news value of the story. It was the attempt to discover and expose this infiltrator in their midst which revealed key facts about the anti-Limbaugh conspiracy — including the roles played by Edelstein, Rauhauser and MSNBC host Krystal Ball — and the actual identity (or moral character) of “Randy Hahn” is irrelevant to those facts.

This illustrates something basic about journalism that readers need to keep in mind: Facts are facts, and the story is the story, independent of who is telling the story or how the facts are obtained. I don’t have to like my sources — or even trust my sources — in order to obtain facts from them, and you don’t have to like me or agree with my politics in order to accept the credibility of my reporting.

If the stories I report turn out to be false, OK. But if the facts check out and the stories withstand close scrutiny, then whatever credibility is thereby obtained must be extended to the next story.

Only once during the course of this 37-day story have I chased any wild geese: On June 13, I linked and quoted an e-mail sent to Brooks Bayne claiming to identify the perpetrator of the “SWATting” calls. Patterico immediately disputed that claim, and maintains his own clear suspicion that Ron Brynaert was responsible.

Here’s the thing: I don’t claim to have any idea who SWATted Patterico or Mike Stack or Erick Erickson. I’m not a cop, a lawyer or a detective. All I can do is report what’s out there — including assertions by people who may or may not know what they’re talking about — and leave it to the cops and lawyers to do their jobs.

So it doesn’t matter whether I share anyone’s suspicions about the identity or motives of the SWATter. If Britney Spears sent me an e-mail and blamed it on Kevin Federline, I’d report the fact of the claim without pretending to know whether the claim was indeed factual.

That’s something that people need to be clear about, because there’s a lot more of this story left to report, and readers have to exercise judgment just the same as reporters have to exercise judgment.

– Robert Stacy McCain, Whereabouts Unknown

Category: The Kimberlin Files

Comments

10 Responses to “Imani Gandy, #StopRush and Neal Rauhauser: Confirmation and Credibility”

  1. Dianna Deeley
    June 23rd, 2012 @ 6:15 pm

    It’s a curious story, this “StopRush” hysteria. It seems that when people are trying to deceive and create an impression that they’re more important than they are, they descend into recriminations and raging paranoia at speed. 

  2. Bob Belvedere
    June 23rd, 2012 @ 6:26 pm

    Well put, but I still prefer to call you a reporter because the term ‘journalist’ always reminds me of the self-important Leftist blowhards who are out to change the world.

  3. Adjoran
    June 23rd, 2012 @ 6:55 pm

    There is more significance to this connection with #stopRush than you mention.  We also know it was an AstroTurf campaign with connections to Media Matters, which in turn gets White House briefings and coordinates with them.

    If someone like Rauhauser is trusted enough by these people to be tasked with finding the infiltrator of their group, is it any wonder the foundations have supported sketchy “non-profit” orgs like Velvet Revolution and JTMP?  Certainly MMFA is hooked in with Soros and many of the leftist donors.

    Sure, we don’t want to go all Trilateralist on it, no conspiracy has been established.  But coincidences do seem to pile up with surprising frequency among this crowd, don’t they?

  4. Dianna Deeley
    June 23rd, 2012 @ 7:00 pm

     …by writing about their feeelings in a journal.

    Wait, did I use enough “e’s”?

  5. Dianna Deeley
    June 23rd, 2012 @ 7:02 pm

     That may simply be due to personnel and ideology, you know. It’s funny how fast people with similar outlooks on the world run into each other.

    Or it could be like the Bay Area – there are only 5,000 people, and you keep running into them.

  6. MrPaulRevere
    June 23rd, 2012 @ 8:22 pm

    Apropos of nothing, whomever was posting on the ‘Not Brett Kimberlin’ twitter feed last night claimed to have had a friendly/supportive conversation with Andrew Breitbart on the night he passed. Kinda creepy and bizarre if you ask me. Now Andrew was engaging with Neal Rauhauser on Feb. 29. Hmmm…: “@ali it affected me too. I talked to him the last night. Last words he said to me was, you’re too good”

  7. robertstacymccain
    June 23rd, 2012 @ 8:33 pm

    We can’t dismiss the possibility that the raging paranoia was a pre-existing condition — which would qualify for mandatory full coverage under ObamaCare, I hasten to add.

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  10. Two Options For @Shoq : Neither One Great For Him
    June 23rd, 2012 @ 11:02 pm

    […] The Other McCain points out something significant about the #StopRush / @Shoq illegal recording story that I’ve reported on previously : How do we know that the story was legit? The proof is in the statement issued this week to The Trenches by attorney Imani Gandy. Gandy was eager to disavow having been closely involved with the “Stop Rush” leadership, and similarly eager to deny having anything to do with the recorded phone call. Why this eagerness? Because if Shoq was in Florida when he recorded that call, the recording would be illegal under Florida law and, as Gandy is a lawyer, it would be a clear-cut ethics violation for her to be complicit in such a crime. Yet in the process of making those denials, Gandy ended up confirming the authenticity of both the recording and the e-mails published by The Trenches. […]