Hoo boy.
We waited on reporting this story when the news broke on Friday morning about these alleged affairs. The Daily Mail is a British tabloid after all, but it's also a tabloid that's done more real journalistic work in the last 3 years than most American outlets have done in two decades.
Since the Haley campaign has responded to the publication by banning the outlet from campaign events, let's talk about the story. The background: Two men signed affidavits going all the way back to 2008 claiming they had affairs with Haley before her time as governor of South Carolina. At the time, Haley denied the claims, saying she had been "100% faithful" to her husband. The public didn't see the affidavits themselves at that time.
The Daily Mail published both on Friday, starting with this one from Columbia lobbyist Larry Marchant:
The Daily Mail says Marchant and his wife divorced in 2013, "with his wife citing the alleged Haley affair in court papers."
...one South Carolina GOP insider told DailyMail.com they knew about Haley's alleged affair with Marchant at the time.
'She was in [Marchant's] office all the time, she'd be there at 11 or midnight, the two of them would be drinking,' the former associate of Haley said.
The second man, Will Folks, signed an affidavit in 2010 claiming an affair with Haley while he was working as her communications consultant from 2007 to 2008, citing "an inappropriate physical relationship that included numerous instances of inappropriate sexual contact."
The Daily Mail says it has a total of three sources that back up the affidavits.
The GOP insider said he had also seen Haley get into the back of her off-white Cadillac SUV with her other alleged beau, Folks.
'I saw them sitting in it a few times with the windows steamed up,' he said.
A second prominent South Carolina Republican said he regularly saw the distinctive Cadillac outside Folks's duplex in Columbia, apparently staying overnight.
'I became curious when I saw an SUV parked outside early in the morning and late at night. It had legislative tags, it wasn't hard to figure out whose it was,' he said.
He added that Haley was not secretive with her alleged romancing.
A third witness, one of Haley's former campaign staffers, told DailyMail.com he had no doubt about the nature of her relationship with Folks and Marchant.
'When she was having the affairs, she and her husband were having a lot of problems and were on the verge of divorce,' the ex-staffer said.
'There's no question she and Will were having an affair.
Now, is this true?
I don't know, but pretending the allegations aren't out there isn't the way to deal with this. I'm not going to abstain from reporting simply because this is salacious. At the same time, I don't want to slander Haley's name by adding to claims that will deeply hurt her family, so I'll tread carefully.
What's interesting to me is the way the Haley campaign responded. They didn't come out and say this is a lie or laugh it off. Instead, they banned a member of the free press from covering their events.
Dailymail.com was asked to leave Nikki Haley's meet-and-greet with voters in New Hampshire on Friday morning and was told it is banned from covering her future campaign events.
The ban came after DailyMail.com published a story Friday morning exclusively reporting that Haley falsely denied cheating on her husband when she was accused of engaging in two extramarital affairs during her 2010 South Carolina gubernatorial campaign.
The Haley campaign didn't respond to requests for comment on the story even though DailyMail.com gave them 24 hours to do so.
For all her criticism of Donald Trump, Trump dealt with the media that was actively trying to destroy him. He may have called CNN fake news, but he largely let them do their thing. When he did ban one of the most vainglorious men alive, CNN's Jim Acosta, it was a multi-week story where the media preached to us about Trump's supposed dictatorial tendencies.
So my real question (aside from the allegations themselves) is this: If Haley is billing herself as the alternative to Trump, why is she acting the way people say Trump acts?
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