CNN we'd be stunned and it would gather a lot of attention of course, but not surprised if some fly by night lefty operation person attended briefings and had this kind of background turn up.
Yes, it's news, but it did not warrant the over-the-top hysteria. And it most certainly did not warrant the baseless allegations like "plant" "ringer" "WH gave him secret memos" (and even more outlandish) parts of the story.
Sorry, but the endless efforts to say "if this were a dem" simply are not right.
I think it's 100% true that if some fly-by-night lefty website had gotten a reporter in the Clinton WH and that reporter was found to have a very unsavory past there would be literally hundreds of messages on FR crowing about it and digging into every nook and cranny of that person's life.
I agree that the plant stories are very far-fetched. I think a more important question is whether or not he was fully checked out by the SS. He doesn't appear to have had a hard pass, but he did attend press briefings on a regular basis and had close access to the President.