Yup. This entire mess could have been instigated/planted by the GOPe to knock both Cruz and Trump out of the race. Any truth to the reports that Rubio was shopping this story around for weeks prior to the NE running with it?
Could be. I’m seeing that all over this site. I wouldn’t put anything past any member of the GOPe.
I personally saw various tweets at #TheThing for the dates of March 10-14. Most of them ..have been scrubbed as of yesterday. But everyone (Rubio supporters et al) were anticipating TheThing for it to be released before SuperTuesday. RickWilson even had a tweet out to msm media and others to just have an intern upload the video to youtube and the “discover it” those were his words.
The plan was to knock Cruz down a couple of notches so Rubio could claim the #2 spot in the race and go head to head against Trump. Rubio lost SuperTuesday and the Never Trump and Rubio folks began covering their tracks.
I imagine NE got the story like everyone else and decided to do due diligence on it before running with it, hence the delay. As far as I am concerned the Trump campaign had nothing to do with it. As for Roger Stone..he says that in the period leading up to the story being broken he was approached by various media asking questions about what he knew. His quote is in the article and says something along the lines of ...if true it would hurt Cruz among his evangelical voters. Pretty benign comment.
Trump denies involvement. NE Denies Trump involvement so Cruz is blowing smoke here. Are the allegations true? That I can not answer.