Woman Who Delayed Response to Free Beacon While George Stephanopoulos Scrambled to Plant His Story at Politco Used To Work As Press Contact For... HILLARY CLINTON

And George Stephanopoulos' extensive, pervasive, and profound connections to the Clinton campaign continue to multiply.

Before getting to that, let's revisit how the Free Beacon's scoop was attributed by the mainstream media to Politico.

It was actually the Free Beacon's Andrew Stiles who discovered Stephanopoulos' donations to the Fund for Clinton Financial Health. He called George Stephanopoulos about it, to get comment, per regular journalistic decorum, and I guess he actually was put in touch with a PR person at ABC.

What Team Stephanopoulos did was this: While Stiles was waiting for comment -- affording them the chance to comment -- Team Stephanopoloulos called Politico and "disclosed" the donations to them, making it seem as if Stephanopoulos was doing so voluntarily and on his own conscience.

The media then edited out the Free Beacon from the story -- to deny them credit, to puff up the friendly leftist "mainstream" media generally, and to falsely imply Stephanopoulos was self-disclosing, rather than being forced to after Andrew Stiles discovered his grubby secret.

Guy Benson talks about that in a funny video from the Free Beacon.

Now, about that PR aide who put off Stiles while Stephanopoulos was secretly arranging to deliver the story, with his spin, to Politico.

Her name is Heather Riley.

You'll never guess who she used to work for.

The ABC News spokesperson who rebuffed the Free Beacon's request for comment on George Stephanopoulos's undisclosed donations to the Clinton Foundation also worked in the Clinton administration.

Heather Riley, spokeswoman for ABC News programs Good Morning America and This Week, worked in the White House press office from 1997 to 2000, according to her LinkedIn profile, and is a member of the Facebook group "(Bill) Clinton Administration Alumni." White House records show that Riley's duties included serving as a press contact for then-First Lady Hillary Clinton.

Prior to joining ABC News, Riley worked at MSNBC, CNN, and as a senior director of brand communications for Rodale, Inc., the publishing company best known for wellness magazines such as Men’s Health. Rodale also published former Vice President Al Gore’s best-selling global warming book, An Inconvenient Truth.

Rodale, Inc., and its charitable foundation have donated between $20,000 and $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation, records show. The Rodale family contributed at least $5,000 to Hillary Clinton’s campaigns between 2005 and 2008.

...

Riley did not return a request for comment from the Free Beacon but check Dylan Byers’ blog in a few minutes to see if she responds.

There's actually more, but I don't want to quote it all. Riley is sort of ABC's go-to gal for defending against accusations of the network showing favoritism towards, get this, Hillary Clinton.

One thing, though: Double standards against Geraldo Rivera are the only double standards that are objectively just.

Geraldo Rivera sees a double standard at work in ABC News' decision to stand by George Stephanopoulos after the network's chief anchor apologized for failing to publicly disclose $75,000 in donations to the Clinton Foundation over the last three years. In a Facebook post Friday morning, Rivera claimed he was fired by ABC News in 1985 for making a $200 political donation and wondered why Stephanopoulos isn't getting the same treatment.

"In 1985, after fifteen great years, I was fired by ABC News," Rivera wrote. "The official reason for my firing was a non-disclosed $200 donation to a family friend running in a non-partisan mayoral campaign in New Bedford Massachusetts."

He went on to say that the "real reason" he was fired was a dispute with network head Roone Arldege over a spiked 20/20 story involving Marilyn Monroe and the Kennedys.

"The point is ABC treated my undisclosed $200 donation harshly because the network wanted me out for that unrelated reason," Rivera continued. "Now ABC is bending over backward to minimize and forgive George Stephanopoulos’ $75,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation because he is central to the network's recent success."

...

He then concluded with this "moral" regarding his current colleagues: "If Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly, Chris Wallace or Bill O'Reilly made a similar donation to say an educational foundation run by Jeb Bush liberal wolves would be howling in front of Fox News."

Meanwhile, Judy Woodruff has admitted a small $250 donation to the Fund to Keep Clintons Wealth and Well-Staffed, and this site lists a bunch of media "members" of the foundation -- a "membership" costing $20,000, of which all but $1000 is tax deductible -- including Tom Friedman and Fox anchor Greta Van Sustern.

And the Daily Caller points out that five late-night chat hosts -- Charlie Rose, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Seth Myers, and Jimmy Kimmel -- have all moderated Clinton events, but never disclose this fact to their audience when interviewing Clinton or her potential rivals.

More:

"They're Cut From the Same Cloth: So says a source about Stephanopolous and Riley, in this article by the Daily Mail.

The ABC News spokeswoman who is helped anchorman George Stephanopoulos navigate the media fallout from his Clinton Foundation contribution scandal is herself an alumna of the Bill Clinton White House, Daily Mail Online can reveal.

...

Her first job... was in the West Wing press office during Clinton's second term.

'George and Heather are a pro-Clinton team,' according to a political operative who helped manage media relations for HIllary Clinton's failed 2008 presidential campaign. 'They're cut from the same cloth.'

The source spoke on condition of anonymity.

Riley told Daily Mail Online that any suggestion of a political conspiracy at ABC News 'is absolutely false.'

'I worked at the White House 15 years ago,' she said in a phone interview.

...

She also said she has had no contact with anyone in the Clinton orbit since she learned about Stephanopoulos' undisclosed charitable donations.

'No,' said Riley. 'I have not spoken with the foundation or the Clintons about this.'

The former Hillary Clinton media flack said Friday, though, that 'it's no secret in big media circles that the two share a love for the Clintons and an appreciation for how working for them launched their careers.'

Correction: I said Jimmy Fallon was one of the five late-night talk show hosts who have hosted Clinton events.

It was actually Jimmy Kimmel. Apologies for the error.

Woman Who Delayed Response to Free Beacon While George Stephanopoulos Scrambled to Plant His Story at Politco Used To Work As Press Contact For... HILLARY CLINTON&bodytext=And George Stephanopoulos' extensive, pervasive, and profound connections to the Clinton campaign continue to multiply. Before getting to that, let's revisit how the Free Beacon's scoop was attributed by the mainstream media to Politico. It was actually the Free Beacon's...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 04:00 PM

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