Hillary Clinton attack dog David Brock is offering to pay tipsters for dirt on Donald Trump.
Brock’s group, Correct the Record, recently added a section on its website called “Trump Leaks” which allows tipsters to provide damning material about Trump.
A write-up of the project reads:
In making a choice for president, voters must also consider how various candidates present themselves to the public and to the world. There are few things more important in that regard than access to video or audio in the form of prior television or radio interviews or more candid video from events a candidate may have attended.
The site notes that some footage of Trump saying allegedly inflammatory things in the past has already been made public. But Brock, a former journalist who once dug up dirt on the Clintons before becoming an ally, wants more. (RELATED: Why No Press Interest In The Troubling Conduct Of Hillary’s Top Attack Dog?)
“Given Trump’s long career as a celebrity and provocateur, there’s certainly more where that came from,” reads the site, which has a submission form for potential tipsters.
“TrumpLeaks is an effort to uncover unreported video or audio of Donald Trump so voters can have access to the Donald Trump who existed before running for president and before his recent affinity for teleprompters,” it continues.
“TrumpLeaks can provide some compensation to those who have usable, undoctored video or audio that has been legally obtained or is legally accessible.”
Brock provided more detail about the project in an interview with NBC News.
“We’re chasing everything,” he told the network. “That could be internal documents about Trump’s business empire, his tax returns or perhaps something more personal.”
Brock recently met with one source who claimed to have video footage showing Trump verbally attacking singer Barry Manilow in 1994. The source sought payment from The Huffington Post, but the liberal outlet refused to fork over any money.
According to NBC, Brock met with that source. He was not able to use the footage but the meeting sparked an idea.
“We’re going to extraordinary lengths because this is an extraordinary situation,” Brock told NBC.
The idea of paying bounties for political dirt poses a conflict for Brock since another group he founded called Media Matters attempts to hold news outlets covering Democrats to high journalistic standards. “Trump Leaks” appears to violate the basic tenets of journalistic ethics.
But Brock shrugs at the inconsistency.
“I understand the prohibition on press paying for stories, but we’re not the press,” he told NBC News.
While super PACs are generally prohibited from coordinating directly with political campaigns, Correct the Record is able to do so by exploiting a loophole in federal election law that allows for coordination on the Internet.
The Clinton campaign has not commented on Brock’s latest stunt. Clintonworld rarely interacts publicly with Brock, preferring to let him help the Clintons behind the scenes. Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta did publicly rebuke Brock earlier this year after the hatchet man began publicly calling for Clinton’s primary challenger, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, to release his medical records. (RELATED: Clinton Campaign Issues Stand-Down Orders To Top Surrogate)
“Chill out,” Podesta wrote on Twitter.