Joshua Claybourn is reporting that four staffers from Senators Rick Santorum and Mel Martinez's offices believe a "renegade" staffer from Sen. Harry Reid's office was the author of the memo.
Originally, Claybourn didn't give the name of the staffer accused or the staffers making the accusations, which prompted Friday night vampire (kidding, folks...this was all going on in the middle of the night) Michelle Malkin to initially question the validity of the source.
Claybourn has been all over this story, gathering sources on Capitol Hill and at ABC headquarters throughout the week. However, I think I would have asked for a little more information that was given.
We were only given the name of the accused, and a little bit of his background. In a quite interesting fact, he used to work for ABC News. That could possibly explain how they got the memo. However, that bit can't stand on it's own; more evidence is needed in order to prove the staffer, Nathan Ackerman, is the culprit.
That doesn't mean the memo wasn't a hoax if Ackerman wasn't the culprit, and this was bad information given to Claybourn. But I would think an accusation of this magnitude being levelled on Capitol Hill is considered a serious charge, thus you'd have a little more than a hunch that Ackerman was behind it. And to be honest, I don't think the names of the staffers are needed more than the evidence showing Ackerman wrote it.
Powerline's Hindrocket and Trunk have responded, and Hindrocket brings up a good point; the New York Times reported they had seen Democratic staffers with the memo first claiming it was being distributed by Republicans. Why hasn't the New York Times stepped up and revealed which Democratic staffers they saw on the Hill with the memo? I asked that question too, and I think the answer will go a long way in finding out who was actually behind it.
In fact, both roads could lead right to Ackerman. You never know. But I will make this point; the Kinkos fax number that led the media to Bill Burkett was a very fortunate turn of events, and I'd guess it usually isn't that easy. It's going to be a lot harder to find who was truly behind this one, and there's going to be a lot more "he said, she said" information and sources as the days go by. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the only way we'll find out who did it is by someone ratting him or her out.
UPDATE: There's been some people commenting at ITA and trackbacking at Malkin's site that thinks this may be a smokescreen to hide a Republican who was truly behind this.
I don't think that's possible just yet. As Hindrocket and I have said, the primary piece of evidence came from the New York Times. I don't think any journalist has reported seeing this memo on Republican staffers, and right now we can only go on the information that's given to us.
I think people are jumping the gun in pointing fingers at either side. Let's gather the information first.
As for the ones attacking Claybourn for using unnamed sources, that's not how this started. Claybourn has the names (or at least I give him the benefit of the doubt that he has them) of the staffers, and Malkin is correct that he should burn them if they tried to screw him. ABC and the Washington Post had none in relation to where this memo came from, yet automatically implied it came from the Republicans. That's a big difference between the two.
UPDATE: LaShawn Barber's doing a memo roundup today. Check it out.
UPDATE: Claybourn contacted the NYT's David Kilpatrick for the names of the staffers who were seen distributing the memo. Kilpatrick refused due to a matter of policy.
Whatever. He could have named who they were if he wanted. I didn't expect much participation out of him anyway.
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