Topic: WorldNetDaily
Donald Trump has been running his presidential campaign as if it was being directed by the conspiracy-mongers and Clinton-haters at WorldNetDaily -- even when WND wasn't willing to follow Trump into certain places, such as going birther on Ted Cruz.
And Trump's latest moves seem to have come from the WND playbook -- and possibly a closer relationship.
WND's Bob Unruh dutifully promoted Trump's latest ad, which "features the voice of Juanita Broaddrick charging Clinton bit her lip and raped her in 1978." Unruh also touts how "Broaddrick described in a WND exclusive sit-down interview in her Arkansas home how the alleged 1978 sexual assault has deeply and permanently scarred her life." Unruh added that the interview was conducted by Candice Jackson, "previously authored the acclaimed book 'Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine.'" That book was published by World Ahead Publishing, which WND purchased in 2008 after earlier forming a "strategic alliance" with it. (World Ahead is now the name of WND Books' self-publishing division.)
It's as if Trump worked with WND behind the scenes to promote Broaddrick. This wouldn't be the first time the two have partnered; in 2011, WND editor Joseph Farah and reporter Jerome Corsi coached Trump on his birther outbursts -- something WND hid from its readers -- and Farah gushed that "I am eternally grateful to him for standing up boldly and demanding to see Barack Obama's birth certificate," adding that Trump is "doing God's work here."
So grateful was Farah, apparently, that WND named Trump its "Man of the Year" for 2015.
But the Trump-WND link apperars to go even deeper, particularly with the stable of alleged Clinton sexual assault victims WND has cultivated. Media Matters has highlighted a February clip by longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone stated that "Trump is himself a contributor" to a fund to pay off Kathleen Willey's mortgage.
We've documented how WND promoted the Willey mortgage payoff in 2013, and how Willey supporters rented (or got gratis) the WND mailing list to plug the payoff scheme again in February -- around the time Stone made his statement about Trump giving money to Willey. It still isn't working, by the way; as of this writing, the campaign has raised a paltry $7,119 of the $100,000 interim goal and the $386,000 final goal. WND also published Willey's book trying to cash in on claiming to be a victim of the Clintons.
WND is a buddy of Stone as well, heavily promoting his new, sleazy anti-Clinton book (which, needless to say, is available in the WND online store) while hiding his strange sex life and the bizarre and creepy sexual fantasies his co-author, Robert Morrow, has about Hillary Clinton. WND has also promoted Stone's RAPE PAC (yes, Stone is that kind of sleaze), of which Willey is national spokesperson.
The Trump campaign, for its part, issued a statement saying of the allegation, "there's no truth to that." But that Fox News article is unclear on exactly what is being denied; Fox News' John Roberts suggested in a tweet that the campaign was specifically denying that Trump donated to the crowdfunding campaign, which seems obvious given the paltry sum it has raised. That doesn't mean that Trump didn't give Willey money off the crowdfunding books, of course, and it doesn't seem that it has been asked of the Trump campaign.
Curiously, though, WND has not addressed the Stone claim at all on its website, even though it involves some of WND's favorite people and causes. That's not necessarily proof WND had a role in all of this (we'd ask them ourselves, but they've ignored our emails for years and WND, Farah and Jerome Corsi have all blocked us from following them on Twitter), but it sure looks suspicious, and it's not out of the realm of possibility given WND's record of behind-the-scenes maneuvering.
