What I saw inside Trump’s secret arrangement with the National Enquirer

In my final days as a right-wing activist, I inadvertently got a first-hand glimpse of the scheme that Trump is on trial for right now

While I was working my way mentally out of the Republican Party and coming to terms with my views about Trump in the fall of 2015, I received a tip from a source claiming that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz had cheated on his wife, an epic case of evangelical hypocrisy if it could be substantiated. At the time, most of the Trump opposition in the GOP had distributed itself between Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who was then marketing himself as a foreign policy hard-liner, and Cruz, who had painstakingly built alliances with the radical Christian right.

I pursued the story with dogged perseverance, traveling to Texas to meet various sources. I was resolute that if I were to publish something, it needed to be in a right-wing news outlet so that it could not be dismissed as a “left-wing media smear.” To that end, I kept top editors at Breitbart, the Daily Caller, and The Washington Times apprised as I expanded my sourcing to include people in Cruz’s campaign and Lone Star Republican politics. Steve Bannon, who was later named the chief executive officer of Donald Trump’s 2016 operation but at that time was the head of Breitbart, was especially interested in hearing all the details. Impressed with my work on the story, he even offered me a job. (Bannon did not respond to a request for comment.)

Unbeknownst to me, Bannon was in close contact with Trump as he and I were talking. Soon enough, people in Trump’s orbit reached out to me, including his longtime political adviser Roger Stone, who was particularly interested in what I knew. (Stone did not respond to a request for comment.) As word began trickling out about what I was working on, high-level Rubio allies also approached me, likely desperate to get Cruz out of the race so that the Florida senator could inherit his supporters. Some even began publicly referring to the Cruz affair allegations as “the thing” that was going to completely reshape the 2016 Republican nomination contest. (Cruz has repeatedly denied the allegations.)

Every one of the conservative outlets I approached about the story was interested in the scoop but also terrified. Had I written some thinly sourced speculation about Barack Obama’s Chicago days, they’d more than likely have run it instantly. But publishing a sensational allegation against a Republican backed by a massive donor network must have been petrifying. Some editors also expressed reluctance since accusing Cruz of committing adultery could possibly eliminate Trump’s top competitor for the Republican nomination during a time when almost all of the biggest donors were against the future 45th president. I even had some potential sources who told me they had information pertinent to my investigation but that they did not want to help Trump win by telling it to me.

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