Hi, fmr political comms guy here. In my previous life, I pitched my share of oppo so let me tell you about why this story doesn’t pass the smell test. 1/15 https://twitter.com/senyorreporter/status/1319803398456107008

When you have a good, substantial hit on an opponent (criminal record, bad video, etc.), you work your tail off to get it landed at a big reputable outlet. You want as many eye balls as possible on it. To do that, the info has to be air tight. We’re talking ... 2/15

court documents, audio files, transcripts, and yes, even witnesses or sources who can vouch for the validity of the material. This story has none of those things. It’s important to point this out b/c you need to look at who pitched it, who published it, and when. 3/15

The only thing driving this story is a right-wing website saying it’s Mark Kelly with no evidence, back-up or even a photo caption. 4/15

From what we know so far, a former classmate of Kelly’s says he was contacted by an operative for Mitch McConnell’s Super PAC. He denied it was Kelly & has gone on the record. This is another important point, b/c you leave the nasty & thin hits to outside groups ... 5/15

because if this came to your attention, you know these outside groups (who usually have more time & sometimes more money) will come across it at some point. While McSally is known for failing every fact check & lobbing ridiculous insults at opponents ... 5/15

(i.e. accusing Sinema of treason last cycle) she’s not going to touch this with a 10-foot-pole. Outside groups like McConnell’s don’t care. They exist solely to attack opponents and drive the discourse into the mud to turn off voters from politics. 6/15

So now that we know about the bad faith actor pitching a garbage story like this let’s look at the site that published it. Not exactly a Pulitzer Prize winner. Clearly biased outlets are the last place to pitch factually challenged hits to. It says something that ... 7/15

this didn’t run in a major conservative outlet like the National Review or even Breibart. Hell, this didn’t even run in the Free Beacon, which dem campaigns openly laugh at when that’s the only place Rs can get a story landed. This site is below the Free Beacon. 8/15

You also need to know when this story landed. It was a Friday evening, two wks after early voting started in AZ. If you have a real, factual hit that will damage your opponent and stand up to scrutiny, you work hard to get this landed right when those ballots hit ... 9/15

mailboxes — or at least before morning editorial meetings during the wk to maximize coverage. If your supposedly big, major hit shows up on a “tinfoil conspiracy” site during the Friday news dump, well your story is garbage & everyone involved knows it. ... 10/15

Everyone but the AZ Republic apparently, who wrote a story about a story on a tinfoil conspiracy site with unverified accusations. And regardless of what the Republic’s story says, the fact that this unverified and disgusting accusation made it into ... 11/15

the largest paper in the state (and tweeted by their political reporters & one of their right-wing columnists) is exactly what McConnell & a couple of steaming piles of local republican strategists wanted. The truth doesn’t matter to them. They now have an article ... 12/15

from AZ’s largest paper to cite in the really nasty, desperate FB ads, mailers & commercials that will be shoved in voters’ faces over these final days. I’m not here to give out journalism lectures. It’s their paper, it’s their reputations, & they can do ... 13/15

whatever they want. All I can say is that the Republic played right into the disingenuous plan of a national Republican group that doesn’t give two shits about AZ or its residents. So to recap, this disgusting accusation is being made without facts, without good faith ... 14/15

& without any interest in actually making our state or country a better place. I genuinely have sympathy for the men pushing a smear like this simply for a paycheck or to curry favor in DC. Let’s be better than this. 15/15