ABC’s Brian Ross was a guest of Howard Kurtz’ today on Reliable Sources. Ross talked about how the ABC News investigative unit was able to piece together the details that led to John Edwards admitting his affair with Rielle Hunter to ABC’s Bob Woodruff on Friday.
KURTZ: But would you have been uncomfortable at all backing into a story about an alleged affair, which you could not prove without Edwards admitting that he was in fact carrying on an affair, or at least did so in 2006, just to talk about the money? In other words, it’s kind of an indirect route into the story about the sexual affair.
ROSS: Well, we had set the standard at ABC we were not going to report the affair based on anonymous sources. We wanted to have somebody on the record, ideally either Edwards or the woman, and we thought we were getting close to that.
AdvertisementKURTZ: So if no one had gone on the record, even though you had this money trail, as you describe it, this odd situation where a former campaign aide to John Edwards’ presidential effort is somehow living in a $3 million Santa Barbara home, you would not have gone with that without some confirming source on the record?
ROSS: Well, I think we would have gone with the fact the questions raise about the money trail, and I think that would have led to this being cracked.