Early this afternoon a woman inside Hillary Clinton‘s campaign headquarters in Rochester, New Hampshire called CNN’s Washington, DC bureau. CNN emailed TVNewser with the details of a behind-the-scenes story that unfolded over the next several hours.
The woman, described as being “very upset” spoke with a CNN staffer, and then put the hostage-taker Leeland Eisenberg on the phone.
Eisenberg told the CNN employee that he had mental problems and couldn’t get anyone to help him. He eventually hung up the telephone. At that point, CNN notified law enforcement about the call.
Throughout the afternoon, the hostage and Eisenberg called back to CNN several times, talking with additional CNN staffers. All the while, CNN was consulting with its own security, and chose not to report any of this on the air. The concern was that the campaign office might have a TV tuned to CNN, which could have compromised the safety of the hostages.
It wasn’t until the situation was over, during the 6pmET hour of The Situation Room, that Wolf Blitzer described what had been going on inside CNN while the drama unfolded in New Hampshire.