After seeming to contradict itself repeatedly, Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel’s campaign gave what appears to be its definitive story on how it learned about a supportive blogger who allegedly broke into the nursing home where Sen. Thad Cochran’s wife lives and photographed her.
The below story was given to the Clarion-Ledger late Saturday, explaining what McDaniel and campaign manager Melanie Sojourner knew about the break-in and when. Earlier reports had suggested that the McDaniel campaign knew details of the break-in before they became public.
The statement is via McDaniel campaign spokesman Noel Fritsch:
Melanie noticed the political blog post at around 1:00 AM CDT Saturday and was alarmed that it was likely Ms. Cochran who had been photographed based on the preponderance of evidence, including the name of the rest home and the comments on the blog.
At around 7:30 AM CDT, Chris was notified only briefly of the incident and the need to personally reach out to Sen. Cochran.
Shortly thereafter, Melanie called Cochran campaign manager Kirk Sims to express in strongest terms the campaigns’ condemnation of the alleged crime. Alex Jaffe interviewed Chris at around 9:30 AM CDT during an event, at which time Chris had still not been fully briefed. Chris was not fully briefed until he left event around 10:30 AM CDT, at which point the campaign issued a statement at 10:49 AM CDT.