A Friday Big League Politics report claims Tim Miller, a Republican operative prominent in the “Never Trump” movement, helped pitch the Washington Post story in which the first allegations of sexual misconduct nearly 40 years ago were made against Alabama GOP senatorial nominee Roy Moore.
The report contains screenshots of what are alleged to be text messages between Miller and conservative publisher Charles C. Johnson of GotNews.com. The texts show Miller insulting Judge Moore’s fitness for office and bragging about how “Beth” is “good to work with.” He is implied to be referring to Beth Reinhard, one of the two authors of the original Washington Post story.
Reinhard, before joining the Washington Post, worked at the Wall Street Journal during the 2016 GOP presidential primaries as the embedded reporter covering the Bush campaign. She, therefore, likely had regular interaction with Miller since at least 2015.
Miller, who served as Jeb Bush’s communications director in the 2016 GOP presidential primaries, categorically denies any involvement in the Washington Post story. He told Breitbart News:
I had no involvement in pitching the Washington Post story or any others where women spoke out about Judge Moore. Moore allies have tried to pitch this to 10+ outlets, conservative and mainstream, who have all rejected the story after examining the facts because there is no truth to it.
Big League Politics Editor-in-Chief Patrick Howley makes his case as follows:
These text messages reveal a few things: the Republican Establishment’s relationship with the Post’s anti-Moore coverage, the cunning of writer Charles Johnson in trapping Miller, and former Bush staffer Miller’s cluelessness about how to conduct himself in the world of political subterfuge. Miller denied to BLP that he was involved in the Washington Post story “or any others where women spoke out about Judge Moore,” but the text messages below leave no doubt as to his invovlement [sic][.]
During and after the 2016 primaries, Miller was one of the leading voices against eventual GOP nominee Donald Trump. He played a role in the decidedly unsuccessful attempt by Never Trumpers to disregard the will of Republican voters and deny Trump the nomination through the use of convention rules.
Miller remains an outspoken critic of Trump and consistently opposes Republicans of the pro-Trump or populist-nationalist bent. He has frequently appeared on cable news programs as an anti-trump Republican voice and now is one of far-left Salon.com’s 25 favorite “conservatives.”
Miller has aggressively campaigned for Judge Moore’s liberal Democratic opponent Doug Jones. on Twitter, announcing last month that he had donated money to Jones:
